Buddhism Quotes

“Nobody believes in God like an atheist: 'There is no God, and I am His prophet.”
― Alan W. Watts, Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion

“So you could say in a very simple way that the real concern of Zen is to realize—not merely rationally but in one’s bones—that the world inside your skin and the world outside your skin are all one world and one being, one self. And you are it.”
― Alan W. Watts, Buddhism the Religion of No-Religion

“There is a very interesting Hindu teacher by the name of Krishnamurti whom many of you may know about. He tells people that all of their religious inquiry, their yoga practices, their reading religious books, and so on, are nothing but the perpetuation of egocentricity on a very refined and highbrow level. Therefore he encourages disciples who studiously avoid reading any kind of philosophical or edifying book. They are reduced to reading mystery stories and they become devoted nondisciples. What a clever bind that is! It is the same as the Zen technique.”
― Alan W. Watts, Buddhism the Religion of No-Religion

“You do not need to control the rain if you can control your mind. If you get wet it is only your mind that makes you think it’s uncomfortable to be wet.”
― Alan W. Watts, Buddhism the Religion of No-Religion

“Is this a stool? When I turn it over — now it's a wastebasket. When I beat on it, it's a drum. So this thing is what it does. Anything you can use it for is what it is. If you have a rigid idea that it is a stool and you can only sit on it, you're kind of stuck. But if you see all these other things as well, then you suddenly see that anything can be everything. In the same way, Buddhism does not say that what you really are is something definable, because if you believe that, you are stuck with an idea and cling to it for spiritual security.”
― Alan W. Watts, Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion

“They use this character to translate sunyata, emptiness; the fundamental nature of reality, the sky. But the sky is not negative emptiness; it contains all of us. It is full of everything that is happening, but you cannot put a nail in the sky and pin it down. In the same way, Buddhism is saying that you do not need any gizmos to be in the know. You do not need a religion. You do not need any Buddha statues, temples, Buddhist rosaries, and all that jazz. But when you get to the point that you know you do not need any of those things, you do not need a religion at all; then it is fun to have one.”
― Alan W. Watts, Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion

“If you put your hand into a fire, you will get burned. It is all right to get burned if you want to, but if it so happens that you do not want to get burned, then don't put your hand in a fire. It is the same if you do not want to be in a state of anxiety. It is perfectly all right to be anxious, if you like to be anxious. Buddhism never hurries anyone. It says, "You've got all eternity to live in various forms, therefore you do not have just one life in which to avoid eternal damnation. You can go running around the wheel in the rat race just as long as you want, so long as you think it's fun. And if there comes a time when you no longer think it's fun to be anxious, you don't have to continue." Someone who disagrees with this may say, "We ought to engage the forces of evil in battle and put this world to right, and arrange everything in it so that everything is good and nothing is bad." Try it, please. It is perfectly okay to try. And if you discover that these attempts are futile, you can then let go. You can give up clinging. Relax in that way and you will be in the state of nirvana.”
― Alan W. Watts, Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion

“But the Buddha was very subtle. He was really the first historical psychologist, the first great psychotherapist. He saw that a person who is fighting pain, who is trying to get rid of pain, is still fundamentally afraid of it. Therefore the way of asceticism would not work, and equally, hedonism, the opposite of asceticism, would not work. Therefore the Buddha devised the doctrine that is called the Middle Way, that is neither ascetic nor hedonistic.”
― Alan W. Watts, Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion

“When you dig sound you realize that the flow or vibration of sound is a way in which you experience basic existence, being here. You can learn everything from sound, because it is not a constant. It comes and goes. It is on and off. You only hear it because it is vibrating. The lesson is that life is on and off, black and white, life and death, inside and outside, knowing and not knowing: they’re all vibrations. It’s easy to explain that in words, but to feel and understand it in your bones you have to learn how to listen to a sound. It was to teach that skill that this system of chanting sounds was invented.”
― Alan W. Watts, Buddhism the Religion of No-Religion

“This is the situation of everyone who feels that life is a problem to be solved. Whether you seek to solve that problem through psychoanalysis, integration, salvation, or buddhahood, you define yourself in a certain way when you see life as a problem to be solved.”
― Alan W. Watts, Buddhism the Religion of No-Religion

“There is no such thing as a single, solitary event. The only possible single event is all events whatsoever. That could be regarded as the only possible atom; the only possible single thing is everything.”
― Alan W. Watts, Buddhism the Religion of No-Religion