Summary of Alan W. Watts's Become What You Are

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#1 The Buddhist poem, written several centuries ago, tries to find words for an intuition that is common to almost every culture in the world. It says that a man does not really begin to be alive until he has lost himself. This is the universal discovery that a man does not really begin to live until he has lost his life.

#2 There is a vital contradiction in the idea of self-renunciation and self-acceptance. People try to accept themselves in order to be different, but they also try to surrender themselves in order to have more self-respect in their own eyes.

#3 The idea of self-renunciation is a form of what Buddhists call upaya, or skillful means. It is a teacher’s method to awaken his student to some truth that can only be reached by a roundabout route. The selfishness of the self thrives on the notion that it can command itself and its own processes.

#4 The state called death or self-surrender is not a future condition to be acquired. It is a present fact. When we begin to think about this clearly, we evoke very disturbing emotions, which we would like to be able to control. Our resistance to these emotions is as natural as the emotions themselves.

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