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What Is Zen?
A fervent, lifelong student of Zen, Alan Watts shows us that it is both an experience — a singular, powerful moment of realization — and a simple way of life, with an awareness that affects every moment of every day. Adopted by mainstream America in a way that carries only a vague association of its roots in Zen Buddhism, Alan Watts makes it clear that any exploration of Zen must understand and embrace its roots as a form of Buddhist practice derived from its Chinese and East Indian sources.Examining the background of Zen in East Indian religion, Watts shows us its evolution through the religion of China. Zen is a synthesis of the contemplative insight of Indian religion and the dynamic liveliness of Taoism as they came together in the pragmatic, practical environment of Confucian China. Watts gives us great insight into the living moment of satori and the release of nirvana, as well as the methods of meditation that are current today, and the influence of Zen culturally in the arts of painting and pottery.
128 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 10, 2000
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About the author
Alan W. Watts
255 books7,976 followersAlan 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 consciousness, the meaning of life, concepts and images of God and the non-material pursuit of happiness. In his books he relates his experience to scientific knowledge and to the teachings of Eastern and Western religion and philosophy.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
September 16, 2015
Any book by Alan Watts is a gem. And this another one of them.
Zen is an experience. It is a special transmission outside scriptures which does not stand upon words. Zen teachings can be likened to "the finger pointing at the moon". And do not confuse the finger pointing at the moon, for the moon itself (actually that's the mistake most people commit), because that is absurd, isn't it? Similarly don't confuse words (or the sound of it) for the teaching. Words, just like the finger, are the pointer towards the Truth. They are nothing in themselves, and they don't matter once their purpose is served.
Zen’s own principles are put in four concise lines:
A special transmission outside the scriptures
No dependence upon words and letters,
Direct pointing at the soul of man
Seeing into one’s nature and attainment of Buddhahood.
August 14, 2021
É um bom livro, trás reflexões necessárias… Mas muitas afirmações do autor me incomodaram 🥴
July 21, 2014
This is a short fast read of seminars conducted by Alan Watts. I love listening to his audio online. I am getting into his reading and books to further dive deeper into Zen. I don't want to be a Buddhist and am not changing faith. What I am doing is trying to find that sense of living in the now and being more present in my life. This book is a great starting point. It is not too deep, but deep enough to give pause to think about how you view things in your own life. A great read to slow down and rethink some things in your life. Good for anyone to read at least once. I won't list all the quotes I love in this book, but I will leave you with one that is right away in the book. "Zen is the method of rediscovering the experience of being alive." I think that we all need to reset our batteries and refocus on what it means to be alive and we can get sucked into a narrow mindset that prevents us from really being in the moment.
http://youtu.be/-zHytsrU9XA
http://youtu.be/-zHytsrU9XA
December 14, 2010
The authority on ancient eastern religions, Alan Watts, presents a conversational approach to zen buddhism while providing a historical overview. Great book to own and reread. You'll be surprised at the ending.
July 27, 2012
What can you even say about a book like this? Watts is an excellent teacher and lecturer. Thanks to him I have a fairly solid conception of Zen. The hard part is working to obtain such a state or awareness.
April 26, 2011
Essential information, clearly and cleverly explained.
January 29, 2023
""To be or not to be" is not the question - because you can't have one without the other! Not being implies being; just as being implies not being."
October 3, 2021
Alan Watts was brilliant. He was also aloof, believing his philosophy to exist in a vacuum. Years before the idea of white privilege hit the masses (but also during a time in which minorities very much knew that privilege existed), his discussion on the past not having to impact your future reeks of ignorance of most sociological studies.
Having said that - his ideas of what zen IS, is still brilliantly rendered here. His humor and straight forward nature is here to be seen, and sometimes he goes so far out on the esoteric limb that I’m afraid it will break, but I like that sometimes.
Not Alan’s best work but a great, short read.
Having said that - his ideas of what zen IS, is still brilliantly rendered here. His humor and straight forward nature is here to be seen, and sometimes he goes so far out on the esoteric limb that I’m afraid it will break, but I like that sometimes.
Not Alan’s best work but a great, short read.
February 16, 2015
Once again, I love Alan Watts. This volume is short and in no way encompasses every facet of Zen tradition. However, it does, in my opinion, cover the most important ones. I don't know how it would read to someone with no prior experience with Zen however. It may appear to rush through explanations and leave the reader dissatisfied and more curious than when she or he began. But then again, maybe that is the point. Either way, it is a wonderfully cogent little book.
July 24, 2009
If you are interested at all in Zen Buddhism, I would recommend this book. I am becoming a fan of Alan Watts and just started another Zen book by him afterwards because this one was so good. It will make you think.
January 8, 2010
Great book on zen. Explains everything in his Watts way. The best way it can be explained.
May 16, 2012
The best way for western minded folk to intro to zen
July 8, 2014
a nice little introduction to zen perspectives.
November 23, 2014
Intro to zen for westerners. Nice.
June 22, 2015
a simple, easy to read book, but left me with some good thoughts to ponder.
October 19, 2022
Personal rating - 6/10, book's intentions rating - 9/10, overall ~7/10.
Watts has a very conversational tone throughout the work and purposefully oscillates from being an outsider who understands Zen to a Western insider in a short and surface-level description of Zen for his Western audience's benefit. I can appreciate this desire to make Zen as convincing as possible to the West, but so much is dismissively taken to be true that it borders on polemical.
In one section he writes of the individual as being merely a piece of-a-piece, which he claims is proven to be true by biology and physics in how humanity relates to the ecosystem. But these systems and natural structures could just as well be seen as individuals coincidentally working in tandem and through human observation be rationalized as an organism. In another section he writes of the "Christian ego" as being a defunct and outdated social institution, and in another he writes of how Westerners focus too much on the forefront and ignore the background, and thus misunderstand space. These points aren't entirely wrong, but they mostly are. Any quick glance into Christian theology will highlight the destruction of the self, and likewise in art will see the importance of utilizing the whole canvas. Also, his desire for Heraclitus to have been the foundation of philosophy for the West, as opposed to Aristotle, because of the similarity of some of his views with Zen comes off like an Eastern fetish, and doesn't even play well into his framing, considering he equates Zen to a lack of verbalizing, yet Heraclitus himself was a proto-sophist.
If you can overlook these points, it is a decent, short read. I would say it is a very good description of Zen, since it genuinely caused me to pause and contemplate on it, but I have never read anything else about Zen, and by Watts' own admission Zen is not something to be understood by concepts.
Watts has a very conversational tone throughout the work and purposefully oscillates from being an outsider who understands Zen to a Western insider in a short and surface-level description of Zen for his Western audience's benefit. I can appreciate this desire to make Zen as convincing as possible to the West, but so much is dismissively taken to be true that it borders on polemical.
In one section he writes of the individual as being merely a piece of-a-piece, which he claims is proven to be true by biology and physics in how humanity relates to the ecosystem. But these systems and natural structures could just as well be seen as individuals coincidentally working in tandem and through human observation be rationalized as an organism. In another section he writes of the "Christian ego" as being a defunct and outdated social institution, and in another he writes of how Westerners focus too much on the forefront and ignore the background, and thus misunderstand space. These points aren't entirely wrong, but they mostly are. Any quick glance into Christian theology will highlight the destruction of the self, and likewise in art will see the importance of utilizing the whole canvas. Also, his desire for Heraclitus to have been the foundation of philosophy for the West, as opposed to Aristotle, because of the similarity of some of his views with Zen comes off like an Eastern fetish, and doesn't even play well into his framing, considering he equates Zen to a lack of verbalizing, yet Heraclitus himself was a proto-sophist.
If you can overlook these points, it is a decent, short read. I would say it is a very good description of Zen, since it genuinely caused me to pause and contemplate on it, but I have never read anything else about Zen, and by Watts' own admission Zen is not something to be understood by concepts.
September 17, 2020
As always, Watts is a master teacher. What is Zen? touches on peaks of Zen philosophy, without focusing on history or practice or differences in diverse Zen paths. The book, largely from talks with friends in the last years of Watt's life, reads like a series of lectures.
This is a superb introduction for beginners to Zen philosophy, while the instructional - informative - modality left me feeling I did not receive from the writer's personal experience, but his theory about Zen. I cannot say Watts did not know by experience what he speaks of in this work, but, for me, it lacked a sense of the communication of the spirit of Zen that seems to flow through some writers writing of the path of their devotion. That is, Watts, to me, here speaks expertly about Zen, but not from Zen - and, possibly, that was his purpose.
This is a superb introduction for beginners to Zen philosophy, while the instructional - informative - modality left me feeling I did not receive from the writer's personal experience, but his theory about Zen. I cannot say Watts did not know by experience what he speaks of in this work, but, for me, it lacked a sense of the communication of the spirit of Zen that seems to flow through some writers writing of the path of their devotion. That is, Watts, to me, here speaks expertly about Zen, but not from Zen - and, possibly, that was his purpose.
October 7, 2020
I love Alan Watts. It takes a Westerner to impart the differences in Eastern and Western thought, and walk us through the ways that our social institutions (any and every concept that we label) can obstruct us from what really IS and a sensational experience of being. He reminds us that sometimes it's good to just set our measurements and classifications down for awhile and re-aquaint ourselves with what it feels like to just BE, and how that may shift our assumption of separateness (which Westerners couldn't need more.)
Read this next to an open window with a soft breeze in the fall with a cup of tea *chef's kiss*
Read this next to an open window with a soft breeze in the fall with a cup of tea *chef's kiss*
July 27, 2025
A good introduction. Brief, perhaps too brief. The book is divided into three sections. Each introducing some key aspect of Buddhist thought and practice. Some passages could use more explication. In some sections he makes statements which contradict his asserstion in a following or previous section. This could likely be resolved in a more thorough discussion, which one can find in other, more detailed, more precise, studies of Buddhism.
As an introduction which leads to further reading and study this is a good book. But on its own it is insufficient to provide even a thourogh understanding of the basics.
As an introduction which leads to further reading and study this is a good book. But on its own it is insufficient to provide even a thourogh understanding of the basics.
March 17, 2023
هذا الكتاب نتاج محاضرات ألقاها آلان واتس من على قاربه في كاليفورنيا، فهو ليس كتاب بالمعنى الحرفي، وهذا يعكس إيمان آلان واتس بأن لا يمكن الكتابة عن الزِن أو حتى تعلمها، يمكنك فقط نقلها عبر جلسات التدبر والتأمل وحوارات المعلم. الزن ليس المفترض أن تعتبر دين، أو فلسفة يطول الحديث عنها بلا تطبيق، هي تجربة تحس بها، "طريقة لاختبار الحياة كما هي".
الزن والطاوية والبوذية هي فلسفات آسيوية قد تفهمها بلحظات لأنك تراها تشرح مفهوم طبيعي وحقيقي وقد تقضي سنوات تلاحق هذي المفاهيم وتدرسها بدون إدراك حقيقي لمعناها. يشبه الأمر محاولة الإمساك بشبح يضيع منك باستمرار، لمحات من الضوء تظهر سريعًا وتختفي سريعًا.
تعرفت على آلان واتس وتقاطعت مع الفلسفات الشرقية بصورة عامة أول مرة قبل ٣ سنوات من قبل صديقتان اثنتان ولا أظن إني فهمتها بالكامل، كنت أراها تحمل مفاهيم مثيرة للاهتمام آنذاك ولكن لم استثمر في هذه المعرفة أكثر من فيديوهات يوتيوب معدودة ومحادثات عشوائية مع صديقات شغوفات بالفلسفات الشرقية، فعندما وجدت ترجمات عربية لمحاضرات آلان واتس من قبل دار الخيال عاد اهتمامي وتحمست للعودة لرحلة البحث عن طريقة صحيحة لعيش هذه الحياة والتعامل مع مشاقها وكيف يمكن للزن المساعدة.
الزن والطاوية والبوذية هي فلسفات آسيوية قد تفهمها بلحظات لأنك تراها تشرح مفهوم طبيعي وحقيقي وقد تقضي سنوات تلاحق هذي المفاهيم وتدرسها بدون إدراك حقيقي لمعناها. يشبه الأمر محاولة الإمساك بشبح يضيع منك باستمرار، لمحات من الضوء تظهر سريعًا وتختفي سريعًا.
تعرفت على آلان واتس وتقاطعت مع الفلسفات الشرقية بصورة عامة أول مرة قبل ٣ سنوات من قبل صديقتان اثنتان ولا أظن إني فهمتها بالكامل، كنت أراها تحمل مفاهيم مثيرة للاهتمام آنذاك ولكن لم استثمر في هذه المعرفة أكثر من فيديوهات يوتيوب معدودة ومحادثات عشوائية مع صديقات شغوفات بالفلسفات الشرقية، فعندما وجدت ترجمات عربية لمحاضرات آلان واتس من قبل دار الخيال عاد اهتمامي وتحمست للعودة لرحلة البحث عن طريقة صحيحة لعيش هذه الحياة والتعامل مع مشاقها وكيف يمكن للزن المساعدة.
April 29, 2020
I bought this book some years ago. I have picked it up a few times and read a little and then moved on. This time I have persevered and am glad that I did.
The book would make an excellent second Zen book. Start with a Zen for learners type volume and then let Alan Watts draw you in further. Drawing you in is exactly what he does, and in a rather intriguing manner. He makes you want to try it, which I think I will.
The book would make an excellent second Zen book. Start with a Zen for learners type volume and then let Alan Watts draw you in further. Drawing you in is exactly what he does, and in a rather intriguing manner. He makes you want to try it, which I think I will.
December 21, 2018
Pretty decent, bite-sized Alan Watts experience. Even if you’ve read or heard his other works, there still some pretty good, unique nuggets to be read.
“Your mind is not in your head, your head is in your mind.”
“When you get free from certain fixed concepts of the way the world is, you find it is far more subtle, and far more miraculous, than you thought it was.”
“Your mind is not in your head, your head is in your mind.”
“When you get free from certain fixed concepts of the way the world is, you find it is far more subtle, and far more miraculous, than you thought it was.”
January 21, 2022
Wonderful stuff. Read closely and slowly, reflecting along the way. A great way to boost the meditation practice and the start of a New Year and appreciate the potential and value of Zen and meditation.
July 14, 2023
This book is a short compilation of some of Alan Watt’s lectures. It is an east read which acts as a great introduction to the art of zen, especially for people who are more users to the teachings of the west.
January 4, 2019
A helpful and entertaining book, I'm overwhelmed but that's just a feeling, and this feedback is just a thought and I'll leave it there.
March 13, 2019
Powerful and engaging.
November 7, 2020
Whatever your thoughts on Mr Watts... His dreams of consciousness are very well written indeed.
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May 15, 2021Mnogo prepisanih odlomaka, mnogo osvrtanja i razmišljanja... Jasno napisano, pristupačno, inspirativno. Prva knjiga
Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews