The Way of Zen

Alan Watts's nonfiction work offers a comprehensive introduction to Zen Buddhism, tracing its roots in Chinese Taoism and Indian Buddhism before examining its principles, practices, and expression in the arts.

Watts classifies Zen not as a religion, philosophy, or psychology but as what India and China call a "way of liberation," similar to Taoism, Vedanta, and Yoga. He argues that Western difficulty with Zen stems from encountering fundamentally different premises and methods of thought. To bridge this gap, he distinguishes between conventional knowledge, built on socially agreed-upon codes that reduce reality into linear symbols, and unconventional knowledge, the nonconceptual, intuitive intelligence that regulates the body's complexity without conscious thought. Western thinking, Watts contends, almost exclusively trusts the former, neglecting what he calls the "peripheral vision" of the mind.

This distinction maps onto two complementary Chinese traditions. Confucianism governs social conventions, while Taoism seeks direct knowledge of life itself, aiming to restore the original spontaneity, tzu-jan ("self-so-ness"), that social conditioning suppresses. Taoism is not a revolt against convention but a liberation from being deceived by it. The Tao, as described by the traditional founder Lao-tzu, is the indefinable, concrete process of the world. Unlike a creator God who acts by deliberate making, the Tao produces by wu-wei ("not-making"), operating through spontaneous growth rather than according to a plan. The Taoist writings of Chuang-tzu and Lieh-tzu describe wu-hsin ("no-mind"), a state of unselfconscious wholeness in which the mind functions freely without a controlling ego. When a person lives this way, a special effectiveness called te emerges: a spontaneous power that cannot be cultivated by deliberate method.

Watts then turns to Buddhism's Indian origins. The foundational Hindu worldview describes creation as a cosmic game of divine hide-and-seek (lila), in which the Absolute (Brahman) takes the form of the multiplicity of beings. The experience of moksha (liberation) is the discovery of one's original identity with Brahman. Indian philosophy concentrates on negation, clearing the mind of all concepts of ultimate truth, because actual reality cannot be grasped by ideas. The key concept of maya, derived from the Sanskrit root meaning "to measure," signifies the process by which the mind divides the seamless world into separate things and events. These divisions are conventional rather than natural, making maya a doctrine of relativity rather than a claim that the world is a literal illusion.

Gautama the Buddha (died c. 545 B.C.) practiced yoga and asceticism for seven years until his efforts proved futile and he simply gave up. Sitting beneath the Bo Tree, a fig tree sacred in Indian tradition, he attained anuttara samyak sambodhi (unexcelled, complete awakening). The First Noble Truth identifies duhkha (frustration) as the peculiar suffering of attempting the impossible. The Second Noble Truth identifies the cause as trishna (clinging) rooted in avidya (ignorance): the failure to see that subject and object are relational and that the egocentric attempt to dominate the world produces samsara, the vicious circle of birth-and-death. The Third Noble Truth describes nirvana, the ending of grasping, which cannot be desired or attained since anything conceivable as a goal is by definition not nirvana. The Fourth Noble Truth presents the Eightfold Path, a program of right understanding, ethical conduct, and contemplation. The term dhyana (meditation), origin of the word "Zen," designates unified awareness dissolving the duality of knower, knowing, and known.

Mahayana Buddhism, the broader tradition from which Zen emerged, arose to address practical difficulties in following the Buddha's way. Its Bodhisattva ideal, in which the practitioner seeks awakening for the sake of all beings, recognizes that nirvana attained for oneself alone is a contradiction, since grasping for nirvana is still grasping. The corollary is that beings are already in nirvana. The Mahayana philosopher Nagarjuna's Sunyavada ("Doctrine of the Void," c. A.D. 200) demolishes every conception of reality by demonstrating that nothing has independent existence, since everything exists only in relation to its opposite. The term tathata ("suchness") points to reality as directly perceived without conceptual categories. The Mahayana scripture known as the Avatamsaka Sutra envisions a vast network of gems, each reflecting all others, expressing the insight that every event involves every other and is, in its natural suchness, free and self-determining.

Watts traces Zen's development in China from early figures such as Seng-chao (384–414), who blended Taoist language with Buddhist ideas, and Tao-sheng (360–434), the first clear exponent of instantaneous awakening. The Indian monk Bodhidharma traditionally brought Zen to China around 520. When Emperor Wu of Liang asked about the merit of his Buddhist patronage, Bodhidharma replied, "No merit whatever!" (97). Bodhidharma's successor Hui-k'o attained awakening when told to "bring out your mind" for pacification and found he could not locate it. The Hsin-hsin Ming, a poem attributed to the Third Patriarch Seng-ts'an, is considered the first comprehensive statement of Zen.

The Sixth Patriarch Hui-neng (637–713) marks the definitive beginning of distinctly Chinese Zen. His famous verse, asserting that "Fundamentally, not one thing exists," rejected the prevailing view of meditation as mental purification, insisting that wu-hsin ("no-mind") means letting go of the mind rather than trying to empty it. The great T'ang dynasty masters who followed, including Ma-tsu, Chao-chou, Huang-po, and Lin-chi (Rinzai), developed Zen's characteristic iconoclasm, answering questions with shouts, blows, and seemingly irrelevant remarks about everyday life. Lin-chi embodied this spirit, insisting that ordinary, unaffected life is itself the Way.

As Zen prospered, the koan system emerged: a series of test problems based on the old masters' anecdotes, requiring intuitive demonstration of understanding. The Soto School opposed this method as too artificial, advocating simply sitting without aim. Zen was brought to Japan by Eisai (Rinzai School, 1191) and Dogen (Soto School, 1227), where the samurai military class found its directness appealing.

Watts then addresses Zen's core principles. Zen begins with the insight that all opposites are mutually dependent and that the pursuit of the good without the bad is an endless circle. This does not lead to fatalism, because for Zen there is no separate self that submits to fate. The subjective sense of isolation rests on identifying with an abstract idea of oneself rather than with one's total experience. The central paradox is that the mind's attempt to control itself creates a vicious circle: trying to be spontaneous is a contradiction. Watts compares this to a thermostat set with too-narrow limits, oscillating until it breaks down. The resolution comes through seeing that it is impossible not to be spontaneous: whatever one cannot help doing is done spontaneously, and recognizing this dissolves the compulsive feeling.

Watts describes modern za-zen (sitting meditation) as quiet, purposeless awareness: not concentration on a single object but open noticing of whatever is present. In the Rinzai School, training involves passing approximately 50 koan problems. Beginning koan such as "What is the sound of one hand?" push the student toward complete bafflement until the block of incomprehension suddenly collapses. Watts notes potential drawbacks, including the danger of fostering an experience proportional to artificially intensified doubt. As alternatives, he cites the 17th-century Zen master Bankei's simple trust in the "Unborn mind," the ungraspable, naturally functioning mind, and Pure Land Buddhism, a devotional tradition centered on reciting the name of Amitabha Buddha.

The book concludes with Zen's expression in the arts. Zen art is not primarily symbolic but itself "a work of nature," employing what Watts calls the "controlled accident." Sumi-e (ink painting), perfected during the Sung dynasty (959–1279), achieves its effect through emptiness and the avoidance of geometrical regularity. Haiku poetry, developed largely by Basho (1643–1694), expresses Zen's spirit of "nothing special" in 17 syllables. The tea ceremony (cha-no-yu), perfected by Sen-no-Rikyu (1518–1591), creates an infinitely expanded present moment through austere simplicity. In each art, mastery comes not by deliberate effort but by long practice without striving. Watts identifies Zen ultimately as a liberation from time: past and future are abstractions, and the present is eternally real, regulated by the timeless "original mind" that deals with life in its totality.