Alan Watts Quotes About Past

Quotes about: Past

• We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between a causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality.

  Alan Watts

  Memories, Past, Reality

• We must abandon completely the notion of blaming the past for any kind of situation we're in and reverse our thinking and see that the past always flows back from the present. That now is the creative point of life. So you see it's like the idea of forgiving somebody, you change the meaning of the past by doing that...Also, watch the flow of music. The melody as its expressed is changed by notes that come later. Just as the meaning of a sentence...you wait till later to find out what the sentence means...The present is always changing the past.

  Alan Watts

  Mean, Past, Thinking

• If, then, my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.

  Alan Watts

  Real, Past, World

  Alan Watts (1951). “The Wisdom of Insecurity”, Vintage

• Nothing is more creative than death, since it has the whole secret of life. It means that the past must be abandoned, that the unknown cannot be avoided, that 'I' cannot continue, and that nothing can be ultimately fixed. When a man knows this, he lives for the first time in his life. By holding his breath, he loses it. By letting go he finds it.

  Alan Watts

  Letting Go, Mean, Men

  Alan Watts (1951). “The Wisdom of Insecurity”, Vintage

• I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.

  Alan Watts

  Love, Life, Relationship

• We tend to regard ourselves as puppets of the Past, driven along by something that is always behind us.

  Alan Watts

  Past, Puppets, Driven

  Alan Watts (1977). “The essence of Alan Watts”, Celestial Arts Publishing Company

• Everybody is I, you all know you are you. And wheresoever's beings exist throughout all galaxies it doesn't any difference. You are all of them, and when they come into being that's you coming into being, you know that very well. Only you don't have to remember the past in the same way you don't have to think about how you work your thyroid gland. You don't have to know how to shine the sun, you just do it, like you breathe. Doesn't it really astonish you that you are this fantastically complex thing, and that you're doing all of this and you never had any education on how to do it.

  Alan Watts

  Past, Thinking, Differences

• Life is like music for its own sake. We are living in an eternal now, and when we listen to music we are not listening to the past, we are not listening to the future, we are listening to an expanded present.

  Alan Watts

  Past, Listening, Life Is Like

  Alan Watts (1983). “The Way of Liberation: Essays and Lectures on the Transformation of the Self”, Weatherhill, Incorporated

• The art of living... is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.

  Alan Watts

  Art, Unique, Past

  Alan Watts (1951). “The Wisdom of Insecurity”, Vintage

• We are seeing, then, that our experience is altogether momentary. From one point of view, each moment is so elusive and so brief that we cannot even think about it before it has gone. From another point of view, this moment is always here, since we know no other moment than the present moment. It is always dying, always becoming past more rapidly than imagination can conceive. Yet at the same time it is always being born, always new, emerging just as rapidly from that complete unknown we call the future. Thinking about it almost makes you breathless.

  Alan Watts

  Time, Past, Thinking

• Zen is a liberation from time. For if we open our eyes and see clearly, it becomes obvious that there is no other time than this instant, and that the past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality.

  Alan Watts

  Eye, Past, Reality

  Alan Watts (1989). “The way of Zen”, Vintage

• The past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality.

  Alan Watts

  Past, Reality, Concrete

  Alan Watts (1989). “The way of Zen”, Vintage

• 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 that I have been expecting come to pass. For I shall have formed a habit of looking behind and ahead, making it difficult for me to attend to the here and now. If, then , my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.

  Alan Watts

  Buddhist, Memories, Real

  Alan Watts (1951). “The Wisdom of Insecurity”, Vintage

• If you insist on being determined by the past that's your game, but the fact of the matter is it all starts right now.

  Alan Watts

  Past, Games, Matter

  Alan Watts (1977). “The essence of Alan Watts”, Celestial Arts Publishing Company

• The power of memories and expectations is such that for most human beings, the past and the future are not as real, but rather more real than the present.

  Alan Watts

  Life, Motivational, Memories

  Alan W Watts (2012). “Wisdom Of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety”, p.22, Random House

• There is only this now. It does not come from anywhere; it is not going anywhere. It is not permanent, but it is not impermanent. Though moving, it is always still. When we try to catch it, it seems to run away, and yet it is always here and there is no escape from it. And when we turn around to find the self which knows this moment, we find that it has vanished like the past.

  Alan Watts

  Running, Moving, Past

  "The Way of Zen".

• We think that the world is limited and explained by its past. We tend to think that what happened in the past determines what is going to happen next, and we do not see that it is exactly the other way around! What is always the source of the world is the present; the past doesn't explain a thing. The past trails behind the present like the wake of a ship and eventually disappears.

  Alan Watts

  Past, Thinking, World

  Alan Watts (2010). “What Is Zen?”, p.48, New World Library

• The world is in an extremely dangerous situation, and serious diseases often require the risk of a dangerous cure like the Pasteur serum for rabies.

  Alan Watts

  Past, Dangerous Situations, Risk

  Alan Watts (2011). “The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”, p.8, Souvenir Press

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin