The other day I received a really interesting note from an old friend responding to my posting about Alan Watts. He wanted to underscore how much he felt he and others of our shared generation owe to Alan Watts.
I know it’s true for me. His Way of Zen was one of the first books I read on the subject.
I went on to read any number of his books. Later as it became apparent his interpretation of Zen was, how best to put it, problematic; like many others who wanted to delve more deeply into the Zen way, I moved on.
Even so, after I’d become a Zen monastic, when I had the opportunity to meet him, let me guarantee you, I jumped at the chance. While a surrealistic moment, which I recount in Zen Master Who? it remains a memory I cherish. He certainly deserved a place in my study of Zen coming West, as even though he is a footnote person regarding Zen’s introduction to the West, he very much deserves that footnote.
I’ve recently stumbled upon an essay by Louis Nordstrom and Richard Pilgrim that pretty much takes Watts’s mystical theology apart thesis by thesis. While I think their analysis is on the harsh side, in fact I think there is much laudable in Watt’s philosophy; I find it worth posting here as an invitation to those who wish to think deeply about the spiritual path, what it is and what it is not. It’s a review of The Wayward Mysticism of Alan Watts, by Alan Watts.
Alan Watts is worthy of considerable reflection. The Alan Watts Foundation is the “official site,” the Alan Watts Archive is a very good resource as is the Alan Watts Podcast.
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