In My Own Way: An Autobiography

Rating:
Summary: A bit disappointing
Review: I didn't find this autobiography as appealing as many of the other flowery reviews. I like Alan Watts' philosophical pieces a lot, but there was something in the tone of his autobiography that was arrogant and misleading. His writing is beautiful, as usual, but there is lack of intimacy that I would have expected in a candid autobiography, especially from someone who claims to be a spiritual entertainer. The prose is sprinkled with reminders of how he realizes the ego is a fiction, and how he is enlightened in that sense. Which is fine, I suppose, but I thought the frequent reminders were a little unnecessary, or as he likes to put it, "putting legs on a snake."

More importantly, his recounting of his life completely lacks a sense of problems or misfortunes. Some people really do lack this, but from his biographies it is evident that Alan Watts did not. He does not (at the request of his father) talk about his relationship with his mother at all in the book, and he also does not discuss at all his alcoholism problems. He also does not discuss the sexual problems which led to his first marriage dissolving, and doesn't really explain why he divorced his second wife. I found this disappointing because he probably had a lot of wisdom to share about this. It also makes him seem less human. ...

Despite all this, the autobiography is entertaining and definitely worth reading for anyone interested in an inside view of the counterculture movement. His reflections, though at times a little too confident, are still mostly interesting to read.

However, I would recommend reading this book along with an objective biography like "Zen Effects- the Life of Alan Watts" to get a more balanced view on his life.

Rating:
Summary: The Way I Came To Be
Review: In My Own Way: An Autobiography is the endlessly engrossing story of the persona, the public figure, of Alan Wilson Watts, who is sometimes referred to, and rightly so, as "the foremost interpreter of Eastern disciplines," and Zen Buddhism in particular. It was not Alan's idea to write this book, as he candidly admits in the Preface to the book, since in his opinion he had not done anything worthy of recounting. "I have not fought in wars, explored mountains and jungles, battled in politics, commanded great business corporations, or accumulated vast wealth. It seemed to me, therefore, that I had no story to tell as the world judges stories."

It was only at the insistence of two women in his life, his publisher's editor, Paula McGuire, and his third wife, Mary Jane Yates, that he consented to write down the details of the making of Alan Watts. Along the way we meet the people who influenced Alan, who helped guide, shape, and direct his persona. And though he was influenced by many people in his life, whose works and ideas found their way into his many books, essays, and lectures, Alan possessed, all on his own, a certain knack or genius for getting at the essence of a theme or subject. And then he was able to effectively communicate that essence, using his abundant imagination, to his readers and listeners. And this not just for the highbrows in the audience, but for every class of person who picks up one of his books and proceeds to make the effort to understand the ideas and concepts he expresses. Alan's work was, if anything, accessible to the reader, whatever his level of interest.

The title of this review, The Way I Came To Be, refers to the story that makes up the book. And so much of that story centers around the people Alan interacted with from whom he gathered the ideas, concepts and "philosophy" that he expoused. It's the inside story of how Alan Watts came to think and see things in the way he came to think and see them. And for this value alone the book is abundantly worth reading and re-reading.

(From a personal point of interest, it fascinated and amazed me, at first reading several years ago, how much my own life paralleled and intersected the same aspects of cultivation as his life: an early interest in Eastern philosophy; being associated with and entering a Western religious order, Episcopal in his case and old Catholic in my own; an interest in the metaphysical rituals of religion; a background in meditation combined with a fascination with psychology and psychoanalysis; and an insight into the little talked about mystical aspects of Western religions and the thought to express the marriage between Western and Eastern mysticism.)

In My Own Way is, in reality, an extension of Alan Watts' previous books in that it covers a lot of the same ground but with new stories of the people he lived with which provides additional insight into the concepts and ideas he wrote about.

For instance, there is the passage that quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson from his famous essay on "Self-Reliance" in which Emerson is writing about the timelessness of things in nature, roses in this case, and how the roses "make no reference to former roses or the better ones; they are for what they are....There is no time for them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence...But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past,or,...stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time."

And then Watts writes: "Sokei-an Sasaki told me that reading this passage touched off his first experience of satori." Sokei-an Sasaki was one of the Zen masters with whom Watts studied. An alert reader, recognizing this fact, would be fascinated to learn about this passage which had such a profound effect upon a Zen master to see whether or not it could have the same effect on him. When one is on the path to self discovery, every little clue is valuable. And such clues as this, coming as it does from the experience of a Zen master, are especially invaluable.

There are dozens and dozens of such moments of insight and clarity offered up in this autobiography that it makes it a joy to read.

And if you are a careful reader, that is if you can read between the lines, you might even learn a thing or two about Alan Watts the man in addition to what you learn about his public facade. And herein lies the value of biography or autobiography and the reading of such, because the reader has the opportunity to gain a rare look at the inside workings of a fellow human being in order to learn and gain wisdom from that person's life which he can then apply to his own life.

You may learn, for example, to recognize and avoid the fatal flaw in Alan's approach to life that took him out at such a relatively young age, fifty-eight. And I'm not referring here to the much discussed abuse of alcohol, although that undoubtedly was a contributing factor. But it was secondary, however, and not the primary factor which led to his early death. He does mention the reason once or twice, but it's so well camouflaged that most people will read right through it without recognizing its significance. I'll leave it to you, the reader of his autobiography, to come to your own conclusion.

At any rate, suffice it to say that this book is a treasure trove of subtle wisdom, valuable perceptions, and fascinating stories of the development and coronation of one of Western civilization's most visible spiritual gurus.

Rating:
Summary: A bit disappointing
Review: The unabashedly eclectic Alan Watts neither aspired to dogmatic purity nor engaged in academic nitpicking. He culls what he needs, mostly from the Oriental tradition, in order to construct a project of spiritual hedonism.

Watts thinking and approach to life are emblematic of the 1960s,
even though his quest began many years prior to that tumultuous decade. He rejects the transcendental God, super-ego and status quo, in favor of a spirituality of immanence and id. This coincided with the human potential movement, blossoming at that time.

It is interesting to consider, however, how far the human potential movement in its latest incarnation - the new-age movement- diverged from the course laid down by Watts. For one thing, though he was a popularizer, Watts was undoubtedly an intellectual and would accept little or nothing as a matter of faith. The "New Age", on the other hand, seems to be intellectually vacuous. Like newagers, Watts did turn to the Orient for answeres. This may originally have been inspired by a sort of exoticism, but after having tried to frame his spirituality withinin the epicopalian faith (he became an ordained minister),
Zen/taoism turned out to be the best vehicle for him.

The New Age seems to have reconstructed a more Oriental God, who nonetheless resembles the fatherly God of their Catholic/Protestant parents. This God says "Thou Shalt" (although his rules are slightly different) and looks after his followers as a shepherd does for his flock. This takes many guises...the New Thought one, where if you supplicate to God and repeat enough affirmations, God, under the sobriquet of "the Universe" will grant you what you want...or the guru, in traditional costume or in his new thread as psychotherapist.
Watts rejects all of this transcentalism. He accepts the notion of karma, becoming as one acts,(but not necessarily the new age conception of karma which clings to the idea of returning in a next life).

On the one hand, the new age is either ascetic or it fully embraces hyperconsumersim. It is apparent throughout this biography that Watts rejects both of these paths. On the one hand, he does not envision the body as fallen spirit, but as part of the universe, hence part of God, and to be celebrated.
This is to be done through wine, food, sex and many other ways.
On the other hand, he is wary of the money game, and a blind pursuit of things.

This was my first reading of Watts, though I had listened to a few of his recorded lectures. I shall read more. I am particularly interested in understanding this question of the "illusion of the ego", in comparison with concept of the individual from the point of view of cartesianism or postmodernism.

Apart from those concerns, it was an enjoyable read. I found the first 50 pages, concerned with his childhood, to be a bit slow, but after that it was a real page-turner.

Thomas

Rating:
Summary: In My Own Way: Alan Watts, His Own Way
Review: This autobiography, published 1972, by Alan Wilson Watts, the expatriate British orientalist and philosopher, is a joy to read, a document of Watts' life, and a history of the 1960s counterculture.

Watts early on evidenced a love for eastern philosophy. At the age of 20, he was already one of the major writers and thinkers on subjects such as Zen Buddhism and Taoism. He was a major exponent of the Zen outlook of Thou Art That.

Watts, an unfrocked Episcopal priest, has often been derided (wrongfully) as a 'popularizer' of subjects more properly reserved for serious study and practice, and (more rightly) as sometimes glib and definitely irreverent. This book is a record of Watts' indulgence in the pleasures of the flesh with a high spiritual purpose.

Watts wrote more than 20 books, and this is Watts at his irreverent best. Written with his tongue firmly jammed into his cheek, it is a compendium of a lifetime's worth of exuberant fun and learning for the joy of it.

Watts gleefully recounts tales of spiritual masters with stomachaches, hidebound bishops drinking fine wines, and sexy women discovering their Buddha-nature.

Nothing is too minor or too major for Watts's wit, and his reminiscences carry us from the bathroom of his childhood home in England to Canterbury Cathedral, from New York City to Big Sur, and touch on almost every major and many minor figures of the 1950s and 1960s.

Watts unabashedly tells us that he finds his life intensely interesting. Anyone reading IN MY OWN WAY would agree.

Rating:
Summary: Alan Watts` journey from young man to Zen teacher
Review: This is a very readable autobiography by Alan Watts about his life from boyhood to influencial teacher of the early "New Age Movement." He tells of his conflicts with Krishnamurti, Aldous Huxley and other famous friends as well as his expermentation with LSD. Alan Watts was educated at King's School, Canterbury which may explain how he became such a desiplined and clear writer. England's oldest prep school also produced writers such as Somerset Maugham and Hugh Walpole. An early conflict in his life was brought on by the idea of the commandment, "You must love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart and all thy soul." How can one be commanded to love with ones heart, he thought! His journey was one of great production: "The Way of Zen," "Psychotherapy; East and West," etc. This book is a must for any serious student of the early Vedanta Movement in California started during World War II by Christopher Isherwood, W.H. Auden, Gerald Heard and others.

Rating:
Summary: Superb autobiography
Review: This is the finest autobiography I have read. Watts was a master of prose and many of the paragraphs in this work are memorable for their lyrical beauty. He was a very complex human being and does a frank job of highlighting his imperfections. Whatever missteps he took, though, he had a tremendous amount of wisdom to share.

An added bonus to this book is that it gives the reader a vicarious introduction to many of the intellectual luminaries of the 20th century, many of whom were close friends of Watts.

Rating:
Summary: a courageous and original mind
Review: Though I was skeptical when handed this book - I am neither into religion nor do I desire to have a hip-zen lifestyle in Southern California - I was immediately drawn in to the way this amazing man's life unfolded. Early on, he set out to be an independent intellectual, constantly learning and living in his "own way." He succeeded, in spite of the odds, on the terms that he set out for himself. This was deeply inspiring to me, and it turned out that despite the surface differences of interest, Alan Watts had a lot to say about the choices one makes in life and how to go about living.

The book is also filled with details that are as fascinating as they are hilarious. A friend of his youth made a pilgrimage to a famous and ancient monastery, which he discovered was "an elaborate homosexual organization." Though he lacked a university degree, Watts was allowed to study at Northwestern, which he described as "the type of place where philosphers worked from 9 to 5." Later, in LA, he hung out with Aldous Huxley, experimenting with hallucinogens, beating drums all night long, and listening to the incredible rhythm of that brilliant man's speech, which he says arrested all conversation in entire restaurants. The list goes on and on.

Warmly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Follow your own "weird"
Review: Wisdom and humor are intermingled in this excellent book by a gifted writer who had a great deal to express, ponder, and celebrate with the rest of humanity. Alan Watts encourages us all to "follow our own weird" and not stifle the urge to live a full and meaningful life. In contrast to many authors who choose to offer a purely cerebral view of Zen Buddhism (which itself is a very non-Zen thing to do), Alan Watts writes in an direct, unpretentious, and inspiring manner, emphasizing along the way that we not take ourselves too seriously. To call Watts a hedonist, however, is to take a somewhat narrow view of his life and message, since he points out that one must accept all of life's so-called opposites: pleasure/pain, joy/sadness, life/death. It's quite a shame that this is out of print since it ranks with some of Watts's best writing. If you are fortunate enough to come across a copy of this book, do yourself a favor and read it, especially if you have a interest in religion in general or in Zen Buddhism in particular. Alan Watts should be an essential part of any study of Zen, or any study of life as a whole for that matter.

Rating:
Summary: Follow your own "weird"
Review: Wisdom and humor are intermingled in this excellent book by a gifted writer who had a great deal to express, ponder, and celebrate with the rest of humanity. Alan Watts encourages us all to "follow our own weird" and not stifle the urge to live a full and meaningful life. In contrast to many authors who choose to offer a purely cerebral view of Zen Buddhism (which itself is a very non-Zen thing to do), Alan Watts writes in an direct, unpretentious, and inspiring manner, emphasizing along the way that we not take ourselves too seriously. To call Watts a hedonist, however, is to take a somewhat narrow view of his life and message, since he points out that one must accept all of life's so-called opposites: pleasure/pain, joy/sadness, life/death. It's quite a shame that this is out of print since it ranks with some of Watts's best writing. If you are fortunate enough to come across a copy of this book, do yourself a favor and read it, especially if you have a interest in religion in general or in Zen Buddhism in particular. Alan Watts should be an essential part of any study of Zen, or any study of life as a whole for that matter.