PDF Summary:The Way of Zen, by Alan Watts

Though most of us have a passing familiarity with the concept of Zen—enough to know that we’d probably like to have more of it in our lives—few of us really know what “Zen” means or could articulate how Zen Buddhism describes reality and human life. Philosopher Alan Watts explains the major principles and the history of Zen Buddhism in The Way of Zen.

First published in 1957, the book explains the schools of thought from which Zen originated, breaks down its most foundational principles, and describes how you can experience Zen in your everyday life. (Spoiler alert: Watts thinks that you don’t have to spend your days in meditation or contemplation to make it work!)

In this guide, we’ll examine what Zen is, uncover its principles, and describe how to begin experiencing it. We’ll also compare Watts’s interpretations of Zen ideas to other scholars’ explanations, and we’ll compare his ideas to other theories about how we perceive and experience the world.

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Awakening Is Direct and Instantaneous

The first idea unique to Zen is its understanding of the nature of awakening. In other schools of Buddhism, you might have to work a lifetime to achieve awakening. But in Zen, awakening is immediate and can happen anytime. Watts explains that you don’t have to pass through a sequence of spiritual stages or spend your days in meditation to get there. Instead, awakening can occur instantaneously, an experience called satori. Zen teaches that you can experience awakening in everyday activities like working, creating art, and appreciating the natural world.

The point of Zen is not to experience awakening or to attain Buddhahood because you are already a Buddha by nature. To try to become a Buddha is to deny that you already are a Buddha. Additionally, Watts writes that you can develop prajna, a kind of direct knowledge or wisdom. The principle of prajna is that by seeing the relativity of everything (including the futility of the pursuit of goals), we come to know the truth of the world by not knowing it.

(Shortform note: Though Watts may make it sounds like satori happens without effort, that’s not how everyone interprets the principle. Novelist and Zen teacher Peter Matthiessen—who studied Rinzai Zen, the school of Zen that emphasizes sudden awakening, and wrote Zen-inflected books such as The Snow Leopard—explains that the heart of Zen is za-zen, a meditation practice in which you sit in silence and bring your attention to the present moment, often by focusing in on your breath. Similarly, Buddhist teacher Andy Karr writes that sudden enlightenment typically comes after a long journey; for most people, the process of developing prajna requires studying, contemplating, and meditating on Buddhist teachings.)

Zen Can Be Communicated Directly, Without Symbols

The second concept unique to Zen is its directness. Watts writes that Zen is unusually direct in the way it teaches and communicates. The Zen method of instruction, called wen-ta or the “Zen story,” typically takes the form of an anecdote where a question is asked and then answered. These stories aim to point the listener toward a realization, but they aren’t symbolic: The characters don’t represent something else, and there’s no metaphor.

(Shortform note: The directness of Zen contrasts with the abstraction we’ve become accustomed to using when we experience the world. Pico Iyer, author of The Lady and the Monk, writes that because of its directness in thought and teaching, Zen Buddhism is known for “slicing with a clean sword through all the Gordian knots invented by the mind.” But while directness can sound appealing, it can also make Zen very counterintuitive. A saying attributed to Bodhidharma suggests that the teachings of Zen are independent of language and instead point directly to the human mind. Therefore, you can perceive your true nature and Buddhahood not through studying Zen, but by experiencing the true nature of the world in meditation.)

Watts explains that the directness of a Zen story is typical of Zen’s directness in communication. A method of conveying insight called “direct pointing” involves demonstrating a Zen principle through words or actions that don’t overtly comment on the question in the story. For example, Watts explains that according to Zen tradition, the Buddha simply held up a flower to communicate awakening to his disciple Mahakasyapa—a famous example of direct pointing.

(Shortform note: The idea of nonsymbolic communication sounds paradoxical. In Pointing at the Moon, Mario D’Amato writes the Buddha is thought not to have used language in the way it’s ordinarily used: The enlightened use of language involves “use,” but not “reference.” Zen Buddhist priest Norman Fischer writes that the Buddha holding up a flower “would be enough to evoke all teachings, all truths” to transmit nirvana—because there’s nothing to transmit.)

You Don’t Have to Control or Empty Your Mind

A third idea core to Zen’s teachings is the principle of wu-hsin, or “no-mind.” Building on the Taoist philosophy of naturalness, the principle of wu-hsin suggests that instead of trying to still, empty, or purify your mind, you should let go of your control of the mind itself.

Watts writes that when you combine wu-hsin, or “no mind,” with wu-nien, or “no thought,” you free your mind to act while thinking, without trying to second-guess or control it. The point of this un-self-consciousness is not to be unaware of what’s happening around you or within you, but to shift your attention away from conscious cognitive processes and toward a spontaneous and creative state. This involves just observing thoughts come and go, without suppressing them, holding onto them, or trying to interfere with them.

(Shortform note: Much of Western thinking about mindfulness, including its emphasis on observing but not controlling your thoughts, is derived from Zen Buddhism and the concepts of wu-hsin and wu-nien. In Wherever You Go, There You Are, Jon Kabat-Zinn draws a distinction between thinking and the awareness required in mindfulness. He explains that thinking involves actively engaging with the flow of feelings and thoughts you experience, while mindfulness requires stepping back from those thoughts and feelings to simply observe them.)

According to Watts, Zen became a new school of Buddhism because it took a new and unique view of dhyana, a concept that Watts notes is often but inadequately translated as “meditation.” He explains that dhyana might be better understood as a state of awareness that’s focused on the present and unconstrained by false boundaries between “the knower, the knowing, and the known.” In other words, Zen teaches that when we enter a state of dhyana, we look beyond conventional separations to see the world for what it is.

How Does Science Interpret the Experience of Dhyana?

Scholars, including scientists, offer multiple ways to interpret dhyana. Tim Lott writes that this Sanskrit word signifies emptiness. He explains that the basis of Zen is the idea that all of existence has a kind of “dynamic emptiness,” where matter and energy are the same and objects aren’t so much things that exist as events that happen. Lott points out that this squares with a modern scientific understanding of quantum physics (which some experts say posits a kind of emptiness where objects and events are just temporary and quantum particles blink in and out of existence, only manifesting in space-time when there’s an observer).

Watts’s explanation of dhyana as a state of awareness unconstrained by boundaries might also call to mind phenomena explored in neuroscience. The experience of dhyana he describes in some ways parallels the experiences of people who have undergone brain traumas localized to one hemisphere of the brain. In My Stroke of Insight, Jill Bolte Taylor writes that when she had a stroke in her left hemisphere, her left brain’s capacity for logic and judgment was silenced while her right brain’s capacity for empathy and stillness was heightened.

Taylor explains that to the right brain, there’s no sense of time, there aren’t boundaries but relationships to observe, and there are no value judgments to dismiss new experiences. The right brain perceives itself and the world as on a continuum, rather than composed of separate entities (just as Watts writes that dhyana does away with the boundaries among the knower, the knowing, and the known). Taylor concludes that we all have the brain circuits to feel the sense of connection she experienced—which may be something like dhyana.

Why Should You Learn Zen?

Watts also discusses why you might want to practice Zen. In this section of the guide, we’ll explore why Zen is still relevant in modern life and explain what changes you might experience by expressing it in your life.

Why Is Zen Still Relevant?

One reason to dedicate time and attention to learning the principles of Zen is that they’re still very relevant. Watts writes that though Zen arose in a time and place that’s very different from what people experience in the West today, it can still help you learn some kinds of knowledge—and unlearn other kinds.

Because of its teachings about the nature of the world and your perception of it, Zen can help you see what’s false and artificial in your view of the world. Watts points out that your consciousness is only superficial—just one function of your true mind—and can only attend to a small part of reality at a given time. He notes that you can access a more holistic view of the present and the world if you practice the principles of Zen.

(Shortform note: Scientists are still figuring out how your consciousness arises from your brain and enables you to experience the self that, as Watts explains, determines how you perceive life. A centuries-old explanation is “panpsychism,” the theory that consciousness is universal and emerges from matter. Another theory is that a state of matter called “perceptronium” enables atoms to process information and create subjective experience. In Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari points out that scientists know very little about consciousness, and the dominant theory is simply that consciousness is a byproduct of neural processes.)

What Are the Benefits of Zen?

Another reason to learn from the principles of Zen is that you’ll notice changes in the way you experience the world when you adopt Zen ideas in your life. In this section, we’ll explain what these beneficial changes can look like.

Feel Liberated From Constantly Trying to Improve Yourself

The first change that Zen can help you make is to curb your innate desire to constantly improve yourself or your situation. Watts explains that this improvement is often an illusion of dualistic thinking—an illusion we can stop buying into to end the cycle.

He writes that we apply the same dualistic (and mistaken) pattern of thinking when we conceive of good and evil or pleasure and pain as opposite states. When you see that not only can one not exist without the other but that you can’t experience one without the other, then you stop striving against inevitable experiences like discomfort, pain, and frustration.

(Shortform note: The Zen principle of the relativity, rather than dualism, of states like pleasure and pain informs many ideas about the human experience. In Inciting Joy, Ross Gay writes that it’s a “fantasy” to imagine that any emotion is separate from the others. He explains that joy isn’t the exclusion of pain or sorrow but fundamentally entangled with pain and sorrow. Joy is also what emerges when we take care of each other through suffering, sorrow, and pain, demonstrating how it’s impossible to experience one without the other.)

Feel Interconnected With the World, Rather Than at Its Mercy

A second change that Zen can help you make in your life comes when the practice reorients you to your relationship with the world. Watts writes that seeing beyond dualistic thinking can help you recognize that you aren’t as separate from the world as you think. While you think of your “self” as an entity separate from your body and your experiences, Zen teaches that those distinctions are artificial. Your idea of yourself is not your true self: It’s an abstraction you’ve constructed to feel security and sameness from one moment to the next.

Letting go of the abstract image you have of yourself can help you stop feeling that what happens to you is out of your control. It can also help you recognize that even voluntary and involuntary events are relative. Watts writes that when you experience the world in its “suchness,” you don’t experience it as an obstacle or as something that you need to control, but as something with which you’re interconnected.

(Shortform note: The realization that you’re part of the universe may be a crucial one. In Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach writes that the Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment when he realized that all of his suffering originated in a false belief that he was separate from the rest of the world. According to Brach, it was his sense of “selfness” that caused him to constantly chase the things he thought he wanted and run away from the things he feared, mistaking the universal human condition of suffering as something that was specific and personal to him.)

Live in the Present—Because There Isn’t Anything Else

The third way that Zen can help change your perspective comes when a Zen understanding of relativity changes your relationship with time. Watts explains that learning to recognize time as relative can help you feel more still and calm no matter what’s happening. When you’re worried about the passage of time, it just seems to pass more quickly. But when you stop trying to hold onto it, its pace seems to slow.

Watts writes that a major idea of Zen is that you don’t have anything except the present moment. He explains that to Zen, the past and future are just abstractions, and the only moment that has any concrete reality is the one you’re living in right now. As long as you don’t label this moment the present—which implies that it’s separate from the past and from the future—then you can be awake and alive to just this moment.

(Shortform note: In The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle writes that the past and the future exist only in your mind, and now is the only time that truly exists. He explains that the past is just memories, and the future is just speculation. According to Tolle, stress is caused by living in the future—always anticipating or worrying about what will happen—rather than living in the present. Though it’s common to feel stressed about the future, Tolle writes that you can eliminate the stress by staying present in the now instead.)

How Can You Experience Zen?

There’s more to Zen than just a set of philosophical principles or a chronology of religious movements, which you can understand on an intellectual level. Zen is also something that you can experience in your own life, at the level of your embodied experiences in the world. In this section of the guide, we’ll explain briefly why Zen isn’t a practice per se, and then explore the ways it’s often experienced, looking at the starting points that Watts identifies for someone new to Zen and then exploring traditional practices such as meditation, Koan training, recreation, labor, and breathing.

Why Is It a Mistake to Think of Zen as a “Practice”?

It’s common but not entirely correct to refer to Zen as a practice. Watts explains that to understand Zen, you have to experience it. But that doesn’t actually mean practicing it in a formalized, structured way. Paradoxically, you can’t truly practice Zen if you’re pursuing it as a goal. Similarly, Watts writes that Zen life begins with the understanding that you can’t practice Zen to become a Buddha because you are already a Buddha.

To experience Zen, you don’t need to practice any method in particular, nor do you have to do or think about anything specific. Watts explains that Zen isn’t a means to the end of awakening; instead, awakening, or satori, comes when you don’t have a goal in mind and are instead just experiencing the present moment in the concrete world.

(Shortform note: Not everyone agrees with Watts’s interpretation of the Zen teaching that you are perfect as you are and have just lost touch with your true nature. Journalist Jules Evans writes that according to the Buddhist nun Tenzin Palmo, you can glimpse your true nature, but you still need to practice to experience enlightenment. Evans explains that the risk inherent in following Watts’s philosophy is that you can become complacent, even egotistical, and fail to change your habits even when they cause suffering to you or to other people in your life.)

Where Should You Begin if You Want to Experience Zen?

It’s one thing to understand the basic principles of Zen, but it’s another to express those principles in the way you live. Watts offers two suggestions for beginning: The first involves stepping away from your abstract idea of the world, and the second involves seeking to experience the real, concrete world instead. In this section of the guide, we’ll look more closely at each of these suggestions.

Let Go of Illusions and the Goals That Follow From Them

To begin living a life of Zen, you first have to stop pursuing goals that reflect the abstract idea of the world. Watts writes that this means letting go of trying to experience the good without the bad: When you understand their relativity, then you can appreciate that there aren’t goals that can be set or achieved. Stepping away from illusions also means loosening your grip on trying to plan for a future that, according to Zen, doesn’t exist.

When you internalize the idea that there’s nothing to be gained or obtained in life, and nothing except the present, then you can realize that none of your abstract ideas about self-improvement remain relevant to your true self. The way you do things matters more than the specific things that you do (or goals you set). Watts writes that Zen doesn’t demand that you engage in any specific practice or course of action: You can experience Zen in any activity.

(Shortform note: If you’ve ever noticed that you don’t tend to feel happier after achieving a goal you’ve set for yourself—a phenomenon attributed to what psychologists call the hedonic treadmill—then the Zen idea of stopping yourself from pursuing goals might appeal to you. But it’s not quite as simple as dropping goals altogether: Buddhist monk Kinrei Bassis writes that the idea of “seeking nothing” is to stop looking for life to give you what you want, and instead focus on what it already gives you. This teaching also aligns with what psychologists recommend if you want to get off the hedonic treadmill: One way to do that is to pay attention to the positive things and acknowledge the things you feel grateful for.)

Experience the World Around You

The logical counterpart to stepping away from your abstract idea of the world is opening yourself to experiencing the real, concrete world instead. Rather than naming and classifying experiences, observe them and encounter them as they really are. Watts explains that Zen masters don’t spend their time talking about Zen. Instead, they experience Zen by focusing on the tathata, the suchness or the concrete reality, of the world around them.

(Shortform note: Experiencing the world directly is easier said than done. In The Happiness Trap, Russ Harris—who teaches Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a mindfulness-based form of psychotherapy—writes that you have an observing self and a thinking self. Your observing self watches the thoughts you think, the sensations you feel in your body, and the world you observe with your senses. Your thinking self naturally interprets what your observing self experiences directly and distracts you from the immediacy of reality. By connecting with your observing self, you can stop identifying with your thinking self.)

How Is Zen Expressed?

As we’ve discussed, it’s a basic principle of Zen that you can experience awakening at any point without having to participate in particular activities or meditate on specific ideas. However, Watts also writes that many traditional activities have historically been associated with the experience of Zen. In this section, we’ll describe the activities that have traditionally been used as an expression of Zen, including meditation, koan training, work, recreation, and breathing.

Meditation

One traditional Zen practice is sitting meditation, or za-zen, where you look at the world without thinking about it in abstractions. Watts explains that this practice helps you to see the “suchness” of the world since it involves letting your ideas about it fall away and experiencing reality as it exists right now.

Za-zen involves attending to what’s happening in the present moment, feeling a continuity between yourself and the world, and observing the absence of a boundary between your mind and the thoughts that run through it. This is a common way to express Zen, and Watts writes that Rinzai and Soto Zen monks spend a significant amount of time in the practice of za-zen. For them, the translation “sitting meditation” is literal: They practice za-zen sitting on a cushion in lotus pose.

(Shortform note: Watts’s interpretation of za-zen has attracted controversy. Tim Lott writes that throughout his body of work, Watts dismisses za-zen as unnecessary to the practice of Zen, an interpretation Lott characterizes as “radical.” Similarly radical is Watts’s rejection of the traditional Buddhist idea of rebirth and the conventional understanding of karma as a system of rewards and punishments that transcends the human lifespan, according to Lott. But he explains that Watts saw his job in The Way of Zen as teaching the reader to think clearly, which is challenging when Zen is counterintuitive to someone with a Western perspective, and to help the reader accept that two contradictory ideas can be true at the same time.)

Koan Training

Another traditional way of expressing Zen is the sanzen, where pupils in the Rinzai School visit Zen masters to present their understanding of Zen stories: kung-an or koans. Watts explains that in koan training, a student undergoes a series of 50 tests that take the anecdotes of historic Zen masters as their material. The student has to demonstrate that they understand the meaning of the koan. But they can’t just explain the story in words: The demonstration must be nonverbal and intuitive, and the student discovers its form in the process of coming to understand the koan.

When the student has found an answer to the koan, they present it to the Zen master using a verse from the Zenrin Kushu, a compilation of Zen writings. The student carefully selects the verse to convey what they learned from the koan.

(Shortform note: Some experts say that koan training is one of the most meaningful practices in Zen Buddhism, even though the koans themselves are sometimes described as nonsensical. In The Three Pillars of Zen, Philip Kapleau Roshi writes that the purpose of koan training isn’t to lead us to enlightenment, but to “make us lose our way and drive us to despair.” That despair breaks down your assumptions and patterns of thinking so that you can discover a new perspective.)

Recreation and Work

Recreation and work offer another way to experience and express Zen. Watts explains that some Zen practices don’t emphasize za-zen; Instead, they teach people to use their everyday work and pursuits as a means of meditation. He notes that traditionally, rituals like tea ceremonies, arts such as brush drawing and flute playing, and athletic pursuits like ju-jutsu, fencing, and archery all serve as a mode of meditation.

A traditional Japanese tea ceremony, or Chan-o-yu, translated as the “art of tea,” offers one way to express Zen. The tea ceremony is a ritual that, according to Watts, requires a total immersion in the present moment, as tea is prepared and served in a traditional but secular ritual.

(Shortform note: Other experts agree that the Japanese tea ceremony is rooted in Zen thought and intends to bring participants’ attention fully to the present. It takes 10 years of study to fully master the ritual of the tea ceremony and the 37 steps it takes to brew, serve, and drink tea in the ceremony.)

Traditional forms of art offer another way to understand and experience Zen (whether you’re practicing the art or just appreciating it). Watts characterizes Zen art as an expression of the artist’s experience of the present moment. Sumi-e, a style of calligraphic painting, expresses spontaneity in its depiction of natural scenes. Haiku, a short form of poetry, expresses the concrete reality of a moment in time, evoking its particular mood or sensation. These arts are intended to be practiced without making an effort, performed without separating thought from action and undertaken without setting goals for the practice.

(Shortform note: Today, the form of art that’s most closely associated with Zen is monochromatic ink painting. But all forms of Zen art are meant to evoke the simplicity and importance of the natural world, so they all express two concepts called wabi and sabi. While Watts characterizes these as moods, art experts say that they’re more amorphous and express concepts such as rusticity, melancholy, loneliness, naturalness, and age, so that the simple image in a painting or a haiku becomes evocative of something much deeper.)

Even work can serve as an expression of Zen when you approach it in the right mindset. Watts explains that historically, many professions and traditional crafts in Japan were regarded as lay methods for learning the principles of Taoism, Confucianism, and Zen.

(Shortform note: The importance of using your everyday activities to practice your spirituality recurs in many traditions. For example, in The Art of Happiness, the Dalai Lama—who is the leader of the Yellow Hat school of Tibetan Buddhism—writes that it’s important to take opportunities in your everyday life to practice a spiritual teaching or to learn a spiritual lesson. In practice, this requires maintaining a calm mind that enables you to be present and observant and being disciplined about practicing the spiritual lessons you’ve learned even in everyday situations.)

Breathing

Finally, you can learn to express Zen in one of your most fundamental physiological activities: breathing. Watts notes that any activity can function as meditation. But no matter what practice you adopt for practicing Zen, a key part of Zen is breathing. Watts explains that when we breathe reflexively, our breath tends to be shallow. Proper breathing for the experience of Zen starts with the exhale, which should completely empty the chest and abdomen of air. Then, the inhale follows easily. The goal is not to breathe as an exercise but to become aware of and observe your breath as it moves in and out of your body.

(Shortform note: According to other experts, breathing correctly is a crucial part of experiencing Zen. Zen master Ken Kushner writes that breathing for Zen meditation involves breathing from the hara, or lower abdomen. Experts say that it’s similar to the belly breathing that’s taught in yoga, with one difference: While in belly breathing, the lower abdomen expands during inhalation and contacts during exhalation, in hara breathing, the lower abdomen remains expanded on exhalation. Learning to breathe correctly enables you to direct your mind during meditation, and Kushner has developed several exercises to help you find your hara.)

How Is Alan Watts—and The Way of Zen—Regarded Today?

In the years since The Way of Zen was published in 1957, and since Watts died in 1973, much has been said about the way he lived his life and talked about the principles of Zen Buddhism and other Eastern schools of philosophical and religious thought. Watts lived a flawed private life, and according to a biography written by Monica Furlong, referred to himself as “a philosophical entertainer, a genuine fake and an irreducible rascal.” His obituary in The New York Times characterized him as “virtually a cult figure,” and he’s often called a pop philosopher.

In a column published in 1994, writer David Guy notes that Watts has been accused of learning Buddhism from books, promoting facile interpretations of Zen ideas, and failing to acknowledge the work involved in practicing Zen. Guy writes that it’s true that Watts never underwent rigorous Zen training and acknowledges as fair the criticism that The Way of Zen is biased toward the idea of sudden enlightenment and places too little emphasis on discipline.

Guy notes that the central idea of all of Watts’s books is that we aren’t separate from the rest of the universe and identifies his books are a touchstone for readers undergoing a shift in consciousness away from seeing themselves as isolated individuals. Guy thinks that some of Watts’s critics have wanted him to have all the answers, though Watts never intended or promised to provide them with all the answers. He’s credited with popularizing major ideas like mindfulness in the West, and Maria Popova characterizes The Wisdom of Insecurity as an “existentially necessary” book that stays with the reader for a lifetime.

Gus Carter writes that Watts “hints at the something of Buddhism” but doesn’t fully commit to it. Carter explains that for Watts, the appeal of Buddhism lay in its promise of liberation from Western individualism, anxiety, and alienation from the universe, things that many other people feel and want to change in their own lives. Through divorces and affairs, psychedelic use and alcohol abuse, Watts was a flawed human being—poet Gary Snyder said that Watts “sowed trouble wherever he went.”

Yet David Chadwick writes that Shunryu Suzuki, a Zen monk and teacher who helped popularize Zen in the United States and built the first Zen monastery outside of Asia, referred to Watts as “a great Bodhisattva.” Chadwick explains that though people can speculate about Watts’s own practice and depth of understanding and personal life, Watts taught a version of Zen that is “authentic yet contemporary and accessible” and succeeded in bringing Zen Buddhism to countless people in the western world.