Alan Watts on What Reality Is and How to Become What You Are

being genuinely open to and affected by everything around us means that there is no picking and choosing. It is everything or nothing—the good, the bad, and the ugly

Yet common to all sensation is this basic sense. If you explored your sensations and began reducing them to the basic sense, you would be on your way to reality, to that which underlies everything, the ground of being, the basic energy. To the extent that you realize this basic energy and know that you are identical with it, you transcend, overcome

Perhaps there are some concepts that need more focused attention, but for the most part, there should be a shift from being focused on the content of life, to becoming more interested in that which is aware.

since it is in the present and only in the present that you live. There is no other reality than present reality, so that, even if one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly.

When I realized that I was seeing the world as it is, that led to the feeling of kinship. Whatever I paid attention to, that seemed to be me at that moment. I’d already been everything, done everything, owned everything. I’d already been this wall and this couch. All you have to do is be you and everything comes to you. It is not a question of owne