The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
IN MODERN thought the awareness that there is something out there that we are not yet awake enough to see is the engine that drives the investigative mind. Relentless and systematic questioning: this is the spirit of scientific intelligence. In this spirit we dissect to see what connects, we dismember to understand the whole, we kill to catch life
... See morea 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. This realization is already in us in the sense that our bodies know it, our bones
... See moreAlan W. Watts • The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
For unless one is able to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax. There is no point whatever in making plans for a future which you will never be able to enjoy. When your plans mature, you will still be living for some other future beyond. You will never, never be able to sit back with full contentment and say, “Now, I’ve arrived!” Your en
... See moreAlan W. Watts • The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
Outside the mind there is no Dharma, and inside also there is nothing to be grasped. What is it that you seek? You say on all sides that the Tao is to be practiced and put to the proof. Don’t be mistaken! If there is anyone who can practice it, this is entirely karma making for birth-and-death. You talk about being perfectly disciplined in your six
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