The Way of Zen by Alan Wilson Watts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Alan Watts is considered by many as the bringer of eastern philosophy to the west, a Marco Polo or Carlos Castañeda of Zen and Buddhism. This honour is by no means unwarranted; I don’t think I’ve ever read anything on the subject which was this clear or in which the author read as if he really knew what he was talking about. Raymond Smullyan and Ray Grigg come close but Alan Watts takes the cake if only because he did it decades before anyone else. I honestly can’t think of anyone else who has notes on the subject in the original chinese ideograms (not that I’ve read that many books on all this) and goes into so much detail –sometimes just a bit too much– on all the different ideas and traditions. By the end it’s all come nicely together but the occasional trudging robs The Way of Zen from its fifth star. This guy obviously had had an inside look on everything he wrote about but at times his explanations were a bit too dense. Could it have been any other way?
Read The Way of Zen and feel as if you are one step closer to understanding the whole philosophy of Taoism, Buddhism and Zen. Understanding is not knowing and being mindful about it defeats the whole purpose, but it’s a start for going beyond the stereotypes and for actually trying to understand these completely foreign philosophies that are gradually disappearing even in their lands of origin. As Smullyan puts it: just read chapter 1 of The Way of Zen in which he introduces Taoism. If you like it, chances are you’re going to find the rest of the book equally agreeable, highlight- and nod-worthy.
I especially liked the parts in which he explained Zen’s connection to haiku, calligraphy and the ceremonial serving of tea. Quite nice and cosy.
It’s quite appropriate that this book played no small part in the cultural revolutions of the ’60s. One has to wonder though why no reconciliators of western and eastern mentalities haven’t really made a difference since.
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