Quotes from Alan Watts

To play so as to be relaxed and refreshed for work is not to play, and no work is well and finely done unless it, too, is a form of play.

So the bodhisattva saves all beings, not by preaching sermons to them, but by showing them that they are delivered, they are liberated, by the act of not being able to stop changing.

Omnipotence is not knowing how everything is done; it's just doing it.

Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we're not alone.

Of course, you can't force your mind to be silent. That would be like trying to smooth ripples in water with a flatiron. Water becomes clear and calm only when left alone.

We identify in our experience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.

But we try to pretend, you see, that the external world exists altogether independently of us.

The myths underlying our culture and underlying our common sense have not taught us to feel identical with the universe, but only parts of it, only in it, only confronting it - aliens.

The Art of Being: A state of wholeness in which the mind functions freely and easily, without the sensation of a second mind or ego standing over it with a club.

You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes.

We must be careful that the business we build does not become mere busyness.

But I'll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything.

Courage is the goal of cowards.

It's so important to consider this question: What do I desire?

This-the immediate, everyday, and present experience-is IT, the entire and ultimate point for the existence of a universe.

...mysticism and empiricism go together in opposition to scholasticism...they base themselves on the non-linear world of experience rather than the linear world of letters.

The sense of wrong is simply failure to see where something fits into a pattern, to be confused as to the hierarchical level upon which an event belongs.

And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on.

Faith...is letting go and trusting oneself to the unknown.

Running away from fear is fear; fighting pain is pain; trying to be brave is being scared

Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery -- the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets -- is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and although they are different, they go together.

As muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone, it could be argued that those who sit quietly and do nothing are making one of the best possible contributions to a world in turmoil.

In Zen, poverty is voluntary, and considered not really as poverty so much as simplicity, freedom, unclutteredness.

Don't hurry anything. Don't worry about the future. Don't worry about what progress you're making. Just be entirely content to be aware of what is.