“Is breathing something that YOU DO? Do you see? I mean, do you organise the operations of your eyes? [Do you] know exactly how to work those rods and cones in the retina? Do you do that? It is a happening. It happens. So, you can feel all this happening. Your breathing is happening. Your thinking is happening. Your feeling is happening. Your hearing, your seeing, the clouds are happening across the sky. The sky is happening blue. The sun is happening shining. There it is, all this happening. And, may I introduce you, this is your self. This begins to be a vision of who you really are.”

“The reason you want to be better is the reason why you aren’t, shall I put it like that? We aren’t better because we want to be. Because the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Because all the do-gooders in the world whether they’re doing good for others or doing it for themselves are troublemakers: on the basis of “kindly let me help you or you will drown,” said the monkey putting the fish safely up a tree. Sometimes doing good to others and even doing good to oneself is amazingly destructive because it’s full of conceit. How do you know what’s good for other people? How do you know what’s good for you? If you say you want to improve then you ought to know what’s good for you, but obviously you don’t because if you did then you would be improved. So, we don’t know. We do not really know how to interfere with the way the world is.”

“Let’s look at this thing from another point of view, which you will at first think highly depressing. Let’s suppose we can’t do anything to change ourselves. Suppose we’re stuck with it. Now that is the worst thing an American audience can hear: ‘There’s no way of improving yourself!’ Because every kind of culture in this country is dedicated to self improvement! So here’s the situation: the whole idea of self improvement is a will-o’-the-wisp and a hoax. That’s not what it’s about. Let’s begin where we are. What happens if you know beyond any shadow of doubt that there is nothing you can do to be better? Well, it’s kind of a relief, isn’t it? Seeing that there isn’t really anything we can do to improve ourselves or to improve the world, if we realise that that is so, it gives us a breather in the course of which we may simply watch what is going on—watch what happens. Nobody ever does this, you know. It sounds terribly simple. It sounds so simple that it almost looks as if it isn’t worth doing. --

-- But have you ever just watched what’s happening and watched what you are doing by way of reaction to it? Just watch it happen. And don’t be in a hurry to think you know what is happening!”

“A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So, he loses touch with reality and lives in a world of illusions. By thoughts I mean, specifically, chatter in the skull—perpetual and compulsive repetition of words, of reckoning, and of calculating. I’m not saying that thinking is bad; like everything else, it’s useful in moderation, a good servant but a bad master. And all so-called civilised peoples have increasingly become crazy and self destructive because through excessive thinking they have lost touch with reality. That’s to say we confuse signs, words, numbers, symbols, and ideas with the real world. Most of us would have rather money than tangible wealth. And a great occasion is somehow spoiled for us unless photographed.”

({{Alan watts}})

If I made a dime for every time I was acting stupid, I would not need to be smart to make a lot of money -Icecreamsandwich

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Hehe