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A review by thomasgoddard
The Way of Zen by Alan Watts
4.0
It's hard to imagine a world before New Age spiritualism took hold. At least, in the West. But there was a time.
Today, If you're a young person it appears on your radar as a sort of vague anti-religious (Abrahamic) subcultural aspect. A rite of adolescence.Then it grows in proportion to your wealth. If you're from a family with money, you take a gap year in Thailand and assume that proximity allows for some sort of osmotic process. You convince yourself you've absorbed Zen. Nothing could be further from the truth. Or, if you are from less affluent spheres (me), you pick up books written by Westerners that purport to extol the virtues of Zen and fall long short. You come away with an idea of it being Karmic and cyclical and very much about a journey with no clear destination beyond an awareness of a state of being long abstracted from your lived experience.
That process, and the vapid shallow form of self-help literature, has helped to warp most of the treasure of Eastern thinking. Polluting it into a bastardised mutated form of itself. A sort of anti-zen.
Well, if that frustrates you as much as it does me... Alan Watts is a great place to start... and I do mean start! Because Watts himself is seen, in a lot of circles, as part of that same problem. But I feel that it was not through lack of a concerted effort on his part to translate for us.
I find Watts an incredibly soothing and amusing voice. It almost makes me forget every encounter I’ve had with young people obsessed with Dharma (sans Greg) and Yoga and Crystals and all that stuff.
Of course, no offence meant to those who follow those things. Not in the genuine sense anyway. It is more like the feeling you get when you hear someone obsessed with the ‘wrong’ sort of music, you get me? Like if you’re into pop and they insist on rock music at the engagement party and so you have to just sit there seething in an atmosphere of grumpiness. With no true anger really, just a proximal discomfort you’ll soon get distracted from.
Anyway, Watts... I think there is an ASMR or certainly an electronica genre of music entirely devoted to slapping a soundbite of his teachings into the mix. I used to listen to a lot of his lecturers on an old MP3 player in order to sleep when my anxiety maxed out.
Today there are far better writers on the topic of Zen. Voices that offer a more... intimate first hand experience... but for my money Watts is still a lovely indulgence for the half-hearted monks that most of us are, deep down. He’ll have you giggling and musing in no time. Very much a recommendation.
Today, If you're a young person it appears on your radar as a sort of vague anti-religious (Abrahamic) subcultural aspect. A rite of adolescence.Then it grows in proportion to your wealth. If you're from a family with money, you take a gap year in Thailand and assume that proximity allows for some sort of osmotic process. You convince yourself you've absorbed Zen. Nothing could be further from the truth. Or, if you are from less affluent spheres (me), you pick up books written by Westerners that purport to extol the virtues of Zen and fall long short. You come away with an idea of it being Karmic and cyclical and very much about a journey with no clear destination beyond an awareness of a state of being long abstracted from your lived experience.
That process, and the vapid shallow form of self-help literature, has helped to warp most of the treasure of Eastern thinking. Polluting it into a bastardised mutated form of itself. A sort of anti-zen.
Well, if that frustrates you as much as it does me... Alan Watts is a great place to start... and I do mean start! Because Watts himself is seen, in a lot of circles, as part of that same problem. But I feel that it was not through lack of a concerted effort on his part to translate for us.
I find Watts an incredibly soothing and amusing voice. It almost makes me forget every encounter I’ve had with young people obsessed with Dharma (sans Greg) and Yoga and Crystals and all that stuff.
Of course, no offence meant to those who follow those things. Not in the genuine sense anyway. It is more like the feeling you get when you hear someone obsessed with the ‘wrong’ sort of music, you get me? Like if you’re into pop and they insist on rock music at the engagement party and so you have to just sit there seething in an atmosphere of grumpiness. With no true anger really, just a proximal discomfort you’ll soon get distracted from.
Anyway, Watts... I think there is an ASMR or certainly an electronica genre of music entirely devoted to slapping a soundbite of his teachings into the mix. I used to listen to a lot of his lecturers on an old MP3 player in order to sleep when my anxiety maxed out.
Today there are far better writers on the topic of Zen. Voices that offer a more... intimate first hand experience... but for my money Watts is still a lovely indulgence for the half-hearted monks that most of us are, deep down. He’ll have you giggling and musing in no time. Very much a recommendation.