Become What You Are

by Alan W. Watts

a man does not really begin to be alive until he has lost himself,

i believe im almost to thia point

Sir, if you would cause the world not to lose its source of nourishment: there is the universe, its regularity is unceasing; there are the sun and moon, their brightness is unceasing; there are the stars, their groupings never change; there are the birds and beasts, they flock together without varying; there are trees and shrubs, they grow upward without exception.

knowing that he is a weed and not trying to be a rose.

The part of our self that wants to change our self is the very one that needs to be changed; but it is as inaccessible as a needle to the prick of its own point.

For the selfishness of the self thrives on the notion that it can command itself, that it is the lord and master of its own processes, of its own motives and desires.

Sometimes it may simply be an honest mistake, for there are people who discover what was always close at hand only after a long and painful journey, and they remain under the impression that the most awkward road was the only road.

Our unwillingness to feel is the very measure of our ability to feel, for the more sensitive the instrument, the greater its capacity for pain, and so for reluctance to be hurt.

A mind which will not melt—with sorrow or love—is a mind which will all too easily break.

But ordinarily we do not discover the wisdom of our feelings because we do not let them complete their work; we try to suppress them or discharge them in premature action, not realizing that they are a process of creation which, like birth, begins as a pain and turns into a child.

“the joined is not united, nor the separated apart, nor the long in excess, nor the short wanting. For just as a duck’s legs, though short, cannot be lengthened without pain to the duck, and a crane’s legs, though long, cannot be shortened without misery to the crane—so that which is long in man’s moral nature cannot be cut off, nor that which is short be lengthened.”

Detachment means to have neither regrets for the past nor fears for the future; to let life take its course without attempting to interfere with its movement and change, neither trying to prolong the stay of things pleasant nor to hasten the departure of things unpleasant. To do this is to move in time with life, to be in perfect accord with its changing music, and this is called Enlightenment. In short, it is to be detached from both past and future and to live in the eternal Now.

For in truth neither past nor future have any existence apart from this Now; by themselves they are illusions.

You may believe yourself out of harmony with life and its eternal Now; but you cannot be, for you are life and exist Now—otherwise you would not be here. Hence the infinite Tao is something which you can neither escape by flight nor catch by pursuit; there is no coming toward it or going away from it; it is, and you are it. So become what you are.

I am sure that many of you may, for a fleeting moment, have had one clear glimpse of what the finger was pointing at—a glimpse in which you shared the pointer’s astonishment that you had never seen it before, in which you saw the whole thing so plainly that you knew you could never forget it . . . and then you lost it. After this, there may be a tormenting nostalgia that goes on for years.

How to find the way back, back to the door in the wall that no longer seems to be there, back to the turning which led into paradise—which wasn’t on the map, which you saw for sure right here. But now there is nothing.

It is like trying to trace someone with whom you fell in love at first sight, and then lost touch; and you go back to the original place of meeting again and a...

This is because the so-called self is a construct of words and memories, of fantasies which have no existence in immediate reality.

Self-consciousness is a stoppage because it is like interrupting a song after every note so as to listen to the echo, and then feeling irritated because of the loss of rhythm.

Therefore, the important thing is simply to begin—anywhere, wherever you are. If you happen to be sitting, just sit. If you are smoking a pipe, just smoke it. If you are thinking out a problem, just think. But don’t think and reflect unnecessarily, compulsively, from sheer force of nervous habit. In Zen, they call this having a leaky mind—like an old barrel with open seams which cannot contain itself.

In the more intimate sphere of personal life, the problem is the pain of trying to avoid suffering and the fear of trying not to be afraid.

“The universe is everlasting. The reason that the universe is everlasting is that it does not live for itself. Therefore it lasts. Therefore the sage puts himself behind, and finds himself in front, regards his person as outside himself, and his person is preserved. Is it not because he does not live for himself that he realizes himself?”

We cannot find release until we have known the real extremity of our situation, and see that all striving for spiritual ideals is completely futile—since the very seeking thrusts them away.

Entering the forest, he does not disturb a blade of grass; Entering the water, he does not cause a ripple.

The bamboo shadows sweep the stairs, But stir no dust.

All striving and grasping is so much smoke in the clutch of a dissolving hand.

Egotism is a fierce holding on to oneself; it is building oneself up in a haughty stronghold, refusing to join in the play of life, refusing to accept the eternal laws of change of movement to which all are subject. But that refusal can only be illusion.

There are some who never live, who are always having thoughts about life and feelings about life; others are swept away on the tides of circumstance, so overwhelmed by events that they have nothing of their own.

It is made of consciousness and mind: It is made of life and vision. It is made of the earth and the waters: It is made of air and space. It is made of light and darkness: It is made of desire and peace. It is made of anger and love: It is made of virtue and vice. It is made of all that is near: It is made of all that is afar. It is made of all.

If he ever returns out of this trance condition it remains always in the back of his mind; the things around him seem like the insubstantial shadows of a dream,

Here again is an Asian conception which is little understood in the West, for it is often thought that the supreme Universal Reality of Hinduism and Buddhism has the quality of oneness as distinct from many-ness, and that realization is the knowledge that the forms and objects of the universe are in fact one, even though they appear to be many.

Reality is “one-without-a-second.”

being that which does not require distinction for its existence.

For Brahman is all things, this world we see around us, together with our consciousness and the thoughts in our minds and the feelings in our hearts.

For he feels free and delivered, which is the precise meaning of kaivalya. He is freed from himself, which is the only thing that ever bound anyone,

The unenlightened man keeps a tight hold on himself because he is afraid of losing himself; he can trust neither circumstances nor his own human nature; he is terrified of being genuine, of accepting himself as he is and tries to deceive himself into the belief that he is as he wishes to be. But these are the wishes, the desires that bind him, and it was such desires as these that the Buddha described as the cause of human misery.