"Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be." 

-Alan Watts

"Just as the highest and the lowest notes are equally inaudible, so perhaps, is the greatest sense and the greatest nonsense equally unintelligible." 

-Alan Watts

"The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention." 

-Alan Watts

"Reasonable–that is, human–men will always be capable of compromise, but men who have dehumanized themselves by becoming the blind worshipers of an idea or an ideal are fanatics whose devotion to abstractions makes them the enemies of life." 
-Alan Watts

"To be free from convention is not to spurn it but not to be deceived by it. It is to be able to use it as an instrument instead of being used by it." 
-Alan Watts

"So many people of wealth understand much more about making and saving money than about using and enjoying it. They fail to live because they are always preparing to live."
-Alan Watts

"To resist change, to try to cling to life, is therefore like holding your breath: if you persist you kill yourself." 
-Alan W. Watts

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

-Alan Watts

"Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes." 

-Alan Watts

"Nothing is exactly as it seems, nor is it otherwise."
-Alan Watts

“Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.” 

-Alan Watts

"Take the relationship of love. I may be in love and my girlfriend may be a flawlessly beautiful and wonderful person, but if I can control her completely and become immersed in her perfection, I might as well fall in love with a mannequin. However, if she has a little mole on her cheek, or some kind of unpredictability of character, then the accidental has been introduced into the domain of the orderly, and I can enjoy her humanity more easily." 

-Alan Watts

"To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float." 

-Alan Watts

"But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be." 

-Alan Watts

"We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain." 

-Alan Watts

Thursday's Thoughts - July 19th, 2012

"The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves."

-Alan Watts

What is the meaning of Zen? What is the meaning of life? Philosophers, and Zen-seekers have argued this question since we have acquired the ability to communicate, yet we are now just as far from the answer as we were when we first began to argue the point. 

The only truth of life is that we are dying the moment that we are born. In all honesty, Zen Buddhism and Taoism have little to say about the true meaning of life, but it has a lot to say about the function of life. Zen teaches us we must seek to attain enlightenment and save all beings from suffering if it can be helped, but only if it helps assist those that suffer. 

Wisdom, and character are gained from suffering, it allows us to know our strengths and define our limits. So even suffering itself, has its worth and purpose. To embody this human function is to secure a mind that always asks, "How can I assist in making your life better?" This Zen-mind only concerns itself with the well-being of others, and since a majority of the human race has an issue with denying the self in favor of others, we have very few who have achieved the title Zen or Taoist Master.

All things arise due to causes and conditions, and these are constantly morphing and impermanent. We are born, we live, we die, and we live again, serving endlessly in the cosmic dance of ever-changing fate. The meaning of life can be found in us all, and the real question that you should be asking yourself is, "What is the meaning of your life?" It should be a question we inquire to inspire conversation, to get to know one another, to understand each others purpose. It can't be answered for you, not even by Buddha himself, but it can be experienced and understood.

Experience your life, and seek to understand it as it relates to you. Embrace it as you would your lover, and give to it with all the compassion that exist in this Universe. This world is what we make it, and your world can only be undone by another if you allow it.

"Normally, we do not so much look at things as overlook them."

-Alan Watts