Description
When Jack Kerouac wrote his novel Dharma Bums, his views on Zen Buddhism echoed the sentiments of the Beat Generation, who found in Zen a way of life unencumbered by the limits of "square" society. And it was the philosopher Alan Watts who first wrote and spoke about Zen and Eastern culture in terms accessible to mainstream Western audiences. Watts' teachings during an era of turmoil and political strife are as timely today as they were over 50 years ago. The fascinating essays in this collection include: "The Beat Way of Life" How the Beats lived an uncomplicated Zen life and despite being denigrated as worthless slackers, like Eastern thinkers, they actively pursued "an arduous course of spiritual and psychological discipline" "Return to the Forest" How the popular works of the writer Joseph Campbell influenced the earliest Beat traditions by advocating the internal search for individual truth over learned schools of thought "The Democratization of Buddhism" How Buddhism is actually a "religion of no-religion," that conveys the spiritual through the everyday and the ordinary and recognizes no division between the two This book is an engaging introduction to Watts' fascinating and enduring Zen teachings.
