“To know that you can do nothing is the beginning. Just watching, without purpose.”
My favorite excerpts (PDF) from Become What You Are (Alan Watts)
Tag Archives: zen
No one can deliberately do it
“When (Zen) is itself, it is so uncontrived and subtle that it goes unnoticed, or it passes for luck or grace or some nameless equivalent. Like Taoism, it happens but few recognize it. And no one can deliberately do it.”
— The Tao of Zen by Ray Grigg
Stop talking and thinking
The more you talk and think about it,
the further astray you wander from the truth.
Stop talking and thinking
and there is nothing you will not be able to know.
From Verses On the Faith Mind (Chien-chih Seng-tsan)
Like feeling warm or cold
“Don’t try to get rid of the ego-sensation. Take it, so long as it lasts, as a feature or play of the total process — like a cloud or wave, or like feeling warm or cold, or anything else that happens of itself. Getting rid of one’s ego is the last resort of invincible egoism! It simply confirms and strengthens the reality of the feeling. But when this feeling of separateness is approached and accepted like any other sensation, it evaporates like the mirage that it is.” — Alan Watts
Stacking Logs
“When stripped of formality and returned to its natural shape, Zen is earthy and ordinary. Nothing special.”
“It is so uncontrived and subtle that it goes nearly unnoticed. And no one can deliberately do it.”
“Taoism and Zen cannot properly be understood, but they can be experienced.”
