Alan Watts citáty

strana 4

„Kdo není schopen žít nyní, nemůže mít řádné plány do budoucna.“

„Život je hra, jejíž pravidlo zní: To není žádná hra, tady jde o život“

„S mozkem je to jako se srdcem, když si jeho existenci uvědomujeme, něco s ním není v pořádku.“

„Osamoceni se cítíme jen kvůli tomu, že jsme rozděleni sami v sobě, protože se snažíme odloučit od našich vlastních pocitů a vjemů.“

„Pokud jsme schopni prožívat štěstí jen tehdy, když před sebou vidíme světlou budoucnost, tak ve skutečnosti jen pronásledujeme bludičku, která nás vede stále hlouběji do močálu smrti.“

„Skutečný původ lidského zoufalství a frustrace nevězí v nevyhnutelných faktech života, mezi které patří smrt, bolest, strach či hlad. Šílenství člověka spočívá v tom, že když tyto skutečnosti naplní jeho přítomnost, snaží se z ní iluzi, které říká "Já", za každou cenu vymanit.“

„Předpokládejme, že byste každou noc byli schopni snít jakýkoliv sen, který si vyberete. A že byste například měli možnost během jedné noci prosnít 75 let v čase. Nebo jakoukoli jinou dobu byste chtěli. Ze začátku tohohle dobrodružného snění byste si samozřejmě splnili všechna svá přání. Dosáhli byste všech druhů potěšení, na která byste si pomysleli. A po několika nocích 75 letých snů dokonalé radosti a štěstí, byste si řekli: „Wow, to bylo super! Ale teď, teď se nechám překvapit. Chci zažít sen, který nemám pod kontrolou. Ve kterém se mi přihodí něco, o čem nevím, co to bude.” A až byste ho dosnili a probudili se, řekli byste: „Jej, to bylo teda na hraně!” A pak byste se stávali čím dál většími dobrodruhy, měli více odvahy a podstupovali další rizika, podle toho, co byste si vysnili. Až nakonec…, nakonec byste snili přesně o tom, kde jste TEĎ. Snili byste sen života, který právě teď prožíváte. Bylo by tomu tak v rámci toho celého nekonečného počtu možností. Hraní si na to, že nejste Bůh. Protože podle této myšlenky si celá podstata Božství hraje a předstírá, že jím není. Takže dle této myšlenky je každý ve své podstatě jen ultimátní skutečností. Ne bohem v politicko-vládnoucím smyslu, ale Bohem ve smyslu vnitřního bytí. Tím hlubokým základem, esencí, podstatou, jakkoliv to nazveme. A my všichni tím jsme, jen předstíráme, že nikoliv.“

„Ego je společenská instituce bez fyzické reality. Ego je prostě vaším symbolem sebe samého.“

„Jsou chvíle, kdy jsou mužské vášně mnohem důvěryhodnější než jejich principy.“

„Otázku "Co si s tím vším počít?" si kladou jen ti, kteří problém nepochopili. Pokud je řešitelný, stačí mu porozumět a v tu chvíli známe i řešení.“

„Klidu dosáhnete jen tehdy, když se přestanete snažit od utrpení utéct a dojde vám, že taková snaha by byla zcela marná. … Utrpení se lze zbavit jen tak, že ho vstřebáme. … Když se vzdáme boje s bolestí, tak utrpení odejde, nebo se alespoň zmírní a stane se snesitelným.“

„Když jsme naplněni radostí, většinou se nad ní nepozastavíme a nepřipomeneme si: "jsem šťastný" nebo "toto je radost". Obdobné myšlenky k nám přicházejí až tehdy, když jsme již vrcholu štěstí dosáhli, nebo když se obáváme, že radost pomine.“

„Filozofové často zapomínají na to, že jejich závěry se vztahují nejen k okolnímu vesmíru, ale i k jejich výrokům a jim samotným.“

“When you tell a girl how beautiful she is, she will say, "Now isn't that just like a man! All you men think about is bodies. OK, so I'm beautiful, but I got my body from my parents and it was just luck. I prefer to be admired for myself, not my chassis." Poor little chauffeur! All she is saying is that she has lost touch with her own astonishing wisdom and ingenuity, and wants to be admired for some trivial tricks that she can perform with her conscious attention. And we are all in the same situation, having dissociated ourselves from our bodies and from the whole network of forces in which bodies can come to birth and live.”

“There is nothing wrong with meditating just to meditate, in the same way that you listen to music just for the music. If you go to concerts to "get culture" or to improve your mind, you will sit there as deaf as a doorpost.”

“If you know that "I", in the sense of the person, the front, the ego, it really doesn't exist. Then…it won't go to your head too badly, if you wake up and discover that you're God.”

“The transformation of human consciousness through meditation is frustrated, as long as we think of it in terms as something that I, my self can bring about. because it leads to endless games of spiritual oneupmanship, and Guru competitions.”

“I have suggested that behind almost all myth lies the mono-plot of the game of hide-and-seek.”

“In an autobiography one must surely be allowed to boast, just for fun. I have, at a range of twenty feet, shot the tobacco out of a cigarette and left the paper intact. At a range of thirty feet, I have split a target, edge towards me, with an air pistol. I am also the world's champion in a game called "You Are the Target," in which anyone better than I would be dead. The game is to shoot an arrow straight up and see how near to you it can be allowed to land. You have to watch its fall very carefully, but I have had it hit the ground exactly between my feet. Of course, there were no witnesses. Had there been, they would forcefully have discouraged the experiment. I was using a fifty-five pound bow.”

“So in this idea, then, everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality. Not God in a politically kingly sense, but God in the sense of being the self, the deep-down basic whatever there is. And you're all that, only you're pretending you're not. And it's perfectly OK to pretend you're not, to be perfectly convinced, because this is the whole notion of drama.”

“So, too, in the Vedanta the whole world is seen as the lila and the maya of the Self, the first word meaning "play" and the second having the complex sense of illusion (from the Latin ludere, to play), magic, creative power, art, and measuring—as when one dances or draws a design to a certain measure. From this point of view the universe in general and playing in particular are, in a special sense, "meaningless": that is, they do not—like words and symbols—signify or point to something beyond themselves, just as a Mozart sonata conveys no moral or social message and does not try to suggest the natural sounds of wind, thunder, or birdsong.”

“everyone has a religion, whether admitted or not, because it is impossible to be human without having some basic assumptions (or intuitions) about existence and the good life.”

“Every individual is a unique manifestation of the Whole, as every branch is a particular outreaching of the tree. To manifest individuality, every branch must have a sensitive connection with the tree, just as our independently moving and differentiated fingers must have a sensitive connection with the whole body. The point, which can hardly be repeated too often, is that differentiation is not separation. The head and the feet are different, but not separate, and though man is not connected to the universe by exactly the same physical relation as branch to tree or feet to head, he is nonetheless connected—and by physical relations of fascinating complexity. The death of the individual is not disconnection but simply withdrawal. The corpse is like a footprint or an echo—the dissolving trace of something which the Self has ceased to do.”

“It is especially important for Westerners to understand that high lamas, Zen masters, and Hindu gurus in the discipline of yoga are human beings, not supermen. We must not put them, as we have put Jesus Christ, on pedestals of reverence so high that we automatically exclude ourselves from their states of consciousness.”

“For several years I have referred to this, hitherto, rare and inaccessible work as the I-told-you-so-book, because it has often been implied that I have invented my explanations of Buddhism out of thin air, thus falsifying its authentic teachings... Yet, despite the occultist flavor of its title, The Secret Oral Teachings in the Tibetan Buddhist Sects is the most direct, no-nonsense, and down-to-earth explanation of Mahayana Buddhism which has thus far been written.”

“We say in popular speech that we come into this world, but we do nothing of the kind. We come out of it.”

“We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.”

“I realized that the difference that I saw between things was the same thing as their unity, because differences (borders, lines, surfaces, boundaries) don't really divide things from each other at all, they join them together, because all boundaries are held in common”

“No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.”