Alan Watts ~The Architecture Of Insecurity

 Is it possible to observe without the thinker? I look at everything with an image, with a symbol, with memory, with knowledge. I look at my friend, at my wife, at my neighbor, at the boss, with the image which thought has built. I look at my wife with the image I have about her, and she looks at me with the image she has about me: the relationship is between these two images. This is a fact,it's not an invention on my part,it's a fact! Thought has built these symbols, images, ideas. Can I look, at first, at a tree, at a flower, at the sky, at the cloud, without an image? The image of the tree is the word I have learned which gives a certain name to the tree, tells its species and recalls its beauty. Can I look at that tree, at that cloud, at that flower, without thought, without the image? That's fairly easy to do, if you have done it. But can I look without the image at a human being with whom I am intimate, whom I consider as wife, husband, child? If I can't, there is no real relationship: the only relationship is between the images that we both have. So, can I look at life, the clouds, the stars, the trees, the river, the bird on the wing, my wife, my child, my neighbor, this whole earth -can I look at it all without the image? Though you have insulted me, though you have hurt me, though you have said nasty things about me or praised me, can I look at you without the image or the memory of what you have done and said to me?Do see the importance of this, because it's only a mind that has retained the memories of hurt, of insult, that is ready to forgive, if it is at all inclined that way. A mind that is not storing up its insults, the flatteries that it receives, has nothing to forgive or not forgive; therefore there is no conflict. Thought has created these images, both inwardly and outwardly. Can the images come to an end, and thought look at everything in life afresh? If you can do this, you will find that without your conscious, deliberate effort to change, change has taken place, a radical change. Most people are ambitious; they want to be somebody: authors, painters, businessmen, or politicians. Priests want to become archbishops. Thought has created this society and sees the advantage of becoming powerful, dominant, an important person, which happens only through ambition. Thought has created the image through observation of the man in power and wants the pleasure of owning a big house, having a picture appear in the papers, and all the rest of it. Can one live in this world without ambition, without the image of pleasure which thought has created? Can one function technologically, outwardly, without this poison of ambition? It can be done, but it is possible only when we understand the origin of thinking and understand actually, factually, the unreality of the division between the observer and the observed. Then we can proceed, because then virtue has a totally different meaning. It is not the moral virtue of an ugly, corrupt society, but virtue which is order. Virtue, like humility, is not something to be cultivated by thought. Thought is not virtuous; it is bourgeois, petty, and thought cannot possibly understand either love or virtue or humility.





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