If happiness always depends on something expected in the future, we are chasing a will-o’-the-wisp that ever eludes our grasp, until the future, and ourselves, vanish into the abyss of death.
ALAN WATTSIf happiness always depends on something expected in the future, we are chasing a will-o’-the-wisp that ever eludes our grasp, until the future, and ourselves, vanish into the abyss of death.
ALAN WATTSOther people teach us who we are. Their attitudes to us are the mirror in which we learn to see ourselves, but the mirror is distorted. We are, perhaps, rather dimly aware of the immense power of our social enviornment.
ALAN WATTSThe source of all light is in the eye.
ALAN WATTSThe mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.
ALAN WATTSReal travel requires a maximum of unscheduled wandering, for there is no other way of discovering surprises and marvels, which, as I see it, is the only good reason for not staying at home.
ALAN WATTSYou are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.
ALAN WATTSThe menu is not the meal.
ALAN WATTSWe do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.
ALAN WATTSIt is hard indeed to notice anything for which the languages available to us have no description.
ALAN WATTSEvery intelligent individual wants to know what makes him tick, and yet is at once fascinated and frustrated by the fact that oneself is the most difficult of all things to know.
ALAN WATTSLife is like music for its own sake. We are living in an eternal now, and when we listen to music we are not listening to the past, we are not listening to the future, we are listening to an expanded present.
ALAN WATTSGenuine love comes from knowledge, not from a sense of duty or guilt.
ALAN WATTSNever pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.
ALAN WATTSNothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment.
ALAN WATTSYou’re under no obligation to be the same person you were 5 minutes ago.
ALAN WATTSIf the universe is meaningless, so is the statement that it is so. If this world is a vicious trap, so is its accuser, and the pot is calling the kettle black.
ALAN WATTS