{"id":15228,"date":"2017-01-26T01:00:42","date_gmt":"2017-01-26T09:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/?p=15228"},"modified":"2017-01-26T15:34:09","modified_gmt":"2017-01-26T23:34:09","slug":"alan-watts-buddhism-christianity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2017\/01\/alan-watts-buddhism-christianity.html","title":{"rendered":"Alan Watts on Buddhism & Christianity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Alan<\/a>
\nI have found myself thinking of Alan Watts recently. And then within that mystery some like to dress up with the fifty cent word \u201csynchronicity,\u201d I received a note asking if I\u2019d be interested in reviewing a forthcoming re-issue of Watt\u2019s Psychotherapy East & West<\/em>. I said I\u2019d be happy to re-read it and if I felt I could be mostly positive, I would write it up. We\u2019ll see if the terms are acceptable.<\/p>\n

Alan Watts was in fact the first person to write popular books about Zen in the West, beginning in 1937 with the \u201cSpirit of Zen,\u201d and more importantly in 1957 with his best selling \u201cWay of Zen.\u201d He drew mainly on the scholarly volumes just being written by D. T. Suzuki, the first person to write authentically about Zen in European languages, through Watts engaging style made enormously readable and genuinely compelling. As I summarized in my history of Zen come West, Zen Master Who?<\/a>, Watts was \u201can erstwhile Episcopal priest, engaging raconteur, and scandalous libertine, Alan Watts was also a prolific author whose books created an inviting sense of Zen-as-pure-experience and a do-what-you-want spirituality. These qualities both profoundly misrepresented Zen and led many people to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

On that last note, some years later I attended a talk by an American Zen priest. At the end, during the question and answer period, someone asked about Watts. The priest sighed, and then said, \u201cI know there\u2019s a lot of controversy about Alan Watts and what he really understood about Zen.\u201d He paused. And then, added, \u201cBut, you know, without Alan Watts, I wouldn\u2019t be standing here on this platform.\u201d I have to say, in large part, that\u2019s true for me as well. In the 1960s and 70s, Alan Watts opened some important doors for many of us looking for a new way.<\/p>\n

Here are a couple of video clips where he discusses Buddhism<\/a> and Christianity. I think it captures him nicely, all at once knowledgable, irritating, wise, and incredibly self-centered.<\/p>\n