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The Way of Zen
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In his definitive introduction to Zen Buddhism, Alan Watts explains the principles and practices of this ancient religion to Western readers. With a rare combination of freshness and lucidity, he delves into the origins and history of Zen to explain what it means for the world today with incredible clarity. Watts saw Zen as “one of the most precious gifts of Asia to the wo
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Paperback, 236 pages
Published
January 26th 1999
by Vintage
(first published 1957)
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In terms of immediate perception, when we look for things there is nothing but mind, and when we look for mind there is nothing but things. For a moment we are paralyzed, because it seems that we have no basis for action, no ground under foot from which to take a jump. But this is the way it always was, and in the next moment we find ourselves as free to act, speak, and think as ever, yet in a strange and miraculous new world from which “self” and “other,” “mind” and “things” have vanished. I...more

In The Way of Zen, Alan Watts introduces us to Zen Buddhism and to some extend Taoism to the average John and Jane. The history and background of Zen and Taoism in part one helps us understand the cultural contexts behind these philosophies: how Taoism developed in China, how Buddhism spread to China and how Zen developed in China and spread to Japan.

Watts explains Zen, to the extend that it can be explained, so that we can understand it, to the extend we should try to understand it. Though Ze ...more

Watts explains Zen, to the extend that it can be explained, so that we can understand it, to the extend we should try to understand it. Though Ze ...more

I see the Way of Zen not so much as an exposition of a secularized version of Zen Buddhism (or Eastern thought more generally), explained in a manner easily understood by Westerners (which it is), but more as an accoutrement to Eastern spiritual practices like meditation and other numinous experiences derived from Eastern thought. This book is easily as good as anything I've read on spirituality, and probably the very best. It is important to read between the lines in this book if the full benef
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Alan Watts' "The Way of Zen" influenced me in my 20's. If there's nothing better out there, this is a useful book for everybody. But you don't have to go from where you are to Zen Buddhism to find "the Way". Sufism includes a lot of Zen principles, especially the Mullah Nasr-ad-Din stories. Also African folk tales like Ananse Tales, Ananse being a clever spider, with an upside down interpretation of things like a spider would naturally have.
I would think Jesus himself might have been influenced ...more
I would think Jesus himself might have been influenced ...more

It might be that I am a little too generous with my stars here, but this was the first book on Japanese (and Chinese) philosophy that I ever read. I was very much taken with Watts' attitude - respect without too much enthusiasm, no effort to convert the reader into anything, but also no self-inflicted distance that would view the subject matter entirely as a topic of purely academic interest. Of course, Japanese studies have advanced considerably from those days, important texts have been transl
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The Way of Zen [1957] – ★★★★★
“…the true practice of Zen is no practice, that is, the seeming paradox of being a Buddha without intending to be a Buddha” [1957: 95, 96]. “The basic position of Zen is that it has nothing to say, nothing to teach. The truth of Buddhism is so self-evident, so obvious that it is, if anything, concealed by explaining it” [1957: 163].
This non-fiction book by a British philosopher and writer illuminates one of the least understood concepts in the world – Zen. Patiently, ...more
“…the true practice of Zen is no practice, that is, the seeming paradox of being a Buddha without intending to be a Buddha” [1957: 95, 96]. “The basic position of Zen is that it has nothing to say, nothing to teach. The truth of Buddhism is so self-evident, so obvious that it is, if anything, concealed by explaining it” [1957: 163].
This non-fiction book by a British philosopher and writer illuminates one of the least understood concepts in the world – Zen. Patiently, ...more

I’ve long been fascinated from afar by Zen Buddhism, while knowing essentially nothing about it. (I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance years ago, but that’s about it.) I heard good things about this book, so I thought I’d read it to give myself a beginner’s education about Zen.
The Way of Zen is a good short introduction to Zen. In the first half of the book, Watts explores the Taoist and Buddhist roots of Zen and describes how Zen developed from those roots. In the second half, he tr ...more
The Way of Zen is a good short introduction to Zen. In the first half of the book, Watts explores the Taoist and Buddhist roots of Zen and describes how Zen developed from those roots. In the second half, he tr ...more

Jun 11, 2012
A
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2012,
gnosticism-mysticism-esotericism
I picked this up on a whim whilst searching for books on Buddhism at the library. Actually, an online friend years ago had mentioned Watts among several other recommendations on the subject of Buddhism, so as I was searching this one immediately popped out. I wasn't interested in reading about Zen specifically, but then it's not something I know a ton about and the book was a pretty reasonable length, so why not?
I'm glad I got this book, because now I feel much more knowledgeable and conversant ...more
I'm glad I got this book, because now I feel much more knowledgeable and conversant ...more

Written in Watts' eminently readable attractive prose style, concise and provocative, The Way of Zen has annoyed American practitioners since its 1957 publication. Philip Kapleau went out of his way to denounce it in the introduction to his Three Pillars of Zen for downplaying zazen.
Watts' critique of zazen does in fact have merit, to the extent that Buddhadharma is reduced to sitting and nothing else. The other very interesting point he makes in his chapter on meditation is the introduction of ...more
Watts' critique of zazen does in fact have merit, to the extent that Buddhadharma is reduced to sitting and nothing else. The other very interesting point he makes in his chapter on meditation is the introduction of ...more

Great book for an introduction to Zen.

It's amazing how many books have been written about Zen in the West, since almost all of them admit right off the bat that Zen cannot be explained, at least in words. It might seem like a futile endeavor, and yet we can't help both writing and reading them. But if Zen, and Buddhism in general is about avoiding extremes, then it's not the heresy it appears to be. We just have to remember that a book, like anything else, is not the thing itself. It's a measurement, an aspect of "conventional" wisd
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One of the first books that taught me how to think philosophically about the world around me. Watts has been an inspiration to me and I turn to his work to gain perspective when times are tough, or even when times are going well and I need something to focus my mind again. I love how he can synthesize complex philosophical topics in a way that anyone, even the uninitiated could really feel comfortable discussing.
"We have come to feel ourselves as centers of a very, very, tender, sensitive, vuln ...more
"We have come to feel ourselves as centers of a very, very, tender, sensitive, vuln ...more

Great exposition of Zen Buddhism, its history, philosophy, practice, and cultural/artistic influences. Alan Watts is definitely an awesome writer who's capable of not only clearly explaining the intricate concepts foreign to Western sensibility but also respecting and handling fine linguistic and conceptual differences between cultures. Aside from his gripes with Soto and Rinzai Zen practice resembling boarding school discipline, I loved it, especially Zen's Chinese and Indian philosophical root
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I have read this book in the hopes of gaining some background knowledge on Zen Buddhism, to help me in my studies of Japanese Art. Although the book is indeed very thorough and supplies a wealth of knowledge of the origin of Zen and of Buddhism as a whole, before moving on to the specifics of its appliance to the arts in China and Japan, it is written in such a way that is often hard for the uninitiated to follow and understand. Buddhism being as it is foreign to most Westerners, the Indian voca
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Zen tangles, paintings, sayings, haiku, made me ever so curious about Zen. Also, a few books I read recently set in China and Bhutan, and a few non-fictions gave a glimpse of the liberal and understanding religion of Buddhism. Alan Watts has cleaved the book into two halves, the first half explains the (possible) origins of Zen and the second half is about practices, forms, masters, and art. Both the parts were equally critical and with this thorough introduction through the eyes of a westerner,
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Not going to lie, a lot of it was over my head. I still thoroughly enjoyed it.

For close to ten years I had had the question of what consciousness is on my mind and been looking for a satisfactory answer. Far from finding a satisfactory answer, I hardly ever even found a satisfactory question! It is all too common for those who make attempts at this question to (intentionally or unintentionally) replace what is commonly called ``the hard problem of consciousness" with something that conveniently omits the core of the problem, namely how subjective experience comes to be, p
...more

Aside from a few generalizations I'm not very knowledgeable about Buddhism, Zen, or any of its other manifestations. With that in mind, I thought Watts' relatively short book was a good introduction to Zen. The first part is a learned examination of its history and relationship with other strains of Buddhism, and the second a closer look at what makes up a Zen approach to reality.
At the heart of Zen is a realization that our world is a made up of processes, of movement, especially in time, rat ...more
At the heart of Zen is a realization that our world is a made up of processes, of movement, especially in time, rat ...more

This is the first real exposure I've had to Alan Watts. I've read a few books about Buddhism this year and I feel like this was, far and away, the best. He covers a lot of ground in a little bit of time and he's a really gifted communicator. Heady concepts become really understandable in his hands. Considering most diehard fans of his I've met can be pretty head-in-the-clouds and/or dogmatically New Agey, I really appreciated how his treatment of Zen Buddhism was done in a down-to-earth, open-pa
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Wow! This little book is amazing in its efficiency. It takes a philosophical topic that is in every way foreign to the modern Western mind. It provides history, philosophy, practice and art criticism - in 201 pages total! The book is easy to consume but satisfying in its content. p.s. I love the topic.

Jun 11, 2014
Teo 2050
rated it
it was amazing
Recommends it for:
Anyone interested in a witty interpretation of Zen for the West
Recommended to Teo 2050 by:
Koi
Shelves:
_contents,
_read-and-heard,
resilience,
if-these-were-combined,
dissonance,
_audio,
y15,
rated-5,
y20q3,
y14q3
2014.07.21–2014.07.21,
2015.07.28–2015.08.04,
2020.08.08–2020.08.22
––––––––––––
2020: This is still one of my favorite books on Zen. I loved the narration by Sean Runnette.
Another quote from this time around:
The problem of “what” the mind is can now be seen to be the same as the problem of “what” the real world is. It cannot be answered, for every “what” is a class, and we cannot classify the classifier.
––––––––––––
2015:
Update after listening to Patrick Horgan’s unabridged narration: This felt to m ...more
2015.07.28–2015.08.04,
2020.08.08–2020.08.22
––––––––––––
2020: This is still one of my favorite books on Zen. I loved the narration by Sean Runnette.
Another quote from this time around:
The problem of “what” the mind is can now be seen to be the same as the problem of “what” the real world is. It cannot be answered, for every “what” is a class, and we cannot classify the classifier.
––––––––––––
2015:
Update after listening to Patrick Horgan’s unabridged narration: This felt to m ...more

My impression of Watts before reading this book was he was sort of this weird guy who just said deep-sounding things that appealed to stoners. Maybe he is, but in this book I didn't really get that feeling. This is a fairly serious scholarly work, it seems, on Zen Buddhism, both theoretically and practically. I felt like the first part was better than the second part, but both parts are good and worth reading.
Very interesting stuff, and helped re-ignite an interest for Buddhism and Eastern philo ...more
Very interesting stuff, and helped re-ignite an interest for Buddhism and Eastern philo ...more

The historical overview of Zen's origins was immensely helpful. I've never been clear on how the various strains of Buddhist thought interrelate—the cultural forms/expressions of it in India, China, and Japan are each so nuanced—but Watts makes the puzzle pieces easier to see, even if scholars may still disagree on how exactly they fit together during certain time periods.
...more

Watts provides a good history and summary of Zen's origins and its practices.
According to Watts, Zen involves the breaking of the egoistic will (by letting go of its attempt to control) and following the principle of non-grasping to experience liberaion, "the aimless, self-sufficient life of the 'eternal now,'" and "seeing reality directly, in its 'suchness.'" One does not seek this end, for seeking is just another form of "grasping." "To put it another way," he writes, "one does not practice Z ...more
According to Watts, Zen involves the breaking of the egoistic will (by letting go of its attempt to control) and following the principle of non-grasping to experience liberaion, "the aimless, self-sufficient life of the 'eternal now,'" and "seeing reality directly, in its 'suchness.'" One does not seek this end, for seeking is just another form of "grasping." "To put it another way," he writes, "one does not practice Z ...more

I've read a lot about Zen over the years, beginning during my Asian Studies degree at university 40 years ago. I have always had a good intellectual grasp of what was being put to me but somehow I didn't really have a sense of connection. This book delivers that sense of connection. It may be the wider reading I have done recently or my daily "practice" of meditation or Watts' incisive and distinctive style of writing or a combination of all and other factors. Whatever! Who cares? This is a grea
...more

Although some people have criticised Watts' take on Buddhism -specifically his understanding of the role of zazen, "The Way of Zen" is still an excellent overview for the Western reader. Concepts in Buddhism such as karma, emptiness and rebirth are notoriously elusive for those used to the Judeo-Christian black-white good-bad dichotomies, and Alan Watts has a true gift for coming up with clear, concise illustrations to explain these ideas.
The book is divided into two sections: The first is Backg ...more
The book is divided into two sections: The first is Backg ...more

Great insights can be obtained while reading this book which is why I think it is worth a lot. The beginning of the book I found a little hard to get trough because I had a hard time reconstructing the historical narative of Watts in my own mind, but fortunately it is sprinkled with clear toughts and great lessons. The rest of the book was very readable to me. A great many points of pause to reflect upon the given information or on the experience the words evoke makes me value this book very muc
...more
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Alan Wilson Watts was a British philosopher, writer and speaker, who held both a Master's in Theology and a Doctorate of Divinity. Famous for his research on comparative religion, he was best known as an interpreter and popularizer of Asian philosophies for a Western audience. He wrote over 25 books and numerous articles on subjects such as personal identity, the true nature of reality, higher con
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