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Alan Watts on laughter
Do you suppose that God takes himself seriously? I know a Zen master, Joshu Sasaki, who has let it be known that the best form of meditation is to stand up with your hands on your hips and roar with laughter for ten minutes every morning. I have heard of a sophisticated shaman-type fellow who used to cure ringworm on cows just by pointing to the scars and laughing. Truly religious people always make jokes about their religion; their faith is so strong that they can afford it. Much of the secret of life is knowing how to laugh, and also how to breathe.
-- p.6 In My Own Way: An Autobiography 1972

-- p.87 ...unintentional disruption of classes by mutually arising chuckles at any and every stray element of nonsense that struck our funny-bones. For such pleasure in nonsense, I, and millions of other children so inclined, have been considered silly, frivolous, and wanting in seriousness. But we have a secret forever closed to stuffy, sober, and serious people.

-- p.189 Whenever we meet, Richard and I are unable to suppress ribald laughter concerning some permanent and always unstated joke. Neither of us know quite what it is, except that it is very deep and metaphysical, and has something to do with getting away with murder in heaven, and revolves about the flip point where yang turns quite unexpectedly into yin.

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