A Chinese philosophical work called The Secret of the Golden Flower says that “when purpose has been used to achieve purposelessness, the thing has b… - Alan Watts

A Chinese philosophical work called The Secret of the Golden Flower says that “when purpose has been used to achieve purposelessness, the thing has been grasped.

Tao and Nirvana are only names for an experience; those who invented them had the experience first and gave it its name afterward, but now people are so busy learning about the names that they forget the experience.

"We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have the sensation that "I myself" is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside and bounded by the physical body — a center which "confronts" an "external" world of people and things, making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange."

A wife complains to her husband, “Do you realize that since we were married two years ago you haven’t once taken me to the movies? It wasn’t that way when you were courting. I think you’re beginning to take me for granted.” When the penitent husband returns from work the following evening he says, “Darling, what about going to the movies after dinner?” And she replies, “You’re only suggesting it because I complained!