這是生活的真正秘訣 ：完全投入到現在和你現在所做的事情上，意識到這是遊戲， 而不稱之為工作。 --艾倫沃茨
艾倫沃茨 Alan Wilson Watts（1915年1月6日 - 1973年11月16日）是一位英國裔美國哲學家，宗教學者，作家和演說家，為西方解釋和推廣東方哲學。他研究了印度哲學和中華哲學，尤其喜愛聚佛家和道家於一體的禪。他崇尚自然，認為人是自然的產物，每一個人都是整個世界，像天空中無數的星辰，每一個人都是宇宙的中心。
像傳說中的禪師，艾倫認為語言是個粗笨的解釋工具，禪是不可說。他具有真正禪師的幽默，不認為自己是個精神導師，瀟灑地自封為”精神藝人“，在娛樂大家的同時，把禪幾乎給說了。他最受喜愛的著作之一是 《禪道》（The Way of Zen - 1957)。
禪不混淆思考神和剝土豆。 禪就隻是剝土豆。 -- 艾倫沃茨
在”生命之夢“裏艾倫沃茨用一個簡單的假設寥寥數語地概括了多元宇宙的量子物理學思想，佛教的轉世思想，解釋了生命的痛苦和快樂的原因。生命的本質是喜悅和享受，正如印度的哲學與神學，上帝有無窮的威力，一切都在掌控中，上帝也因此鬱悶無聊，於是自己和自己玩起捉迷藏的遊戲。
生命之夢 --艾倫沃茨
如果你從這種幻覺中醒來，你明白黑意味著白，自我意味著其人，生命意味著死亡， 或者說死亡意味著生命，你可以感受到自己的存在是整個宇宙的根本，你不是僥幸來到這世界的陌生人，也不是在這裏接受等待生活的緩刑。
我並不是想要說服你接受這個理念，我希望你能夠玩弄它的可能性。我並不想證明它，我隻是把它作為一種可能的生活來思考。那麽，讓我們假設你每天晚上都能夠夢想你的任何夢想，並且你可以在一夜之間擁有夢想75年的時間，或者任何更長時間的權力。
自然地，剛開始這夢想的冒險時，你會滿足你的所有願望。你會夢想經曆你所能想象的所有快樂。在經曆了幾晚75年的十足的樂趣之後，你會說“嗯，太棒了！但是現在讓我們有一個意外，讓我們有一個不受控製的夢想，在那裏會發生一些我不知道的事情。“
在你經曆你能挖掘到各種意外之後，你會說“哇，死裏逃生，不是嗎？”然後你會越來越冒險，進一步和更進一步的賭博你會實現你的夢想。最後，你會夢想現在的你，過著你夢想生活的現在的你。
扮演不是上帝遊戲的精髓就是假裝不知道自己是上帝，而在無窮無盡的選擇中，你會選擇扮演現在的你過著你現在的生活。在這個意義上，每個人從根本上說都是最終的現實。每個人都不是政治意義上的上帝，而是作為自我意義上的上帝，或者作為宇宙最基本最深沉的存在。你就是整個宇宙，隻是你在假裝你不知道。
If you awaken from this illusion and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death (or shall I say death implies life?), you can feel yourself – not as a stranger in the world, not as something here on probation, not as something that has arrived here by fluke - but you can begin to feel your own existence as absolutely fundamental.
I am not trying to sell you on this idea in the sense of converting you to it, I want you to play with it. I want you to think of its possibilities, I am not trying to prove it. I am just putting it forward as a possibility of life to think about. So then, let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream you wanted to dream, and that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time, or any length of time you wanted to have.
And you would, naturally, as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive. And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each you would say “Well that was pretty great. But now let’s have a surprise, let’s have a dream which isn’t under control, where something is gonna happen to me that I don’t know what it's gonna be."
And you would dig that and would come out of that and you would say “Wow that was a close shave, wasn’t it?”. Then you would get more and more adventurous and you would make further- and further-out gambles what you would dream. And finally, you would dream where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today.
That would be within the infinite multiplicity of choices you would have. Of playing that you weren't God, because the whole nature of the godhead, according to this idea, is to play that he is not. So in this idea then, everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality, not God in a politically kingly sense, but god in the sense of being the self, the deep-down basic whatever there is. And you are all that, only you are pretending you are not.
