Here's an example: someone says, Master, please hand me the knife, and he hands them the knife, blade first. Please give me the other end, he says. And the master replies, What would you do with the other end? This is answering an everyday matter in terms of the metaphysical. When the question is, Master, what is the fundamental principle of Buddhism? Then he replies, There is enough breeze in this fan to keep me cool. That is answering the metaphysical in terms of the everyday, and that is, more or less, the principle zen works on. The mundane and the sacred are one and the same. β¨ Alan Watts (2010). What Is Zen?, p.29, New World Library
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- The more we try to live in the world of words, the more we feel isolated and alone, the more all the joy and liveliness of things is exchanged for mere certainty and security. On the other hand, the β¦ βΆ
- You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes. β¨ Alan Watts (1999). The Tao of Philosophy, p.37, Tuttle Publishing
- If my happiness at this moment consists largely in reviewing happy memories and expectations, I am but dimly aware of this present. I shall still be dimly aware of the present when the good things th β¦ βΆ
- ...the materialism of modern civilization is paradoxically founded on a hatred of materiality, a goal-oriented desire to obliterate all natural limits through technology, imposing an abstract grid ov β¦ βΆ
- You have seen that the universe is at root a magical illusion and a fabulous game, and that there is no separate you to get something out of it, as if life were a bank to be robbed. The only real you β¦ βΆ
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