{"id":106982,"date":"2023-07-06T09:48:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-06T13:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=106982"},"modified":"2023-07-19T13:36:01","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T17:36:01","slug":"philosopher-alan-watts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/philosopher-alan-watts\/","title":{"rendered":"Philosopher Alan Watts: A Cult Figure or a Great Bodhisattva?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What&#8217;s the legacy of Alan Watts? How do people view his life and contribution?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Critics, monks, and philosopher Alan Watts himself have used colorful words to describe him and his work. His books have taught many people in the West about Eastern philosophies and practices, but some contend that they lacked depth and that he didn&#8217;t always practice what he preached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more to learn how Alan Watts has been regarded over the last few decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-philosopher-alan-watts\">Philosopher Alan Watts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>English philosopher Alan Watts died in 1973. In the years since his death, much has been said about the way he lived his life and talked about the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-zen-buddhism\/\">principles of Zen<\/a> 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, he referred to himself as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/chislehurst-society.org.uk\/pages\/about\/people\/alan-watts-buddhist\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a philosophical entertainer<\/a>, a genuine fake and an irreducible rascal.\u201d His obituary in <em>The New York Times<\/em> characterized him as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1973\/11\/17\/archives\/alan-watts-zen-philosopher-writer-and-teacher-58-dies-virtually.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">virtually a cult figure<\/a>,\u201d and he\u2019s often called a pop philosopher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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 <a href=\"https:\/\/tricycle.org\/magazine\/alan-watts-reconsidered\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">acknowledge the work involved<\/a> in practicing Zen. Guy writes that it\u2019s true that Watts never underwent rigorous Zen training and acknowledges as fair the criticism that <em>The Way of Zen<\/em> is biased toward the idea of sudden enlightenment and places too little emphasis on discipline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Guy notes that the central idea of all of Watts\u2019s books is that we aren\u2019t 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\u2019s critics have wanted him to have all the answers, though Watts never intended or promised to provide them with all the answers. He\u2019s credited with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2014\/01\/06\/alan-watts-wisdom-of-insecurity-1\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">popularizing major ideas like mindfulness<\/a> in the West, and Maria Popova characterizes <em>The Wisdom of Insecurity <\/em>as an \u201cexistentially necessary\u201d book that stays with the reader for a lifetime.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gus Carter writes that Watts \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spectator.co.uk\/article\/the-paradox-of-alan-watts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">hints at the something of Buddhism<\/a>\u201d but doesn\u2019t fully commit to it. Carter explains that, for Watts, the appeal of Buddhism lay in its promise of liberation from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/western-individualism\/\">Western individualism<\/a>, 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 \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.philosophyforlife.org\/blog\/the-lazy-mysticism-of-alan-watts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">sowed trouble wherever he went<\/a>.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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 \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cuke.com\/Cucumber%20Project\/other\/watts\/watts.htm#cc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a great Bodhisattva<\/a>.\u201d Chadwick explains that, though people can speculate about Watts\u2019s own practice and depth of understanding and personal life, Watts taught a version of Zen that is \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lionsroar.com\/celebrating-alan-watts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">authentic yet contemporary and accessible<\/a>\u201d and succeeded in bringing Zen Buddhism to countless people in the Western world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What&#8217;s the legacy of Alan Watts? How do people view his life and contribution? Critics, monks, and philosopher Alan Watts himself have used colorful words to describe him and his work. His books have taught many people in the West about Eastern philosophies and practices, but some contend that they lacked depth and that he didn&#8217;t always practice what he preached. Read more to learn how Alan Watts has been regarded over the last few decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":108560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,33,21],"tags":[1085],"class_list":["post-106982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-people","category-philosophy","tag-the-way-of-zen","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Philosopher Alan Watts: A Cult Figure or a Great Bodhisattva? - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Critics, monks, and philosopher Alan Watts himself have used colorful words to describe him and his work. 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