Alan Watts - There Is Never Anything But the Present: And Other Inspiring Words of Wisdom

selected works by alan watts

Behold the Spirit

The Book

Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown

Does It Matter?

In My Own Way

The Joyous Cosmology

Nature, Man and Woman

Psychotherapy East and West

Tao: The Watercourse Way (in collaboration with Al Chung-liang Huang)

This Is It

The Two Hands of God

The Way of Zen

The Wisdom of Insecurity

a note about the author

The philosopher Alan Watts (1915 - 1973) is best known for popularizing Zen Buddhism in the United States and Europe. During his lifetime he wrote more than twenty-five books, including the bestsellers The Way of Zen and The Wisdom of Insecurity. Born in England, Watts immigrated to the United States in his twenties. His colorful and controversial life, from his school days in England, to his priesthood in the Anglican Church as chaplain of Northwestern University, to his experimentation with psychedelic drugs, made him an icon of the 1960s counterculture movement. Millions of followers continue to be enlightened by his teachings through his books, which have been published in twenty-six countries, and his lectures, which are found worldwide on the internet.

Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.

When no risk is taken there is no freedom.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

No one imagines that a symphony is supposed to improve in quality as it goes along, or that the whole object of playing it is to reach the finale. The point of music is discovered in every moment of playing and listening to it. It is the same, I feel, with the greater part of our lives, and if we are unduly absorbed in improving them we may forget altogether to live them.

The individual is an aperture through which the whole energy of the universe is aware of itself.

What we have forgotten is that thoughts and words are conventions, and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously. A convention is a social convenience, as, for example, moneyBut it is absurd to take money too seriously, to confuse it with real wealth.

We do not come into this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean waves, the universe peoples. Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.

To see the light, it is only necessary to stop dreaming and open the eyes.

The human organism has the same kind of innate intelligence as the ecosystems of nature, and the wisdom of the nerves and senses must be watched with patience and respect.

If a problem can be solved at all, to understand it and to know what to do about it are the same thing.

So long as one thinks about listening, one cannot hear clearly, and so long as one thinks about trying or not trying to let go of oneself, one cannot let go. Yet whether one thinks about listening or not, the ears are hearing just the same, and nothing can stop the sound from reaching them.

If you dont have anything to say, not even the greatest mastery of English will long stand you in good stead.

Faith is not clinging but letting go.

To be afraid of life is to be afraid of yourself.

Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.

Neither an individual nor a society can pull itself up by its own bootstraps, even though it is now commonly being said that this is precisely what we must do. So long as we use force, whether physical or moral, to improve the world and ourselves, we are squandering energy that might otherwise be used for things which can be done.

What is true and positive is too real and too living to be described, and to try to describe it is like putting red paint on a red rose.

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

Trust in human nature is acceptance of the good-and-bad of it, and it is hard to trust those who do not admit their own weaknesses.

Because the idea is so much more comprehensible than the reality, the symbol so much more stable than the fact, we learn to identify ourselves with our idea of ourselves.