The Way of Zen

by Alan W. Watts

To be free from convention is not to spurn it but not to be deceived by it. It is to be able to use it as an instrument instead of being used by it.

the skin may just as well be regarded as what joins us to our environment as what separates us from it.

a doctrine of relativity. It is saying that things, facts, and events are delineated, not by nature, but by human description, and that the way in which we describe (or divide) them is relative to our varying points of view.

all grasping, even for nirvana, is futile–for there is nothing to be grasped.

to become a Buddha it is only necessary to have the faith that one is a Buddha already.

Buddhist experience is a liberation from conventions of every kind, including the moral conventions.

our precious “self” is just an idea, useful and legitimate enough if seen for what it is, but disastrous if identified with our real nature.

this is the reverse of the truth: it is rather the past and future which are the fleeting illusions, and the present which is eternally real.