concerns itself with the linguistic, ethical, legal, and ritual conventions which provide the society with its system of communication. Confucianism,… - Alan Watts

An ardent Jehovah's Witness once tried to convince me that if there were a God of love, he would certainly provide mankind with a reliable and infallible textbook for the guidance of conduct. I replied that no considerate God would destroy the human mind by making it so rigid and unadaptable as to depend upon one book, the Bible, for all the answers. For the use of words, and thus of a book, is to point beyond themselves to a world of life and experience that is not mere words or even ideas. Just as money is not real, consumable wealth, books are not life. To idolize scriptures is like eating paper currency.

I have always done things in my own way, which is at once the way that comes naturally to me, that is honest, sincere, genuine, and unforced; but also perverse, although you must remember that this word means per (through) verse (poetry), out-of-the-way and wayward, which is surely towards the way, and that to be queer—to "follow your own weird"—is wholeheartedly to accept your karma, or fate, or destiny, and thus to be odd in the service of God, "whose service," as the Anglican Book of Common Prayer declares, "is perfect freedom."

Si întrucât fericirea
exista doar în corelatie cu nefericirea si placerea în corelatie cu durerea, omul inteligent nu
încearca sa le separe. Aceste relatii sunt inseparabile, mergând pâna acolo încât putem spune ca
fericirea este nefericire iar placerea este – întrucât o implica – durere. Pe masura ce realizeaza
aceste lucruri, omul învata sa abandoneze orice dorinta de a obtine fericire separata de suferinta
sau placere separata de durere.
Evident ca aceste lucruri sunt greu de realizat. Eu pot sa înteleg la nivel verbal si intelectual
ca râvnind dupa placere îmi potolesc setea bând apa sarata – deoarece cu cât obtin mai multa
placere cu atât vreau mai multa (Sa ne amintim de sensul mai vechi al cuvântului „dorin.a”, care
era „lipsa”!).