Tao: The Watercourse Way

Great book (life philosophy) - for oneself or as a gift. Prompt delivery.

Just opening the book brings back when and where I first read it. Marooned for a whole blessed week in a cliff-top lodge on the south coast of Java. Overlooking the Indian Ocean where the lights of the night fishers put stars in the sea to mirror the stars in the sky. A true introduction to the Tao.

As a person interested in the East and West philosophies, I found this to be a good starting point in Taoism. Based on my own learning, the reference point to other traditions like Buddhism and Yogic teachings made this book more interesting to compare and contrast.

Free you mind

It helps to have the book of changes or be familiar with it. Well witten to understand easily. Constructed well enough however, to be a first time read, yet maybe for an ongoing interest! It shares, within the topic, some nice spaces!

An inspiring book by an inspiring man, but if I'm being honest the book didn't 'flow' for me, a useful read, but not necessarily that enjoyable.

Once again, Alan brings ancient yet timeless wisdom to the modern reader. This isn't the 'religiousness' of what Taoism has become, in fact it's free from doctrine or fantasy, a look at what Taoism really means. Well worth it!

Dont read reviews of this book just read the book and enjoy the process of reading it. Alan thank you.

Nice read

Tengo el libro en kindle (también en inglés) y lo que pasa es que la caligrafía no podía verla claramente por las limitaciones del formato y quería tener la versión en papel y poder verlo bien. Es un tamaño pequeño y de bolsillo, lo que buscaba y el libro en sí es absolutamente maravilloso, como siempre Allan Watts explica todo con una claridad excepcional para nuestras mentes occidentales. Una filosofía absolutamente maravillosa que te hace apreciar la cultura china aún más. Un placer, lo recomiendo.

This should be one of the best books ever written on Zen philosophy and the meditation practice, however, it is certainly NOT for people new to Buddhism. You should spend around 3 to six months reading the basics of Buddhism before you purchase this book. And, remember it has been translated from Japanese to English --as it is, i.e without the translators interpretation and hence you might have to read and re read few chapters to get a hold of what Suzuki is trying to convey. And at the end I would like to say that it is only through extensive meditation practice that you would truly understand the meaning of this book.

Although I enjoyed Watts' scholarly analysis and excellent writing, he went a little too far in his vindication of 'Eastern' values and indictment of 'Western' values. I would give the reader two points on which I disagree with Watts. First, it's ill-advised to conceive of an 'Eastern' philosophy. It's nothing more than a category to put things in. The same is true of 'Western' philosophy. To see this, read a few verses attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus or the Yankee mystic Emerson, especially his essays titled 'Circles' and 'The Over-Soul'. You'll find that these 'Western' philosophers have some very 'Eastern' ideas. I expected Watts to explain this to the reader so that they understood that 'Eastern' and 'Western' are just arbitrary, albeit useful categories that shouldn't be taken too seriously. Second, Eastern and Western civilization are not as different as he suggests. For example, although some Chinese characters seem more natural than the Latin alphabet, the Chinese written language has become nearly as abstract as the Latin alphabet. Watts' insinuation that Chinese language more accurately conveys reality is a bit of a stretch, as is his idea that Eastern civilization is less neurotic than Western civilization. A quick reading of Chinese history reveals that Chinese encountered the same tendency to 'order the world' as their European and Ottoman counterparts. Those two points aside, Watts delivers an excellent introduction to Taoism. I should mention the caveat that 'Taoism' is not really a system of thought like Confucianism, but a useful category to put related ideas into. Chuang Tzu did not think of himself as a disciple of Lao Tzu; Han historians falsely (or accurately?) envisioned them as belonging to a single stream of thought like Legalism or Confucianism. On a related note, Watts gives a well-thought description of the Tao on pg. 55: "But if, as is the case, the Tao is simply inconceivable, what is the use of having the word and of saying anything at all about it? Simply because we know intuitively that there is a dimension of ourselves and of nature which eludes us because it is too close, too general, and too all-embracing to be singled out as a particular object." This is the essence of the philosophy, and he goes on in the long paragraph to further explain it. Not unlike the scientific concept of electricity, the Tao is not a thing at all, but a certain dimension that we cannot quite explain (the word 'dimension' doesn't do it justice). In that way, the Tao is no more mystical than science. Watts includes a passage from a scientist writing about electricity and correctly calls it 'pure metaphysics'. Empirical experiments only give us snippets of observed reality, which is different from reality itself, for the very observation of a thing changes it. The Tao underlies this reality, and is not observable. But it doesn't matter if we have an incomplete and inaccurate view of the cosmos since we need only 'go with the flow' and understand that the nature of reality is unknowable. This leads to a more tolerant, less anxious existence in the modern world. Watts does an incredible job explaining difficult concepts to his readers. Watts will give you an intuitive understanding of the concepts of action through inaction and te (virtue/virtuality). I may disagree with how he views Eastern and Western society (or societies, as he would put it), but he has achieved something with this small volume that few others could hope to match. At the end of the book I was left curious and wanting more, knowing that this unfinished book was his last; could you ask for more?

I doubt this book will sufficiently explain or convince anyone to nonduality and dao, but maybe it'll be sufficient to whet the appetite for a more indepth study. It is indeed an enjoyable read. The forewords and afterwords were quite bad, felt forced and pandering, and detracted from the quality of the book. My recommendation is to skip them.