Sorrow can only be compared with the
memory of joy, which is not at all the same thing as joy itself.
*
If the ego were to disappear or, rather, to be seen as a useful fiction, there would no longer be the duality of subject and object, experiencer and experience. There would simply be a continuous, self-moving stream of experiencing, without the sense either of an active subject who controls it or of a passive subject who suffers it. The thinker would be seen to be no more than the series of thoughts, and the feeler no more than the feelings.
*
One who talked incessantly, without stopping to look and listen, would repeat himself
ad nauseam. It is the same with thinking, which is really silent talking. It is not, by itself, open to the discovery of anything new, for its only novelties are simply rearrangements of old words and ideas.
*
To be forever looking beyond is to remain blind to what is here.
*
So long as one thinks about listening, one cannot hear clearly, and so long as one thinks about trying or not trying to let go of oneself, one cannot let go. Yet whether one thinks about listening or not, the ears are hearing just the same, and nothing can stop the sound from reaching them.
*
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.
Copyright © 2023 by Alan Watts. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
