Deep down, most people think that happiness comes from having or doing something. Here, in Alan Watts’s groundbreaking third book (originally published in 1940), he offers a more challenging thesis: authentic happiness comes from embracing life as a whole in all its contradictions and paradoxes, an attitude that Watts calls the “way of acceptance.” Drawing on Eastern philosophy, Western mysticism, and analytic psychology, Watts demonstrates that happiness comes f...

Alan Watts noted author and respected authority on Far Eastern thought studied Taoism extensively and in his final years moved to a quiet cabin in the mountains and dedicated himself almost exclusively to meditating and writing on the Tao. This new book gives us an opportunity to not only understand the concept of the Tao but to experience the Tao as a personal practice of liberation from the limitations imposed by the common beliefs within our culture. The philosophy of the Tao offers a w...

In Weg van het denken zijn enkele van Alan Watts’ mooiste teksten opgenomen. Zijn zoon Mark bewerkte voor deze uitgave de succesvolle audioserie ‘Out of Your Mind’. Misschien wel meer dan enig ander spiritueel leraar was en is Alan Watts in staat om ons uit ons beperkte westerse denkkader te laten stappen. Hij biedt alternatieve wegen uit ons denken en leidt ons langs de grote spirituele thema’s. Wat gebeurt er als we doorkrijgen dat ons lichaam en ons ego slechts een illusie zijn? Hoe kan...

A revelatory primer on what it means to be human and a mind-opening manual of initiation into the central mystery of existence, by “perhaps the foremost interpreter of Eastern disciplines for the contemporary West" (Los Angeles Times).At the root of human conflict is our fundamental misunderstanding of who we are. The illusion that we are isolated beings, unconnected to the rest of the universe, has led us to view the “outside” world with hostility, and ha...

The Book On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are explores an unrecognised but mighty taboo - our tacit conspiracy to ignore who, or what, we really are. Alan Watts, key thinker of Western Zen Buddhism, explains how to reconsider our relationship with the world.We are in urgent need of a sense of our own existence, which is in accord with the physical facts and which overcomes our feeling of alienation from the universe. In The Book On the Tabo...

According to Alan Watts, “Zen taste deplores the cluttering of a picture or of a room with many objects.” In that sense, this minimalist book embodies the aesthetic of Zen itself. As with brushstrokes in a Japanese ink painting, the words have been used sparingly and arranged precisely, with no unnecessary detail. In seven brief chapters, Watts captures the essence of Zen Buddhism as a religion and a way of life. He explains fundamental Zen concepts, introduces revered Zen thinkers, places...

Alan Watts became famous first as a brilliant intellectual and then as a serious student of Buddhism and meditation. In the 1970s, the last years of his life, he retreated to a small, isolated cabin deep in the woods. He meditated every morning and then wrote. Still the Mind consists of several talks he gave in his later years, recorded and edited by his son, Mark Watts, and then published as a book. His speaking shows a maturity and wisdom that can only come after years of meditation, and...

In this new edition of his acclaimed autobiography - long out of print and rare until now - Alan Watts tracks his spiritual and philosophical evolution from a child of religious conservatives in rural England to a freewheeling spiritual teacher who challenged Westerners to defy convention and think for themselves. From early in this intellectual life, Watts shows himself to be a philosophical renegade and wide-ranging autodidact who came to Buddhism through the teachings of Christmas Humph...

Western thought and culture have coalesced around a series of constructed ideas—that human beings stand separate from a nature that must be controlled; that the mind is somehow superior to the body; that all sexuality entails a seduction—that in some way underlie our exploitation of the earth, our distrust of emotion, and our loneliness and reluctance to love. Here, Watts fundamentally challenges these assumptions, drawing on the precepts of Taoism to present an alternative vision of man a...

Manuale di saggezza, trattato psicologico, breviario Zen, ***Diventa ciò che sei***racchiude al suo interno diverse chiavi di lettura, con l’intenzione di offrire al lettore una via concreta per la realizzazione e la liberazione di sé, o come dice lo stesso Watts, per cogliere la propria vita «così com’è».In questi scritti mai pubblicati in Italia, Alan Watts dimostra l’intelligenza e la brillantezza di pensiero che lo hanno reso uno degli interpret...

Mark Watts compiled this book from his father's extensive journals and audiotapes of famous lectures he delivered in his later years across the country. In three parts Alan Watts explains the basic philosophy of meditation how individuals can practice a variety of meditations and how inner wisdom grows naturally.

Space is considered to be nothingness by many. But after all it is the background in which we see everything. It is against space and within the dimension of time that we experience everything we experience. Space and time are the two basic dimensions of our world but are uncommonly illusive. We can say they are our way of thinking of the universe as being a system of patterns. And our awe at the vastness of space may be man's astonishment at himself. We reconsider our position as an "insi...