Introduction by Deepak Chopra
Preface by Alan W. Watts
1. The Age of Anxiety
2. Pain and Time
3. The Great Stream
4. The Wisdom of the Body
5. On Being Aware
6. The Marvelous Moment
7. The Transformation of Life
8. Creative Morality
9. Religion Reviewed
ALAN W. WATTS, who held both a master’s degree in theology and a doctorate of divinity, is best remembered as an interpreter of Zen Buddhism in particular, and of Indian and Chinese philosophy in general. Standing apart, however, from sectarian membership, he has earned the reputation of being one of the most original and “unrutted” philosophers of the twentieth century. Watts was the author of some twenty books on the philosophy and psychology of religion that have been published in many languages throughout the world, including the bestselling The Way of Zen. An avid lecturer, Watts appeared regularly on the radio and hosted the popular television series, Eastern Wisdom and Modern Life, in the 1960s. He died in 1973.
“Perhaps the foremost interpreter of Eastern disciplines for the
contemporary West, Watts had the rare gift of ‘writing beautifully
the unwritable.’”
—Los Angeles Times
“The wisdom of insecurity is not a way of evasion, but of carrying
on wherever we happen to be stationed—carrying on, however, without
imagining that the burden of the world, or even of the next moment,
is ours. It is a philosophy not of nihilism but of the reality of
the present—always remembering that to be of the present is to be,
and candidly know ourselves to be, on the crest of a breaking
wave.”
—Philip Wheelwright, Arts and Letters
“This book proposes a complete reversal of all ordinary thinking
about the present state of man. The critical condition of the world
compels us to face this problem: how is man to live in a world in
which he can never be secure, deprived, as many are, of the
consolations of religious belief? The author shows that this
problem contains its own solution—that the highest happiness, the
supreme spiritual insight and certitude are found only in our
awareness that impermanence and insecurity are inescapable and
inseparable from life. Written in a simple and lucid style, it is a
timely message.”
—Book Exchange (London)
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