Blake and Watts

Big Frank was listening to an audio tape of Alan Watts talking about Zen. Watts in his explanation of Zen makes an interesting statement about following through on what you know, and the wisdom that can come in this way. He ends with a quotation from William Blake: “If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

Here are some more in this line from Blake:

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom;

Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity

He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.

The cut worm forgives the plow.

He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.

No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.

The most sublime act is to set another before you.

Improvement makes strait roads;
but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.

You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough.

Here is Alan Watts: from “Spirituality and Sensuality”

Not to cherish both the angel and the animal, both the spirit and the flesh, is to renounce the whole interest and greatness of being human, and it is really tragic that those in whom the two natures are equally strong should be made to feel in conflict with themselves. For the saint-sinner and the mystic-sensualist is always the most interesting type of human being because he is the most complete. When the two aspects are seen to be consistent with each other, there is a real sense in which spirit transforms nature: that is to say, the animality of the mystic is always richer, more refined, and more subtly sensuous than the animality of the merely animal man.