Alan Watts’s phrases are an invitation to deeper reflection, in which everything and nothing is a perfect combination to discover the impossible to translate into words, are affirmations capable of undermining our conception of the world, life and the relationships to be taken. us in the fertile abyss of our own being.
Alan Watts (1915–1973) was a British philosopher, writer and speaker known for his interpretation of Eastern philosophy, as well as his interest in spreading it and bringing it closer to the Western world, he was a man of provocative lucidity, who was simply combined – and at the same time magical – with irony and a sense of humor. The objective: to stimulate reflection on existence, generate questions capable of breaking models and deconstructing realities.
- Watts has written more than 25 books and a wealth of articles on topics related to identity.
- The pursuit of happiness.
- Consciousness.
- Zen.
- The nature of reality and love in its broadest and deepest sense.
- Some of his best-known works are The Wisdom of Insecurity (1951).
- The Zen Path (1957) and Tao: The Course of the River (1975).
- Among others.
In this article, we’ll introduce a small selection of Alan Watts’ best phrases that pose a real challenge for those who like to navigate the ocean of existence.
Alan Watts’ phrases are a treasure we can turn to when we want to question ourselves and know the truth, a precious legacy to go further and remove the candles that prevent us from seeing clearly and achieving well-being.
“A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So, you lose touch with reality and live in a world of illusion?.
We can own or slave our thoughts, it is up to us, because while thinking is not bad in itself, it can become dangerous when you cling to it and get lost in vicious circles of beliefs.
To be infallible, perfect, to nurture a unique conception of the world and, therefore, to be truly, firmly convinced that others cannot fail us, and if we fail, we are just some of the most common ways to get away from reality and feed ourselves. Suffering. .
Thought is a very powerful tool that must be mastered, used sparingly and pruned by mobilizing its tricks to confuse us and induce us to self-deception. For Alan Watts, there is no better way to manage thought than to surrender to the no-brainer of the present, to the deep connection with who we are and feel now.
“Words can only reveal a small fragment of human knowledge, because what we can say and think is always immensely inferior to what we feel. “
Is language a social instrument, a tool invented by man, capable of generating realities that facilitate understanding?And make it difficult, as the case may be. Its richness allows us great precision, but it has its limits, sometimes words, spoken or written, are not enough to give an acceptable solution to what we feel, so that others can see.
The problem is to stay in reducing language and assume that we cannot go any further, it would be like being blind to the world of the sensitive, of experience, and is to live half or even much less than that.
“The meaning and purpose of dance is dance. Like music, it develops completely at every moment of your journey. You don’t play a sonata to get to the final chord. And if the meaning of things is simply at the end, do composers write only their last movements?
This is one of Alan Watts’ phrases that can generate tasty fruits if we sow it in our memory. Taking advantage of the path is much more rewarding than achieving any goal. The experience of every moment, the connection with the present is what it gives us. awareness of real existence.
Some people have a bad habit of worrying about the end, enjoying the climax without worrying about the road, this bad habit remains an unfair judgment: with the unacnounchment of the path that led us to the finish line, the effort we made is also overshadowed.
“If my awareness of the future and the past makes me less aware of the present, I have to start wondering if I really live in the real world. “
The present is as recurring in history as it is devalued; when a subject is so repeated and mentioned by personalities with such diverse ideologies, it should not be ignored, on the contrary, in some respects this means that this is one of our outstanding problems.
We live lost in the labyrinth that unies the past and the future without realizing that we have the key that opens the door to the exit: the present. In general, we tell stories full of fear, worry and guilt. We wandered discouraged and exhausted, about what was one day and what was next; However, it is only when we are able to be present that we can live our most real existence.
Detachment means not feeling remorse for the past or fear of the future, is letting life run its course without trying to interfere with its movement and change, without trying to prolong pleasant things or cause the extinction of unpleasant ones. To do so is to walk to the rhythm of life, to be in perfect harmony with your fickle music. Is it called enlightenment?.
To cling to things, situations and people is to build walls that prevent art from flowing with life in exchange for suffering, to feed the ideas of possession, control and power takes us away from our true essence to enter the earthly universe of matter and towards pleasure-dislike duality.
This is certainly one of alan Watts’ phrases in which we can see his knowledge of Eastern philosophy reflected, we must forget this idea that something or someone belongs to us because otherwise we would fall victim to the fear of loss, this will only plunge us into a spiral of suffering.
The art of knowing how to give up is essential to avoid the traps of expectation and desire, and once realized, it will be much easier to connect with a state of fullness and harmony.
“The more permanent it tends to be, the more likely it is that it will run out of life. “
This is another of Alan Watts’ phrases that deserves to be remembered. Impermanence is the law of temporality, which states that nothing remains because everything is constantly changing. Although today seems yesterday, there are some differences. And not only around us, but also within us.
Accepting impermanence, integrating it into our philosophy of life, is the first step in freeing ourselves from the mistakes of desire, ego, ignorance and unbridled passion for sensitive experiences, these two sentences of Alan Watts remind us of it.
“Most human activities have been designed to generate experiences and joys that are adorable just because they change permanently. “
“It makes no sense to say that we should not want security. You have to discover that there is no security, that looking for it is painful and that when you imagine having found it, you don’t like it. The key is to understand that there is no security?
We hate uncertainty and everything that comes with it, like not being in control, the problem is that we don’t know?Or do we ignore? That there’s nothing safe around us, so there’s a lot of hope in everything we believe in. , as soon as we begin to believe in security, we create the possibility of suffering for something, of abandoning ourselves to the network of needs and fears.
A few sentences by Alan Watts from his work The Wisdom of Security makes us think of this subject, for example, one of them says: “If to enjoy a pleasant present you have to have the security of a happy future, we ask for something as impossible as the moon. “For what? Because, as we said before, we lack certainty, which opens the door to uncertainty, so it is inevitable to feel pain, disappoint us and sometimes sail in seas that endure suffering.
Believing that we are protected behind the security shield is nothing more than a mirage, a hallucination that serves in the short term, but that in the end has its consequences, in fact, the more security we seek, the more we will suffer, because nothing is static. . Everything tends to dynamism, movement, change and therefore the likelihood of not staying.
“Each person is a unique manifestation of the whole, for each branch is a particular extension of the tree. “
It is one of Alan Watts’s phrases most related to Buddhist philosophy and one of his fundamental concepts: interdependence. According to Buddhism, each element is born according to another, that is, things exist according to each other because of constantly moving causes and conditions. , interacting with each other, so they would be empty on their own.
From this point of view, the fact that things exist in a certain way and that we can interact with them implies that they lack an intrinsic existence.
It can be a complex concept of understanding at the beginning, because it somehow marks movement and interaction as a fundamental condition of the consciousness of existence, so when we delve into duality, when our mind creates the separation of entities and immerses itself, in personal identity, then suffering becomes possible.
As we see, Alan Watts’ phrases are a precious legacy for thought and awakening of consciousness, they are statements that invite us to expand our visual and mental spectrum to go further. A collection of small wisdom pills to take into account in our path of personal evolution. .