Summary: The Way of Zen by Alan Watts

The Way of Zen (1957) is a time­less piece that elu­ci­dates the his­tor­i­cal roots and essen­tial tenets of Zen Bud­dhism. In a world under­go­ing rapid trans­for­ma­tions, where estab­lished norms seem fleet­ing, the East­ern wis­dom of Zen can offer the men­tal tran­quil­i­ty and con­tent­ment amidst uncer­tain­ties that we earnest­ly seek.

Preface: Explore the heritage and principles of an age-old tradition.

At some junc­ture, vir­tu­al­ly every West­ern indi­vid­ual has used the term Zen in dia­logue. Maybe a space one inhab­its exudes a strong Zen vibe, or some­one plans to unwind over a serene week­end to regain their Zen.

In West­ern cul­ture, there exists a faint notion asso­ci­at­ing Zen with calm­ness, seren­i­ty, and har­mo­ny. How accu­rate is this per­cep­tion, though?

Many West­ern­ers strug­gle to grasp the abstract con­cepts that form the essence of Zen ide­ol­o­gy, with some seem­ing para­dox­i­cal. For­tu­nate­ly, writer and intel­lec­tu­al Alan Watts is present to demys­ti­fy the sub­ject and unrav­el its enigmas.

In the ensu­ing syn­opses, you will encounter Watts’s inter­pre­ta­tion of Zen’s jour­ney through his­to­ry, trac­ing its lin­eage back to Chi­nese Tao­ism. Sub­se­quent­ly, you will delve into some key prin­ci­ples of Zen that may sub­tly alter your worldview.

Original Chinese Taoist philosophy laid the groundwork for Zen Buddhism

Are you cog­nizant of how breath­ing occurs? Cer­tain­ly, one may assume to under­stand the act of breath­ing since it is a con­stant process. How­ev­er, explain­ing the pre­cise phys­i­o­log­i­cal mech­a­nisms orches­trat­ing breath­ing might pose a challenge.

What West­ern­ers often com­pre­hend as knowl­edge tends to be con­crete and evi­dence-based. Nev­er­the­less, indi­vid­u­als world­wide would claim to know how to breathe, see, or move their limbs with­out com­pre­hend­ing the exact work­ings. Once this real­iza­tion dawns upon you, the con­cept of knowl­edge in Tao­ism, a pre­cur­sor to Zen Bud­dhism, will become clearer.

The cen­tral theme here is: Orig­i­nal Chi­nese Taoist phi­los­o­phy laid the ground­work for Zen Buddhism.

The ear­li­est ori­gins of Taoist beliefs can be traced back to a sig­nif­i­cant text known as the I Ching, or Book of Changes, inscribed in Chi­na between 3000 and 1200 BC. This man­u­script delin­eates a div­ina­tion tech­nique, where­in an ora­cle iden­ti­fies a hexa­gram pat­tern in the sur­round­ings. Sub­se­quent­ly, the ora­cle match­es the hexa­gram’s attrib­ut­es with those in the I Ching to proph­esy the sub­jec­t’s future.

You may not sub­scribe to deci­sion-mak­ing based on divin­ing your future through an ora­cle’s pre­dic­tion. Yet, is your deci­sion-mak­ing process any more log­i­cal? While you may con­tend in the affir­ma­tive, pin­point­ing the exact moment when ade­quate infor­ma­tion is amassed for a deci­sion remains elu­sive. Does­n’t the quest for more data per­sist for a pre­sum­ably more “ratio­nal” decision?

Ren­der­ing a tru­ly evi­dence-based deci­sion would entail an exten­sive dura­tion, poten­tial­ly caus­ing the win­dow for action to elapse before all data is compiled.

Ulti­mate­ly, deci­sions hinge on an intu­itive sense of the right choice. Craft­ing sound deci­sions relies on astute intu­ition – or as a Taoist would advo­cate, align­ing with the Tao. When with­in the Tao, clar­i­ty engulfs your mind, enhanc­ing the effi­ca­cy of your intuition.

Pon­der this: No labor can coerce the taste buds on your tongue to dis­cern fla­vors more accu­rate­ly. Trust in their nat­ur­al func­tion is imper­a­tive. Sim­i­lar­ly, you must have faith in your men­tal faculty.

Clar­i­ty of mind and faith in the inher­ent abil­i­ties of your mind would sub­se­quent­ly emerge as focal aspects of Zen. But before tra­vers­ing fur­ther, let’s scru­ti­nize the gen­e­sis of Buddhism.

Buddhism represented the overarching ideology from which Zen emanated

Per Bud­dhist lore, the Bud­dha sat beneath a tree on an evening after sev­en years of med­i­ta­tive seclu­sion and aus­tere prac­tices. Despite adher­ing to pre­scribed method­olo­gies to train the body, he remained unable to fath­om his true Self. Hence, he relin­quished his pur­suit and opt­ed to par­take of sus­te­nance beneath a tow­er­ing tree.

Seat­ed beneath the tree, a moment of clar­i­ty dawned upon Bud­dha. Real­iza­tion struck that man’s quest to grasp the essence of their life was futile. This facet of Bud­dhism – the sud­den awak­en­ing – even­tu­al­ly evolved as a piv­otal ele­ment of Zen.

The crux here is: Bud­dhism formed the over­ar­ch­ing ide­ol­o­gy from which Zen emerged.

Although the Bud­dha resided in India some­time between the fifth and fourth cen­turies BC, the ini­tial Bud­dhist text, the Pali canon, was­n’t tran­scribed until approx­i­mate­ly 400 years lat­er. Pre­vi­ous­ly, Bud­dhism thrived sole­ly as an oral tra­di­tion. This impedes pro­found com­pre­hen­sion of Bud­dha’s view­points, but fun­da­men­tal doc­trines can still be discerned.

Entwined with­in Indi­an philoso­phies is the con­cept of God’s self-sac­ri­fice, or atma-yaj­na. Through birthing the cos­mos, God under­goes dis­so­lu­tion and frag­men­ta­tion. Each enti­ty retains a frag­ment of God, with life’s pur­pose con­verg­ing towards even­tu­al rein­te­gra­tion with the Supreme.

Hence, in Bud­dhism, pen­e­trat­ing your essence involves rec­og­niz­ing your pri­mal iden­ti­ty – God. This neces­si­tates dis­en­tan­gling your self from all iden­ti­ty mark­ers. You aren’t your phys­i­cal form, your thoughts, or your emo­tions. More­over, you tran­scend soci­etal roles, be it a par­ent or a med­ical practitioner.

Observe that Bud­dhism accen­tu­ates neg­a­tive enlight­en­ment – dis­cern­ing what you are not as opposed to defin­ing your essence. This prin­ci­ple can con­found West­ern­ers expect­ing dis­tinct delineations.

Real­i­ty often defies unequiv­o­cal def­i­n­i­tion. For exam­ple, one might assert that World War I com­menced on August 4, 1914. Nev­er­the­less, an inves­tiga­tive his­to­ri­an could unearth pre­cip­i­tat­ing caus­es from an era antecedent to the war’s doc­u­ment­ed inception.

Thus, demar­ca­tions of events, enti­ties, and facts are human con­structs, not intrin­si­cal­ly ordained by real­i­ty. An Indi­an Bud­dhist terms these arti­fi­cial dis­tinc­tions as maya, or illu­sion. Lib­er­a­tion from these illu­sions should guide our life’s journey.

Excogitated by Mahayana Buddhism offered a panacea for the cognitive quandaries in traditional Buddhism

When inquis­i­tive indi­vid­u­als posed queries to the Bud­dha about the self­’s essence and the uni­verse’s gen­e­sis, he dis­missed the rel­e­vance of such inquiries. Pur­su­ing these ques­tions would­n’t cul­mi­nate in enlightenment.

How­ev­er, cer­tain Bud­dhists – those des­tined to shape the Mahayana tra­di­tion – embraced a dif­fer­ent stance towards these con­tem­pla­tions. Their inquiries and endeav­ors sought a res­o­lu­tion beyond nor­ma­tive Bud­dhist practices.

the Mahayana — were res­olute in their stance. Mahayana Bud­dhists were still in pur­suit of lib­er­a­tion and were not seek­ing to estab­lish an entire­ly new philo­soph­i­cal frame­work. How­ev­er, they had a pro­found inter­est in their own psy­chol­o­gy. This dis­tinc­tion between Mahayana Bud­dhism and con­ven­tion­al Bud­dhism was fun­da­men­tal to the sub­se­quent devel­op­ment of the Zen tradition.

Mahayana Bud­dhism diverged from tra­di­tion­al Bud­dhism between 100 and 300 BC. In some aspects, Mahayana was a response to those indi­vid­u­als seek­ing a sim­pler path to enlight­en­ment — one achiev­able in this life­time rather than after mul­ti­ple incar­na­tions. Mahayana aimed for enlight­en­ment to be with­in everyone’s reach.

While acces­si­ble, the path to enlight­en­ment in Mahayana is still far from effort­less. To com­pre­hend Mahayana beliefs, one must nav­i­gate through some com­plex rea­son­ing, so pre­pare yourself.

Ini­tial­ly, you must acknowl­edge that attempt­ing to com­pre­hend real­i­ty is futile.

If under­stand­ing real­i­ty itself is unat­tain­able, how can one aspire to grasp enlight­en­ment? It would be illog­i­cal to per­ceive enlight­en­ment as some­thing to be acquired.

Like­wise, since real­i­ty is decep­tive, your ego must also be a decep­tion. Con­se­quent­ly, you can­not achieve enlight­en­ment because the con­cept of one­self is not genuine.

So, we have now reached the crux of the argu­ment. If enlight­en­ment is not an object that can be obtained, and if indi­vid­ual enti­ties do not exist, then we must already be in a state of enlight­en­ment! Search­ing for enlight­en­ment would imply pur­su­ing some­thing we nev­er lost.

You may be pon­der­ing — well, this is straight­for­ward, so should I cease striv­ing for enlight­en­ment. But you have ensnared your­self in a predica­ment. By attempt­ing not to strive, you are still striv­ing. You are still influ­enced by your desire to attain enlight­en­ment, whether through grasp­ing or not grasping.

To gen­uine­ly embrace the Mahayana phi­los­o­phy, you must lib­er­ate your­self from the urge to achieve enlight­en­ment. You can­not pos­si­bly yearn for true enlight­en­ment because it is impos­si­ble to com­pre­hend what that enlight­en­ment entails. And by aspir­ing to become a Bud­dha, you are reject­ing the notion that you are already a Bud­dha. This belief is core to Zen.

Zen emerged in China through the endeavors of a few perceptive monks

The nar­ra­tive sug­gests that the Indi­an monk Bod­hid­har­ma intro­duced Zen to Chi­na in 520 AD. Upon his arrival, Bod­hid­har­ma pre­sent­ed him­self at the court of the Bud­dhist emper­or Wu of Liang. How­ev­er, leg­end has it that Emper­or Wu dis­ap­proved of Bodhidharma’s demeanor and teach­ings. Con­se­quent­ly, Bod­hid­har­ma retreat­ed to a monastery. There, he encoun­tered the monk Hui‑k’o, who would ulti­mate­ly become the Sec­ond Patri­arch of Zen in China.

Although this ori­gin tale is com­mon­ly recount­ed in the Zen School, its his­tor­i­cal accu­ra­cy is high­ly ques­tion­able. Instead, we might dis­cov­er the actu­al ori­gins of Zen in the teach­ings of a young monk named Seng-chao, who resided in Chi­na around 400 AD.

Some of Seng-chao’s doc­trines played a piv­otal role in the sub­se­quent evo­lu­tion of Zen.

One doc­trine of par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance was his per­spec­tive on time and change. West­ern­ers are accus­tomed to per­ceiv­ing life as a form of pro­gres­sion — where day tran­si­tions into night and win­ter yields to spring, for instance. How­ev­er, for Seng-chao, every moment exists inde­pen­dent­ly, devoid of any con­nec­tion to what pre­cedes or fol­lows it. Sim­i­lar­ly, in Zen, the only real­i­ty is that of the present moment.

A few cen­turies after Seng-chao, anoth­er monk, Hui-neng, emerged. Hui-neng was cred­it­ed with intro­duc­ing the con­cept of chih-chih. This term denotes the demon­stra­tion of Zen through actions or words devoid of sym­bol­ic meaning.

To an indi­vid­ual unfa­mil­iar with Zen, chih-chih can some­times appear per­plex­ing. For instance, a Zen mas­ter might be posed with a spir­i­tu­al ques­tion about Bud­dhism. In response, the mas­ter might casu­al­ly com­ment on the weath­er. These respons­es can­not be elab­o­rat­ed upon — either you instan­ta­neous­ly grasp the point being made, or you do not.

For exam­ple, con­sid­er the monk Chao-chao’s reply to a query about the spir­it: “This morn­ing it’s windy again.”

So, what is the objec­tive of this uncon­ven­tion­al ques­tion-and-answer for­mat? Well, bear in mind that every­thing the Zen mas­ter express­es or does is deemed an expres­sion of his Bud­dha nature. Like all oth­er phe­nom­e­na on earth, his words and actions man­i­fest spon­ta­neous­ly, with­out premeditation.

Upon his pass­ing, Hui-neng passed on his phi­los­o­phy to five dis­ci­ples. The teach­ings of two of these dis­ci­ples endure today as the prin­ci­pal Zen schools in Japan.

Zen assists us in deconstructing the illusions our minds have fabricated.

For many indi­vid­u­als, the ulti­mate objec­tive in life is sim­ple: to expe­ri­ence joy. How­ev­er, what occurs after attain­ing that joy?

In Zen phi­los­o­phy, the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness is deemed absurd. It stems from a false assump­tion: that it is fea­si­ble to encounter only the good with­out any negativity.

You can liken the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness to turn­ing from one side to the oth­er on a firm bed. You feel uncom­fort­able on one side, so you shift to the oth­er. Ini­tial­ly, that feels pleas­ant, but even­tu­al­ly, the oth­er side starts to feel just like the first. In real­i­ty, your com­pre­hen­sion of com­fort aris­es only after acknowl­edg­ing discomfort.

Thus, dis­com­fort is not just unavoid­able but sim­ply anoth­er facet of com­fort. This real­iza­tion might lead you to the con­clu­sion that we lack free will, and are resigned to what­ev­er des­tiny awaits us. How­ev­er, that notion is pred­i­cat­ed on yet anoth­er mis­tak­en premise.

In Zen, being a help­less vic­tim of cir­cum­stances is impos­si­ble. In truth, you and your cir­cum­stances are indivisible.

Pic­ture a scorch­ing day in the peak of sum­mer. You are drenched in sweat. Zen would teach you that you are not per­spir­ing because it is hot out­side. Rather, the per­spi­ra­tion itself is the heat.

You can apply this same frame­work to your mind and body. Your mind-body is not sub­ject­ed to a set of cir­cum­stances; rather, the cir­cum­stances exist because you pos­sess a mind and body capa­ble of per­ceiv­ing them.

You may be inclined to cat­e­go­rize this per­ceiv­ing enti­ty — your mind and body — as your self. How­ev­er, the self is yet anoth­er illu­sion that Zen can aid us in dispelling.

When asked to define your­self, you might enu­mer­ate sev­er­al char­ac­ter­is­tics or per­haps a few past events that seem to define your iden­ti­ty. But are any of these descrip­tors tru­ly real in the purest sense of the term? In essence, no.

Our minds wield con­sid­er­able pow­er, enabling us to con­struct a sym­bol­ic ver­sion of our­selves that is not actu­al­ly real. How­ev­er, this self-con­cep­tion is not inher­ent­ly con­nect­ed to what our minds and bod­ies are present­ly experiencing.

Thus, in Zen, the true you is mere­ly the sum of every­thing of which you are con­scious at this exact moment.

In Zen, spontaneity and naturalness are paramount.

A pri­ma­ry focus of Zen is nat­u­ral­ness, or abstain­ing from striv­ing to “be” any­thing spe­cif­ic. In essence, Zen involves allow­ing one­self to be pur­pose­less — essen­tial­ly, to engage in non-action.

To a West­ern­er, engag­ing in non-action might appear as waste­ful. Nev­er­the­less, it is, in fact, the innate state of most phe­nom­e­na in the world. A cat does not strive to be any­thing beyond a cat, and your ears do not endeav­or to do any­thing beyond hear­ing. Zen advis­es us to per­mit our­selves to be like the rest of nature.our minds to func­tion in a sim­i­lar­ly spon­ta­neous and organ­ic manner.

The Practice of Meditation

How­ev­er, engag­ing in za-zen does not entail sit­ting and con­scious­ly attempt­ing to think about noth­ing, as that would be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive. It also does not involve fix­at­ing on any spe­cif­ic object like your breath. Instead, it is sim­ply a silent aware­ness of the present moment. You and your exter­nal sur­round­ings merge, and you main­tain no agen­da as you sit and observe.

About the writer

Alan W. Watts, who pos­sessed both a grad­u­ate degree in the­ol­o­gy and a doc­tor­ate of divin­i­ty, is most promi­nent­ly rec­og­nized as an inter­preter of Zen Bud­dhism specif­i­cal­ly, and of Indi­an and Chi­nese phi­los­o­phy gen­er­al­ly. How­ev­er, dis­tin­guished from belong­ing to any par­tic­u­lar group, he has gained the rep­u­ta­tion of being one of the most inno­v­a­tive and “uncon­ven­tion­al” thinkers of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. Watts authored approx­i­mate­ly twen­ty books on the phi­los­o­phy and psy­chol­o­gy of reli­gion that have been released in numer­ous lan­guages world­wide, includ­ing the pop­u­lar book The Way of Zen. A keen speak­er, Watts made reg­u­lar appear­ances on the radio and host­ed the well-liked tele­vi­sion pro­gram, East­ern Wis­dom and Mod­ern Life, in the 1960s. He passed away in 1973.

Review

“The Way of Zen” by Alan W. Watts is a time­less study of the his­to­ry and fun­da­men­tal tenets of Zen Bud­dhism, pre­sent­ing a deep appre­ci­a­tion of this East­ern school of thought. Watts delves into the begin­nings, evo­lu­tion, and essence of Zen, mak­ing it under­stand­able for read­ers whether famil­iar with the top­ic or not.

The nar­ra­tive com­mences by retrac­ing the his­tor­i­cal foun­da­tions of Zen, com­menc­ing with its devel­op­ment from Indi­an Bud­dhism to its flour­ish­ing in Chi­na and Japan. Watts deliv­ers an in-depth depic­tion of the sig­nif­i­cant fig­ures and occur­rences in Zen’s growth, includ­ing Bod­hid­har­ma and the estab­lish­ment of the Zen monas­tic prac­tice. He illus­trates how Zen unique­ly merges Indi­an Mahayana Bud­dhism with prin­ci­ples from Tao­ism, result­ing in an exclu­sive and direct approach to spir­i­tu­al enlightenment.

Watts clar­i­fies the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of Zen, stress­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of direct encounter and imme­di­ate real­iza­tion. He inves­ti­gates the notion of “satori,” the abrupt illu­mi­na­tion expe­ri­ence, and how it con­sti­tutes the core of Zen dis­ci­pline. The book explores med­i­ta­tion, koans (para­dox­i­cal puz­zles used for con­tem­pla­tion), and the impor­tance of mind­ful­ness in Zen.

In his inves­ti­ga­tion, Watts under­scores the con­tra­dic­to­ry essence of Zen, which embraces the con­cept of “non-attain­ment” and the dis­so­lu­tion of bina­ry think­ing. He dis­cuss­es the con­nec­tion between the indi­vid­ual and the uni­verse, stress­ing the inter­con­nec­tiv­i­ty and imper­ma­nence of all phenomena.

Alan W. Watts’ “The Way of Zen” is an enlight­en­ing and approach­able guide to the intri­cate phi­los­o­phy of Zen. Watts’ prose is lucid and com­pelling, ren­der­ing this text appro­pri­ate for both novices and those well-versed in Zen exer­cis­es. His capac­i­ty to dis­till the com­plex prin­ci­ples of Zen into under­stand­able notions is noteworthy.

The his­tor­i­cal back­drop pro­vid­ed in the text is invalu­able, offer­ing read­ers a pro­found under­stand­ing of the evo­lu­tion of Zen and its pro­gres­sion over time. Watts’ inter­pre­ta­tion of Zen’s para­dox­i­cal nature is provoca­tive, urg­ing read­ers to pon­der the sig­nif­i­cant enig­mas of exis­tence. He does­n’t mere­ly nar­rate Zen; instead, he enables the read­er to encounter it through his expressions.

Watts’ “The Way of Zen” is a time­less piece that con­tin­ues to moti­vate and direct indi­vid­u­als on their spir­i­tu­al quests. It is a nec­es­sary read for those intrigued by East­ern phi­los­o­phy, med­i­ta­tion, or the pur­suit of a pro­found com­pre­hen­sion of the self and the cosmos.

To sum­ma­rize, “The Way of Zen” by Alan W. Watts is an illu­mi­nat­ing inves­ti­ga­tion of Zen Bud­dhism that is acces­si­ble and stim­u­lat­ing, impart­ing valu­able insights into the his­to­ry and fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of philosophy.