"For the world is an ever-elusive and ever-disappointing mirage only from the standpoint of someone standing aside from it — as if it were quite othe… - Alan Watts

"For
the world is an ever-elusive and ever-disappointing mirage only from
the standpoint of someone standing aside from it — as if it were quite
other than himself — and then trying to grasp it.

But a third response is possible. Not withdrawal, not stewardship on
the hypothesis of a future reward, but the fullest collaboration with the
world as a harmonious system of contained conflicts — based on the
realization that the only real "I" is the whole endless process."

English
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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 Wikiquote

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Alan Wilson Watts Alan W. Watts
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Additional quotes by Alan Watts

In Zen Buddhist texts they say, “You cannot nail a peg into the sky.” And so, to be a man of the sky, a man of the void, is also called ‘a man not depending on anything’. And when you’re not hung on anything you are the only thing that isn’t hung on anything – which is the universe. Which doesn’t hang, you see. Where would it hang? It has no place to fall on, even though it may be dropping; there will never be the crash of it landing on a concrete floor somewhere. But the reason for that is that it won’t crash below because it doesn’t hang above. And so there is a poem, in Chinese, which speaks of such a person as having above, not a tile to cover the head; below, not an inch of ground on which to stand.

"In a universe whose fundamental principle is relativity rather than warfare there is no purpose because there is no victory to be won, no end to be attained. For every end, as the world itself shows, is an extreme, an opposite, and exists only in relation to it other end. Because the world is not going anywhere there is no hurry. One may as well "take it easy" like nature itself [...]."

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