This Is It : And Other Essays on Zen and Spiritual Experience

by Alan W. Watts

Book Overview

Six revolutionary essays exploring the relationship between spiritual experience and ordinary life and the need for them to coexist within each of us. 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...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B007249J3Q
• ISBN13: 9780394719047
• Release Date: March 1973
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 160 Pages
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Short but Good

_This Is It_ by Alan Watts is a good solid work, but is too short to provide the rigorous instruction needed to achieve any appreciable amount of enlightenment or Zen Satori. That said, it is a wonderful, enjoyable, and profound book page for page, and is essential to round out your collection of Alan Watts' more recent and well-known works. _This Is It_ is also perfect for someone who does not want a megadose of strenuous philosophy and theology; it is ideal for those who are new to psychological-religious non-fiction, or who do not have the time to hack through some kind of magnum-opus epic of philosophy. If, however, you want to read one of the more comprehensive books by Alan Watts, I would recommend _Psychotherapy East and West_, which is his best work.

Great explanation of the non-dual

Alan Watts explains what unity/non-dual consciousness or nothingness really is and explains how it may be different from what many people think it is. He uses various interesting examples to make his case and I thought they were very effective. Ken Wilber has elaborated on this error that people tend to make as well but I think Toru Sato's "The Ever-Transcending Spirit" really explains it the best. Although it is impossible to explain this distinction in words, it is the only medium writers have and Sato uses this meduim in a very nice way to help us understand this concept (or shall we say "non-concept"). Anyways all of these author's books are well worth reading. They are all brilliant! We are very fortunate that these people write books.

Just do it...

Yes, the Nike ads have captured the essence of Zen. As Alan Watts puts it, This Is It.Logical paradoxes aside, the "just shut up and get on with it" approach to Life is one of the key elements in Zen. The 'kill the Buddha' psychology of avoiding the pitfalls of externally arising enlightenment is well in line with Watt's own philosophy.Completeness comes from within and from a place of non-duality, which the koans of Zen are designed to lead you towards. One of the key human errors and the cause of immense suffering is the belief that Life must make sense. Who ever said that? And make sense to whom?The Techno Bible in The Hitch Hiker's Guide bore the words "Dont Panic" on the cover. That's a good starting point. Add to that Just Do It and This Is It, and you're going to be just fine.Another great read from the man who gave us The Two Hands Of God.

A Course In States of Consciousness and Their Paradoxes...

Zenmeister and superb wordsmith Watts becomes increasingly obscure, paradoxical, antithetical in these essays compiled in part to take the reader on a journey toward the realm of cosmic consciousness. That's okay by me, because he ends up saying some of the things I've heard before and I have started to believe: the spiritual and material are inseparable and that clarity comes about not after some years of study, and years of indoctrination and years of doing what is felt to be right and holy and blessed....it is neigh impossible to make rational what is emotional. Clarity is now. It is here, it is now.Watts' essays have not ignored the fact that people perceive things differently and that people are different--this book has some of Watts trademark wordworkings with definitions, modern parables, and comparisons of how the nature of the Zen experience should be/is....but...The ultimate point is...one doesn't have to go through what anyone preaches and evvyelse tells you to do to have one, it will be anyway. We in the Western 'Judeo-Christian' influenced world would perhaps rather believe in the order, the hierarchy of a supreme consciousness, hence we blind ourselves to the miracle of "it is now", "this is it"...the paradox of Watts' many writings, histories, descriptives is somewhat understandable. We don't wanna believe personal and spiritual awareness could come so easy. We say, "Where's the levels, where are the steps to happiness, where the intellectual satisfaction of a journey sought for...." Watts has provided the academics for those who want it,...but...

Have a ball and call it Earth!

Alan Watts will remove the scales of anxiety and doubt from the eyes of anyone who suffers from the "daily-ness" of life. His clarity and exuberance of mind refreshes the spirit and refills the fuel tank of hope for the journey through "now!"