At the root of human conflict is our fundamental misunderstanding of who we are. The illusion that we are isolated beings, unconnected to the rest of the universe, has led us to view the outside world with hostility, and has fueled our misuse of technology and our violent and hostile subjugation of the natural world. To help us understand that the self is in fact the root and ground of the universe, Alan Watts provides us with a much-needed answer to the problem of personal identity, distilling and adapting the Hindu philosophy of Vedanta.

With a rare combination of freshness and lucidity, he delves into the origins and history of Zen to explain what it means for the world today with incredible clarity. Watts saw Zen as one of the most precious gifts of Asia to the world, and in The Way of Zen he gives this gift to readers everywhere.

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 brain can only assume its proper behavior when consciousness is doing what it is designed for: not writhing and whirling to get out of present experience, but being effortlessly aware of it.

Alan Watts draws on the wisdom of Eastern philosophy and religion in this timeless and classic guide to living a more fulfilling life. His central insight is more relevant now than ever: when we spend all of our time worrying about the future and lamenting the past, we are unable to enjoy the present moment--the only one we are actually able to inhabit.

Watts offers the liberating message that true certitude and security come only from understanding that impermanence and insecurity are the essence of our existence. He highlights the futility of endlessly chasing moving goalposts, whether they consist of financial success, stability, or escape from pain, and shows that it is only by acknowledging what we do not know that we can learn anything truly worth knowing.

In The Wisdom of Insecurity, Watts explains complex concepts in beautifully simple terms, making this the kind of book you can return to again and again for comfort and insight in challenging times.

Perhaps the foremost interpreter of Eastern disciplines for the contemporary West, Watts had the rare gift of 'writing beautifully the unwritable.' --Los Angeles Times

In this collection, Watts displays the intelligence, playfulness of thought, and simplicity of language that has made him so perennially popular as an interpreter of Eastern thought for Westerners. He draws on a variety of religious traditions and covers topics such as the challenge of seeing one's life just as it is, the Taoist approach to harmonious living, the limits of language in the face of ineffable spiritual truth, and the psychological symbolism of Christian thought. Throughout, he shows how our true self is never to be found anywhere other than this very life and this very moment.

Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion presents six powerful essays by Alan Watts, the guru for an entire generation of 20th century thinkers, writers and poets. Watts was an engaging speaker and an icon of America's Beat and Counterculture movements. His friends included Aldous Huxley, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, John Cage and Joseph Campbell.

In this book, Watts explores all aspects of Buddhism--from its roots in ancient India to the explosion of interest in Zen and Tibetan Buddhist thought in the West.

The fascinating topics covered in this book include:

• Finding a Middle Way: How a spiritual path to awakening is formed not just by avoiding extreme indulgence but extreme denial as well
• The Religion of No-Religion: How Buddhism eschews any particular dogma and instead acts as a guide to understanding oneself
• Buddhism as Dialogue: How Zen teaches us that we are one with the world and so as we learn to navigate the world, we must also learn about ourselves

With essays on cosmic consciousness (including Alan Watts' account of his own ventures into this inward realm); the paradoxes of self-consciousness; LSD and consciousness; and the false opposition of spirit and matter, This Is It and Other Essays on Zen and Spiritual Experience is a truly mind-opening collection.

In order to come to your senses, Alan Watts often said, you sometimes need to go out of your mind. Perhaps more than any other teacher in the West, this celebrated author, former Anglican priest, and self-described spiritual entertainer was responsible for igniting the passion of countless wisdom seekers to the spiritual and philosophical delights of India, China, and Japan.

With Out of Your Mind, you are invited to immerse yourself in six of this legendary thinker's most engaging teachings on how to break through the limits of the rational mind and expand your awareness and appreciation for the great game unfolding all around us. Distilled from Alan Watts's pinnacle lectures, Out of Your Mind brings you an inspiring new resource that captures the true scope of this brilliant teacher in action.

For those both new and familiar with Watts, this book invites us to delve into his favorite pathways out of the trap of conventional awareness, including:

- The art of the controlled accident--what happens when you stop taking your life so seriously and start enjoying it with complete sincerity

- How we come to believe the myth of myself--that we are skin-encapsulated egos separate from the world around us--and how to transcend that illusion

- Why we must fully embrace chaos and the void to find our deepest purpose

- Unconventional and refreshing insights into the deeper principles of Buddhism, Hinduism, Western philosophy, Christianity, and much more

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 was an engaging speaker and an icon of America's Beat and Counterculture movements who named among his friends Aldous Huxley, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, John Cage, and Joseph Campbell.

Through his popular radio series Way Beyond the West, Alan Watts presented the practical side of Zen, which he described as a cure for education and culture. By the early sixties, his radio programs were renowned for their synthesis of Eastern wisdom and everyday life.

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

The Joyous Cosmology is Alan Watts's exploration of the insight that the consciousness-changing drugs LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin can facilitate when accompanied with sustained philosophical reflection by a person who is in search, not of kicks, but of understanding. More than an artifact, it is both a riveting memoir of Watts's personal experiments and a profound meditation on our perennial questions about the nature of existence and the existence of the sacred.

Includes Watts's article Psychedelics and Religious Experience

According to Deepak Chopra, Watts was a spiritual polymatch, the first and possibly greatest. Watts treats the Chinese philosophy of Tao in much the same way as he did Zen Buddhism in his classic The Way of Zen. Critics agree that this last work stands as a perfect monument to the life and literature of Alan Watts.

Perhaps the foremost interpreter of Eastern disciplines for the contemporary West, . . . Watts begins with scholarship and intellect and proceeds with art and eloquence to the frontiers of the spirit.--Los Angeles Times

A rediscovered treasure for a new generation: the first and only story for children ever written by Alan Watts.

Alan Watts, beloved for bringing a childlike wonder to the spiritual journey, once wrote a story for children. The Fish Who Found the Sea brings this delightful and wise parable to life for a new generation. Presented with new art from award-winning illustrator Khoa Le, here is a story as timely as it is entertaining--sharing a key message about getting into harmony with the flow of life.

In this tale of a tail, we meet a fish with a curiously familiar problem--he's gotten himself so mixed up that he spends all his time chasing himself in circles Only the Great Sea knows how to help our poor fish get out of the mess he's created with his own runaway thoughts. Here is a parable that perfectly captures the wit and wisdom that have made Alan Watts a timeless teacher we will never outgrow.

From the luminary and prophetic Alan Watts, an invitation to embrace pleasure, play, and connection in our ever-evolving world

If you were God, asked Alan Watts, what kind of universe would you create? A perfect one free of suffering and drama? Or one filled with surprise and delight?

From the 1950s to the 1970s, Eastern spiritual philosophies sparked in the West profound new ways of perceiving ourselves, the mysteries of reality, and the unfolding destiny of humanity. And through his live gatherings and radio talks, Alan Watts was at the forefront--igniting astonishing insights into who we are and where we're heading.

Based on a legendary series of seminars, Just So illuminates three fascinating domains: money versus real wealth, the spirituality of a deeper materialism, and how technology and spirituality are both guiding us to ever greater interconnection in the universe that we find ourselves in.

Along the way, readers will explore many other themes, at turns humorous, prescient, and more relevant today than ever. What unfolds is a liberating view of humanity that arises from possibility and the unpredictable--perfect and just so, not in spite of its messy imperfections, but because of them.

Book highlights:

1. Going With
- Theology and the Laws of Nature
- Thinking Makes It So
- Everything Is Context
- Going With
- What We Mean by Intelligence
- Ecological Awareness
- Of Gods and Puppets

2. Civilizing Technology
- The Problem of Abstractions
- We Need a New Analogy
- Working with the Field of Forces
- Trust
- Synergy and the One World Town
- Privacy, Artificiality, and the Self
- Groups and Crowds

3. Money and Materialism
- The Material Is the Spiritual
- Money and the Good Life
- True Materialism
- Wiggles, Seriousness, and the Fear of Pleasure
- The Failure of Money and Technology
- The Problem of Guilt

4. In Praise of Swinging
- Rigidity and Identity
- Now Is Where the World Begins
- Are We Going to Make It?
- Polarization and Contrast
- No Escape

5. What Is So of Itself
- Spontaneity and the Unborn Mind
- Relaxation, Religion, and Rituals
- Saving the World

Alan Watts's essays and talks range widely through psychology, art, religion, and politics, but always come home to the Zen core. For those familiar with Alan Watts's style of presentation, the wonderful, memorable, and prophetic style of his voice is captured in this volume. Talking Zen puts on display Watts's ability to explore the very subtle philosophies, those common across traditions and those unique to Zen, in ordinary and accessible language. These lectures paved the way for the rise of Zen in the West.