The Way of Zen

by Alan W. Watts

men who have dehumanized themselves by becoming the blind worshipers of an idea or an ideal are fanatics whose devotion to abstractions makes them the enemies of life.

to try not to grasp is the same thing as to grasp, since its motivation is the same–my urgent desire to save myself from a difficulty. I cannot get rid of this desire, since it is one and the same desire as the desire to get rid of it!

It cannot be called void or not void, Or both or neither; But in order to point it out, It is called “the Void.”

Form is not different from emptiness; emptiness is not different from form. Form is precisely emptiness; emptiness is precisely form.

the human situation is seen for what it is–a quenching of thirst with salt water, a pursuit of goals which simply require the pursuit of other goals, a clutching of objects which the swift course of time renders as insubstantial as mist.

If nirvana is not to be found by grasping, there can be no question of approaching it by stages, by the slow process of the accumulation of knowledge.

Man’s identification with his idea of himself gives him a specious and precarious sense of permanence.

“If a man seeks the Buddha, that man loses the Buddha.”