"This is what troubles me about what we'll call vaguely "the new youth". There's a certain sloppiness. For example, at Millbrook in New York—that place is a mess, it's an unspeakable mess! Everything is dilapidated, it's a pad, not just a pad, but a mattress with the stuffing coming out of it. And this bothers me—because, after all, in America, it's bad enough anyway, we don't revere material, we mistreat it terribly. Los Angeles is the most amazing mistreatment of material that one can see in centuries. This is not a materialistic civilization at all. It is a civilization devoted to the hatred and destruction of material, its conversion into junk and poison gas. And therefore, one of the most sacred missions to be imposed upon those who would be liberated from this culture is that they shall love material, that they shall love color, that they shall dress beautifully, that they shall cook well, that they shall live in lovely houses, and that they shall preserve the face of nature. And this is the cardinal thing in your tradition, my friend, because when the Lord God created the material world, he surprised himself. And having already created it, he sat back, and saw then, that it was good. Very good."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Beat Zen and Hasidism talk with Maurice Friedman
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alan_Watts
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Alan Watts
Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English philosopher, writer, speaker, and expert in comparative religion.
103 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Alan Watts →
Related Quotes
"Underneath the superficial self, which pays attention to this and that, there is another self, more really us than I.…"
"Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to …"
"Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth."
"I have suggested that behind almost all myth lies the mono-plot of the game of hide-and-seek."
"For several years I have referred to this, hitherto, rare and inaccessible work as the I-told-you-so-book, because it…"
"It is especially important for Westerners to understand that high lamas, Zen masters, and Hindu gurus in the discipli…"
"But what we've got going wrong is we've got a kind of bifurcation [in cultural development]: You take your classified…"
"To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do yo…"
"This is the real secret of life—to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of …"
"If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes…"