The Way of Zen

In recent years, I've slowly transitioned from someone who was apathetic (if not a bit antagonistic) towards religion in my younger years to a more complicated place. I still wouldn't call myself a believer in any sense, but maybe it's a fact of aging that you notice how certain religious ideas are just *right* in a way that their secular equivalents just can't match. I think the last 10 or so years in the West have presented lots of challenges to the Good Ole Fashioned Liberal Mindset (GOFLM) that I and many of my ilk had previously ascribed to, as much as we may have denied that affiliation. At some point, humanity will have to come to terms with the fact that we can't know everything, and that actually, we shouldn't. I think the show more greatest block that the religious mindset sets out for this kind of person is that there are some insurmountable limits on life and society, and no matter how much "progress" we have, we won't over come them.
The Zen tradition offers lots of interesting ideas to someone caught at this intellectual crossroads. Whereas other religions might try to scare or threaten people into accepting their version of the limits on progress, Zen has no such aspirations. It encourages not only submission to the limits, but a kind of ecstatic appreciation of the beauty that comes from realizing the pitiful extent of which our attempts to control the world actually goes. The GOFLM has brought some freedom for some oppressed people, and has liberated the modern mind from much of the pointless self-flagellation that people in the past used to subject themselves to simply for being different. This "liberation" however has also done much to bound us up in ropes of our own weaving - we are so "conscious" of what we think is making us tick, and so beholden to the manipulative cries to "be ourselves" that we don't even realize that we are obsessing over a phantom.
Zen teaches us to stop spreading our ego out into the diaphanous wraith that tuggings of the world are constants trying to turn us into. When you clear the air of the smog of the past and the haze of the future, you realize that we've all become prisoners of time. I can't imagine what the writers and thinkers that formulated Zen a thousand years ago would think of the way the world has become even more obsessed with time, where so much is built upon clock-ins and clock-outs, chiming alarms, projections and analysis. Zen calls on us to recognize not only that we've become prisoners of time, but also that the prison is completely of our own making, and that with some reflection, it just might be possible to stroll right out of the cell without anyone to stop you.
This line of thinking is, of course, at odds with the reality of how our world is set up in 2023. One thing that makes this book special is the extensive space that Watts spends explaining how the precursors of Zen influenced it, especially Daoism. I remember reading the Dao De Jing in high school and feeling conflicted about a part where Lao Zi talks about how one should deal with an invading army. Lay down your arms, it says, don't resist. The Dao is moving and it is pointless to fight against it. This can feel like the kind of fatalism that comes packed into so many traditions of religious thought, a passivity anathema to the modern mind which is told that it is capable of anything. And yet to fight back is to propagate the violence that is counter to the goal that people actually want: peace. Zen might say that the injustices of the world today, which would seem to be a huge barrier to the kind of liberation from suffering that is its goal, are the result of everyone simply doing too much. To fight against what you see as wrong is also doing too much, just as those who are committing the wrongdoing are doing too much. The idea of a struggle is merely another endless chain of contingency, reliant to its core on false concepts of past and future that are lashing us to the wheel of suffering.
One cool thing about Zen that Watts devotes a whole chapter to is that unlike other religions, to be into the aesthetics of Zen is effectively to be into Zen itself. To ponder a work of a Zen master is to lean towards satori, to ape the Zen lifestyle is to be its most genuine practitioner. Thus, the Zen tradition again sets itself apart from other religious traditions that through ideas of conversion or faith merely bind themselves up in the cage of identity that brings us so much pain. show less

The Way of Zen begins as a succinct guide through the histories of Buddhism and Taoism leading up to the development of Zen Buddhism, which drew deeply from both traditions. It then goes on to paint a broad but insightful picture of Zen as it was and is practiced, both as a religion and as an element of diverse East Asian arts and disciplines. Watts's narrative clears away the mystery while enhancing the mystique of Zen.Since the first publication of this book in 1957, Zen Buddhism has become firmly established in the West. As Zen has taken root in Western soil, it has incorporated much of the attitude and approach set forth by Watts in The Way of Zen , which remains one of the most important introductory books in Western Zen."No one show more has given us such a concise . . . introduction to the whole history of this Far Eastern development of Buddhist thought as Alan Watts, in the present, highly readable work." --Joseph Campbell show less

Be prepared to read this 'instruction' manual a few times. There is great wisdom to be had here but it is a little bit like listening to Bertrand Russel teach about common sense. What starts out as a historical overview of Zen ends up becoming a philosophical explanation and investigation into the various forms of Zen and how they logically work and don't work. It is all there, all the information needed, but you might spend a lifetime decoding it. It will take you several lifetimes learning to practice. Not bad for a book of only 256 pages.

What struck me as peculiar was how Alan Watts' written voice is not as elegant and clear as his speaking voice. That makes me wonder what would have happened if he had read the book out loud and if show more that would have changed the contents. I'm convinced that Mr. Watts had the capability of greatly simplifying and clarifying the work but for some reason opted to compete with academics in the field of philosophy. Because that is the only reason I can see for the peculiar literary style found in the dense pages.

I will read the book many times more but for now all I've learned is how the Indian and Asian forms of Buddhism differ. show less

I found this to be more difficult than I expected, though there were parts that switched on light bulbs for me. I liked the last chapter best, about Zen art. Much of the book refers to the impossibility of explaining Zen or attaining enlightenment with verbal instruction, so the concept of using art, such as paintings, poems, ceramics & gardens, to put us on a path to understanding makes sense. I feel I understand better how Zen is reflected in art.

LibraryThing Review:
Interesting even for someone who already knows a bit about Zen from other authors, with its description of the historical influence of Tao (and Confucianism) on the philosophy, and giving the reader a good idea of its paradoxicality. Perhaps the book could expatiate a bit on how it's understood and practised by common people, not just monks &c.


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 show more world,” and in The Way of Zen he gives this gift to readers everywhere. show less

I'm not a huge Watts fan - usually too esoteric for me. But this is a great introduction into Eastern Philosophy. He discusses several major currents in Eastern religious philosophy - from Taoism, Hinduism, the different 'brands' of Buddhism to finally Zen. What I found astonishing about the book is that it does not merely explain - or not explain - but rather give a feeling of what Zen is all about - in true Zen fashion. I keep rereading this one, just to remind myself of its profound insights.

A very difficult book. Alan Watts is clearly convinced that Zen is a great truth and superior in many ways to western thought, but he is not convincing. Much of the problem is tendentiousness. Western thought is said to be limited by mind body dualism, and Zen liberated by using the ""peripheral vision of the mind"" to grasp essential truths about existence. But is western thought limited by the envisioning of a world separate from the self, or emboldened to manipulate that world rather than allowing it to simply exist? The historical summary of thought is confusing, and the repetition of the koans of Zen teaching simply mysterious. Is it really useful to have sitting meditation when monks are beaten to stay awake, or is it, as Watts show more admits, a response to the constraints of oriental politeness? I plan to revisit this book another time, since the simplicity of the doctrine and its lack of a god-centered view of reality is appealing, but I have not yet been able to separate the sensation of satori from terminal boredom. show less