11/12/2023 0 Comments Inspirational zen quotesIt was not long afterward that Watts felt forced to decide between the Anglican Christianity he had been exposed to and the Buddhism he had read about in various libraries, including Croshaw's. Watts spent several holidays in France in his teen years, accompanied by Francis Croshaw, a wealthy Epicurean with strong interests in both Buddhism and exotic little-known aspects of European culture. Of this religious training, he remarked "Throughout my schooling, my religious indoctrination was grim and maudlin." He was sent to boarding schools (which included both academic and religious training of the " Muscular Christian" sort) from early years. )īy his own assessment, Watts was imaginative, headstrong, and talkative. (See, for instance, the last chapter in The Way of Zen. It seemed to float." These works of art emphasised the participatory relationship of people in nature, a theme that stood fast throughout his life and one that he often wrote about. ![]() The few Chinese paintings Watts was able to see in England riveted him, and he wrote "I was aesthetically fascinated with a certain clarity, transparency, and spaciousness in Chinese and Japanese art. ![]() During this time he was influenced by Far Eastern landscape paintings and embroideries that had been given to his mother by missionaries returning from China. Watts also later wrote of a mystical dream he experienced while ill with a fever as a child. It mixed with Watts's own interests in storybook fables and romantic tales of the mysterious Far East. Probably because of the influence of his mother's religious family the Buchans, an interest in "ultimate things" seeped in. With modest financial means, they chose to live in pastoral surroundings, and Watts, an only child, grew up playing at Brookside, learning the names of wild flowers and butterflies. His mother, Emily Mary Watts (née Buchan), was a housewife whose father had been a missionary. Watts's father, Laurence Wilson Watts, was a representative for the London office of the Michelin tyre company. Watts was born to middle-class parents in the village of Chislehurst, Kent (now south-east London), on 6 January 1915, living at Rowan Tree Cottage, 3 (now 5) Holbrook Lane. The bulk of his recorded audio talks were recorded during the 1960s and early 1970s. His lectures found posthumous popularity through regular broadcasts on public radio, especially in California and New York, and more recently on the internet, on sites and apps such as YouTube and Spotify. He also explored human consciousness and psychedelics in works such as "The New Alchemy" (1958) and The Joyous Cosmology (1962). He considered Nature, Man and Woman (1958) to be, "from a literary point of view-the best book I have ever written". In Psychotherapy East and West (1961), he argued that Buddhism could be thought of as a form of psychotherapy. He wrote more than 25 books and articles on religion and philosophy, introducing the emerging hippie counter culture to The Way of Zen (1957), one of the first best selling books on Buddhism. Watts gained a following while working as a volunteer programmer at the KPFA radio station in Berkeley. Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English writer, speaker, and self-styled "philosophical entertainer", known for interpreting and popularising Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu philosophy for a Western audience.
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