Talking Zen

February 15, 2022
A collection of Zen lectures spanning the career of the great Western communicator of Eastern wisdom. In assembling this book, an expansion of a 1994 edition, Alan's son Mark selected lectures "that embodied the spontaneous and uncontrolled aspect of Zen most fully, and which left me with a compelling feeling that something extraordinary had happened." That standard alone could have produced a much longer book, since it's rare that one of the philosopher's lectures failed to transmit spontaneous wonder. But keeping it short is much more in the spirit of the enterprise. Watts' aim was always to dazzle more than to inform. In one lecture, he told his audience, "I am not a guru." He referred to himself as "an entertainer," adding, "I approach you in the same spirit as a musician with her piano, or violinist with his violin: I just want you to enjoy a point of view that I enjoy." Regardless, he was an inspired performer, and while most of these talks were given extemporaneously, they hold up remarkably well on the page (credit is due to Mark). Even from the earliest lecture included here, given when he was just a teenager, Watts was both profound and witty. Anyone discovering Watts for the first time in these pages will be incredulous to learn that in the middle of the 20th century, there existed a Westerner who was not only fluent in Eastern philosophy, but who embodied the best of its wisdom so fully. No one since Watts has been able to articulate the paradoxes of spiritual life with more clarity or panache. He might celebrate nonsense, but in so doing he makes immense sense, the kind for which we seem always to be longing. To take but one example, the rousing conclusion to "Zen Bones" will snap readers into sharp clarity, if not satori. Further confirmation that the Watts well won't run dry.

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