"To remain stable is to refrain from..." - Quote by Alan Watts
To remain stable is to refrain from trying to separate yourself from a pain because you know that you cannot. Running away from fear is fear, fighting pain is pain, trying to be brave is being scared. If the mind is in pain, the mind is pain. The thinker has no other form than his thought. There is no escape.
More by Alan Watts
“Like too much alcohol,self-consciousness makes us see ourselves double, and we make the double image for two selves - mental and material, controlling and controlled, reflective and spontaneous. Thus instead of suffering we suffer about suffering, and suffer about suffering about suffering.”
“No one's mouth is big enough to utter the whole thing.”
“Every explicit duality is an implicit unity.”
More on Pain
“All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor; it is like spending this year part of the next year's revenue.”
“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.”
“Out alone in the winter rain, / Intent on giving and taking pain.”
More on Fear
“By acting as if I was not afraid, I gradually ceased to be afraid.”
“The very highest is barely known.Then comes that which people know and love,Then that which is feared,Then that which is despised.Who does not trust enough will not be trusted.”
“Fear is your best friend or your worst enemy. It's like fire. If you can control it, it can cook for you; it can heat your house. If you can't control it, it will burn everything around you and destroy you. If you can control your fear, it makes you more alert, like a deer coming across the lawn.”