common error of ordinary religious practice is to mistake the symbol for the reality, to look at the finger pointing the way and then to suck it for … - Alan Watts
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common error of ordinary religious practice is to mistake the symbol for the reality, to look at the finger pointing the way and then to suck it for comfort rather than follow it.
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About
Alan Watts
Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English philosopher, writer, speaker, and expert in comparative religion.
Biography information from
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Portrait adapted from
Wikimedia Commons, The University of Vermont Alumni Magazine vol. 39 no. 01, p. 22. (Public domain / CC0)
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Alternative Names:
Alan Wilson Watts
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Alan W. Watts
Portrait from Wikimedia Commons. Credit: The University of Vermont Alumni Magazine vol. 39 no. 01, p. 22.. Used under Public domain / CC0. Processed and styled by Quotewise.
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There is more in this beauty than the succession of melodious images, and the theme of dissolution does not simply borrow its splendor from the things dissolved. The truth is rather that the images, though beautiful in themselves, come to life in the act of vanishing.
But you cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it. Indeed, you cannot grasp it, just as you cannot walk off with a river in a bucket. If you try to capture running water in a bucket, it is clear that you do not understand it and that you will always be disappointed, for in the bucket the water does not run.
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"There is another story of a Chinese sage who was asked, "How shall we escape the heat?" — meaning, of course, the heat of suffering. He answered, "Go right into the middle of the fire." "But how, then, shall we escape the scorching flame?" "No further pain will trouble you!" We do not need to go as far as China. The same idea comes in The Divine Comedy, where Dante and Virgin find that the way out of Hell lies at its very center."
