I am a big fan of Alan Watts. I know of no one else that has the charisma, sense of humor, and intelligence to communicate ideas from Hindu and Buddhist thought. I have read several of his books and while this book is as good as any other- I WARN YOU - it has very little about the beat generation. In fact, there is one ten page essay. It is interesting, but if you are buying this book because you are interested in the beat generation there are more informative books. This book is also a little expensive and is less than one hundred pages. Try "Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown" or another one of his cheaper and longer books. Most of them contain similar ideas.

Definitely don't buy this if you're looking for lots of info or an extensive essay on the "beat" generation, etc. The awesome Alan Watts does deal with that topic, but almost in passing. He's goes into more detail explaining Zen and Hindu ideas with a huge helping of humor. Some ideas will stay with you. His emphasis on the key concepts of living the moment and a job as an avocation (not just to spend x number of hours making money but to do for the JOY of it)forever will be imprinted in your mind, as well as various clever examples he sites. Especially memorable is his explanation of how we Americans often live too much in the past and future and don't appreciate the present. He likened it to a coin: one side is the future, the other the past -- but the REAL stuff is the metal in between (the present). A small book with lots of big ideas that are cleverly presented.

This is probably a book for anyone who has been interested in the "beat generation" and is now looking furthur and finding the religion in it. Alan Watts is simply amazing.

The audio book do not tell you anything that help with meditation It may have been good in its day.

STILL THE MIND, cassette version, uses Alan Watts' grace and good humor as an aid to teaching meditation. On Side A, his major ideas are presented with emphasis on "What is meditation?", "Why should I do it?" and "How is meditation carried out?".

Side B is concerned with the practical aspects of meditation; but always referring the practical back to theory. After some thoughts on breathing and posture, Alan Watts progresses to his main technique--the use of sound. In a comment made more than 30yrs. ago, he points out that the abudance of professional music has caused us to lose confidence in our melodic (spiritual) voices. He restablishes this confidence through a unique "free-form" mantra, which can be used by an individual or in a group. Finally he uses these experiments in sound to form the basis of "deep listening", effectively bringing the focus back to his starting thesis.

Mark Watts has done an excellent job of editing his father's material, seamlessly combineing segments into a coherent whole, without the use of commentary or musical intervals.

Alan watts is a brilliant writer and this book is nothing short of extraordinary. It is a compilation of speeches and seminars the late Alan Watts gave during his lifetime. I read the book knowing little about Zen, but found after reading it that I always knew. That is the beauty of Zen. We have always known the truth - there is a better way to live - only we have been socialized to feel as though we are seperate and need to conquer something or everything. Mr. Watts points out that this is a fallacy and that there is no need to feel seperate. Instead, he offers that we are a part of one organism and there is no need to conquer. Life is just being in the moment. This book really has made a difference for me.

This is the tenth in a string of books by Alan Watts that I have read since the beginning of this year. And while I have enjoyed his other books enough to keep coming back for more, I found I really didn't care much for this one.

Watts is truly an academic genius with a real gift for writing, and he is at his best when he is discussing Eastern religions. But when he comes to Christianity, it's a little more iffy. "Behold the Spirit" was inspired; "Myth and Ritual in Christianity" was not. Actually, I found it as dry and dull as his book on Easter, which, mercifully, seems to have gone out of print.

His over-analysis of the Church year just sapped the life out of the liturgical seasons of Advent, Christmas/Epiphany, Passion, and Easter/Pentecost. He totally missed out on the joy of it all, the celebration of life and the passing of time. He missed the point of the importance of history in the here and now.

I was not surprised by this. I don't think it ever occurred to him that his vedanta/theosophical viewpoint is just not compatible with Christianity. Trying to see Christianity in general, or Catholicism in particular, through Hinduism is like trying to see the world clearly while looking through someone else's glasses.

I was offended, although again, not surprised, by the fact that he equated Jesus with Satan. Further, while he kept on talking about "Catholic" Christianity, he did not display the slightest insight or accuracy with regard to Catholic veneration of Mary. You just can't lump Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy together, and get anything more than a blenderized mush.

I only read this book because it was written by Watts, and I am reading him because he is brilliant in his exposition of a world-view that is different from mine. But I think that if I wanted to learn something about this topic, I would approach it from the inside, not from the skewed perspective of a drop-out Anglican priest who renounced Christianity in favor of vedanta Hinduism.

This book is a comprehensive and thorough, yet narrowly focused study on Christial ritual - specifically the gesticulations and gyrations associated with the Catholic mass. Protestants have always had a very difficult time understanding why Catholics do things the way they do, and now this book might help shed some light on this mystery. Even as a non-Catholic I was able to get a lot out of this book, but it must be approached with an open mind. Anyone who is dead set against the idea of elaborate, symbolic church rituals might find this book to be unfathomable. But if you look into the symbolism and psychological parallelism of these rituals, you will find that there is profound meaning and significace to what might have earlier appeared to be mere suprstitious incantation. This book is worth reading if you are curious as to the deeper philosophic significance of the actions performed at the Catholic mass, and non-Catholic Christians will be able to look into some of the religious secrets they have been missing.

This book will have you look at Christianity in a whole new way. You may not agree with him, but if you are truly seeking truth, you must read this book.

The man is deep. He introduced me to a side of the Catholic approach to Christianity I thought was dead. He breathes life into the rituals many of us just regurgitate.

Books like this are great. As you read it, one of two things will happen: 1) your faith will be strengthened (whether by agreement or disagreement) 2) you will realize how weak your faith really is and will desire to strengthen it (perhaps through this book)

Try it, you'll like it!

"Instant Weather Forecasting" reads like a zen field guide to weather prediction. It begins like most books of its kind with basic weather terminology and definitions with a few black and white diagrams and a couple of nifty charts of cloud types and wind force.

But the heart of this book is the 24 color cloud pictures which follow, each with its own chart to tell you what type of weather is following based on wind. visibility, precipitation, cloud covering, temperature and air pressure. The pictures are grouped by weather (i.e Sky associated with bad weather, sky associated with no immediate change, etc.) By no means exhaustive, it still makes for an excellent field companion.
Also recommended, Basic Essentials: Weather Forecasting, 2nd Edition(ISBN 0762704780) and Braving the Elements (ISBN 038546956X).

great pocket guide to forecasting the weather in the near-term future. (ie, 2-4 hours in advance) this would be an excellent companion for any outdoor enthusiast.

The Spirit of Zen, written in the early thirties by Watts when he was still a teenager, is not to be mistaken for his strikingly accomplished The Way of Zen, written some years later. It is to be treasured however for those who admire Watts and his unique and highly influential body of work because it was his first published book on Zen Buddhism.

It is clearly a young man's book. When it was reissued some twenty-four years later, Watts was asked to revise it, but he declined, saying that it would require a rewriting of the book. He allowed that his expression herein of the philosophy of Mahayana was flawed, but I think the real shortcoming--if we can call it that--in The Spirit of Zen is simply the fact that the very young author did not understand Zen in the way he would in years to come. For an older man to rewrite a younger man's book, even though that younger man be himself, is to create another book, by another person. Watts knew this, and that is undoubtedly the real reason he declined. So he let it stand as it is with its flaws, but also with its strengths.

From my point of view those strengths are the felicitous prose, the clear expression, the fresh enthusiasm and the ground-breaking insights from a Western point of view. The weakness is in the young man's misunderstanding of the role of the koan and of the experience of enlightenment. Quite frankly, Watts dove in and wrote what he knew, but what he knew was not yet enlightenment. We can see this in his expression about what he calls "trance" in meditation where he is discussing the use of the koan and zazen in Zen practice. He remarks that "the aims of Yoga and Za-zen appear to be rather different." (p. 80) He was wise to quality with "appears" because most people today would say that the goals are identical, that is, freedom from the delusion and restraint of ordinary conditioned consciousness. On the same page he describes "trance" which he then associated with the yogic practice, as "static and other-worldly" adding that "the Chinese mind [meaning the early Zen mind] required something altogether more vital and practical." Although I am not an authority on Watts, having read only a handful of his books, I would bet that he seldom if ever used "trance" in this sense again. The word has become almost pejorative in this usage mainly because practitioners know from personal experience that meditation involves any number of states of mind, and to reduce the experience to "being in a trance" is misleading. Meditation (which really is zazen--"just sitting") is an experience unique to each individual, not translatable, while being as "vital and practical" as you can get, whether the approach be yogic, Christian mystic, whirling dervish, koan-inspired or whatever.

One can also see Watts's struggle toward an understanding of the use of the koan. He writes that the disciple "arrives at a state where the dilemma of life [is] enshrined in the Koan...," missing the "is." (p. 49) While the koan is central to the Rinzai school of Zen, the real essential is zazen. My personal feeling is that the koan is for young aspirants, especially those with a strong intellectual bent. What Watts apparently doesn't quite see here, as all the ancients insist, and as Watts himself writes, is that Zen IS meditation. Indeed, the word comes from the Chinese "ch'an" which comes from the Sanskrit "dhyana," both words meaning, right in front of our faces, "meditation" (which Watts knew, of course). The truth--a truth seldom expressed--is that teenagers do not meditate except willy-nilly (unless of course they are saints or geniuses). So Watts still did not know.

Regardless of these imperfections; indeed in light of them, we can see the precocious nature of Alan Watts's understanding. Certainly he got the essence right. He recalls on page 49 an old Zen saying, "Do not linger about where the Buddha is, and as to where he is not, pass swiftly on." Also "The only difference between a Buddha and an ordinary man is that one realizes it while the other does not." (pp. 48-49) This last expression (from Hui Neng) reminds me of the idea of bliss in yoga and Vedanta. We ARE bliss. What we have to do is realize it. That makes all the difference.

Watts also shows here a mature understanding of the psychology of religion, noting, for example, on page 61 that "morality should not be confused with religion..." In the chapter, "Life in a Zen Community," he also acknowledges the "evils of monasticism" without dwelling on them. In general he shows a clear groking of the central idea of Zen, which is, be concrete, be here now and in every moment, and do not mistake the pointing finger for the moon.

More than anything perhaps we can see in this book the beginnings of Watts's great scholarship, a scholarship that made him one of American's foremost authorities on Eastern religions. This is particularly evident in his emphasis on the debt that Zen owes to Taoism expressed in the chapter, "The Origins of Zen," which would become a full blown exposition in his celebrated The Way of Zen, which I recommend the reader read after this volume.

Incidentally, I should like to say that it was this book that allowed me to really appreciate the allegory of the herding of the ox (mentioned here, but completely expounded in other books, especially, Suzuki's Manual of Zen Buddhism). But I will save my "understanding" for another time. Suffice it to say, as Watts writes on page 60, recalling the Buddha's dictum, that the raft of Buddhism is only for getting across the river. Once on the other side, it can be left behind.

This slim volume, written during its author's nineteenth year, is remarkable for it's intelligence and the insight it reveals into a subject that little was known about at the time. Originally published in 1935 in London, Alan Watts' The Spirit of Zen demonstrates a maturity of perception far beyond its young writer's years.

For the reader who is already familiar with Watts, it provides us with a rare glimpse of the master in his formative years, and shows, even at this young age, the ease with which he was able to describe the indescribable, an ability that became his stock in trade.

The current volume, in its third edition, published in 1958, has luckily been unrevised in the main with only additions to the bibliography for the discerning reader to pursue.

As an introduction to Zen Buddhism it achieves its goal astonishingly in 123 pages during which it covers a little of the history of Zen; the heart of what Zen attempts to accomplish--enlightenment; the principle techniques that it uses--zazen and the koan; what life must have been like in a Zen community; and the affect it had on Asian civilization.

This book shows Watts in the midst of quickly seeing into and revealing to his readers the heart of its subject, as though to give them the key before they even have the chance to open the door and look, unassisted, for themselves.

As Monica Furlong states in her 1986 biography Zen Effects: The Life of Alan Watts: "It is easy to sense the pleasure with which it [The Spirit of Zen] was written, a particular sort of freshness and enthusiasm that is infinitely touching....But the book remains an important one for those interested in Watts...he [has] managed to state, in a rudimentary way, most of the ideas that would interest and occupy him for the rest of his life."

Of course, the best way for the uninitiated reader to sample the flavor of Watts' supple insight is to allow the author to speak for himself. In the following passage Watts sums up the spirit of Zen as well as what became for him the central theme behind the most magical of his writing:

"For the Koan is not a means of inducing trance as if some kind of trance were the highest possible attainment for human beings; it is simply a means of breaking through a barrier, or as the Zen masters describe it, it is a brick with which to knock at the door; when the door is opened, the brick may be thrown away, and this door is the rigid barrier which man erects between himself and spiritual freedom."

_Beyond Theology_ is an excellent work for those who are new to Alan Watts, or theology in general. It is fairly easy to read, and has a type of agnostic flavor to it that might be appropriate for people who want to dabble in low-maintenance spirituality. But even for the serious reader of Alan Watts and serious theological students, I would still recommend this one because it is rather effortless and relaxing, while providing some profound psychological insights. It is also a key transitional work bridging the gap between Watt's earlier Western-religious works, and his later Eastern-religious works. With _Beyond Theology_, you can see the beginnings of what was to become a more pantheistic and almost nihilistic type of sprituality. If you want to really understand Watts' later works, you must read his magnum-opus _Psychotherapy East and West_ in addition to this one.

This book is great. I have authored a few 3D engines in my day (Dave's 3D Engine for instance), and this book has been a lifesaver. It is not only a great introductory text on the principles of 2D and 3D graphics (complex and simple), but it is an invaluable reference book. It's chapters have succint coverage of just about every major facet of 3D: transformations, shading, everything. It also has some chapters on some of the more arcane stuff too - which is a great read once you springboard off the introductory stuff. Four stars.

I read The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts several times over the years. I loved it. I thought this tape would reinforce the principles I fell in love with. But, alas. This tape is gibberish. Nothing useful. Nothing as make-sense and "ah-ha provoking" as his books. Don't waste your money.

I enjoy his books, but this audio is unique and communicates somuch more than the printed word can. In my opinion, this tape has the very best gems of all the audio tapes by Alan Watts I have heard so far. I recommend this as a great introduction to both Zen, and Alan Watts. [...] I plan to buy several copies for friends.

and played this cassette again and again and again. Twenty years ago I would have taken copius notes, ten years ago I would have sat attentively in solemn seriousness and ten years from now--Who Knows! But Alan Watts is always appropriate to the moment, always fresh, and always delightful.

This lecture was given in the late 60's at the Zen Center (S.F.?) and was concerned with the spiritual framework of Zen as opposed to either the historical perspective or to doctrinal comparisons with other systems of thought. Many points made that day were further expanded in later lectures and writings.

This is a important piece in the work Alan Watts left for us.

On pages 34-35, Watts says, "All religious comments about life eventually become cliches. Religion is always falling apart and promoting lip service and imitation. The imitation of Christ, for instance, is a perfect example. It is a terrible idea because everyone who imitates Christ becomes a kind of fake Jesus."

First of all, Watts has a lot of absolutes in this paragraph: all, always, everone. He has no evidence to support such statements.

Second, religious comments about life do not necessarily become cliches. Anyone who has ever read the autobiographies of the saints can see this easily. Even if you limit your sources to Patristic (early Church Fathers) documents, which Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants agree on, you can see very profound statements about life, and not one cliche to be found anywhere.

Third, religion does not always fall apart. Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy have been around for a very long time and neither are in any danger of falling apart. Lip service does sometimes happen, but most often it is from ignorance or the common human situation, rather than anything deliberate, deceptive, or malevolent.

Fourth, there is nothing wrong with imitation, either within Christianity or within Watts' own Vedanta. It is said that we become what we meditate on and what is imitation but a kind of meditation-in-action? The "Imitation of Christ" is a magnificent spiritual guide which has been of use to Christians since the 1400's. Imitating Jesus produces a holy Christian, far from the "fake Jesus" of Watts' accusation. Was St. Francis of Assisi a fake? Mother Teresa? The millions who have been martyred because of their love for Jesus? When all is said and done, Christianity has little to do with dogma, and everything to do with loyalty to the Person of Jesus. Reflecting on Watts' hostility toward religion lowers my estimation of his insight.

This is definitely one of the best books on Buddhism I have read in a while. Many books seem to be written for the already-enlightened elite, and are thus perfectly useless to the rest of us who are just sloshing along in life. But Watts' knowledge and insight are evident from the first page to the last, and he manages to communicate without resorting to any kind of pseudo-mystical mumbo-jumbo at all.

There's a song I particularly like; its lyrics and melody often haunt me by day and wake me at night. Some of the words are "Feeling well protected in a cool dry place...limited perspective from a cool dry place." One of the best things abut this book, and most of Alan Watts' works, is that they will coax you out of your own "cool dry place" and invite you to take a look around, and try on some new ideas for size. Sometimes you find Truth lurking in the strangest places!

F.W. Faber used the interesting image of looking at things simultaneously through a microscope and telescope, and as I was reading Watts' discussion of "li" and "ji" and interdependence, I felt I was doing just that.

Watts' explanation of these, and other basic concepts, was just so clear, that they are actually comprehensible to one steeped in Western Christian thought as I am. Not that I agree with everything he said, especially his "double bind" analysis of free will, but I understand anyway why he has to say what he says. He's nothing if not consistent, although I'm no so sure he always considers all possibilities. But the point for the reader is that we also might not consider other possibilities if not for a book such as this. I am glad to have had the opportunity to read this book; it has given me much material for reflection.

Subtitled "Selected Lectures of Alan Watts," Out of the Trap is not so much a book as it is a transcript of recorded lectures Mr. Watts gave in the 1960s and early 1970s. Edited and published as it was in 1985 by its creator's son, Mark Watts, this printed version of spoken words might best be titled "Things Better Said Elsewhere."

This is not one of the better representation of Watts' extensive works for the simple reason that the presentation doesn't survive the translation from the spoken to the written word. There are passages here that go on and on ad nauseam only to make a minor point which was better explained in one of Watts' written works.

On top of this the editor, in preparing these lecture transcripts, let go some awkward wording and phrases in favor of preserving "the flavor and content" of the original talks. Unfortunately, all this accomplishes is to further engage the reader to reread some sections in an effort to try to recover the meaning in which they were originally spoken. This not only slows down the reading process but ads to the growing frustration the reader has in slogging through this material.

For the reader who is familiar with Watts' work, these transcripts cover little new ground, and in the end manage to restate, in a not altogether easily understandable colloquial language, favorite themes and topics Watts has covered elsewhere.

If you happen to come across this book in a library and you're wondering which of the seven lectures to dig into first, the last three are perhaps the best. These include "Historical Buddhism," "Philosophy of Nature," and "Tribute to Carl Jung."

For those of us who are Watts enthusiasts, we enjoy reading his works for his unusual ability to get to the essence of a point in an enlightening and sometimes entertaining way. Out of the Trap, however, provides few of these reading experiences.

These transcripts of Watts' talks would have been best left in their original form, as taped recordings, than to have been put on display in black and white where the flavor of the original presentation is missing as well as, perhaps, some of the fun.

I was told that "Out of the Trap" was not as good as some of the other books Watts wrote, but i found it totally enlightening. Watts had done more for me than any number of so called "gurus" (I dont think Alan liked being called a guru) but if the shoe fits (its probably ugly hahahaah)i would recommend the purchase of this book to fill out your watts library, if you have one going, like me..unfortunaley some of Alan's books are out of print and I just dont know why. Have fun with it..relish the phrases and immerse yourself into the philosophy of Alan Watts.. thank you and good day (Cleedy has left the building)