Mahāyāna (Sanskrit: महायान, mahāyāna, literally the "Great Vehicle") is one of the two main existing branches of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophies and practice. Mahāyāna Buddhism originated in India.

The Mahāyāna tradition is the larger of the two major traditions of Buddhism existing today, the other being that of the Theravāda school. According to the teachings of Mahāyāna traditions, "Mahāyāna" also refers to the path of seeking complete enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, also called "Bodhisattvayāna", or the "Bodhisattva Vehicle."

In the course of its history, Mahāyāna Buddhism spread from India to various other Asian countries such as China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, and Mongolia. Major traditions of Mahāyāna Buddhism today include Zen/Chán, Pure Land, Tiantai, and Nichiren, as well as the Esoteric Buddhist traditions of Shingon and Tibetan Buddhism.

Etymology

According to Jan Nattier, the term Mahāyāna ("Great Vehicle") was originally an honorary synonym for Bodhisattvayāna ("Bodhisattva Vehicle"). — the vehicle of a bodhisattva seeking buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. The term Mahāyāna was therefore formed independently at an early date as a synonym for the path and the teachings of the bodhisattvas. Since it was simply an honorary term for Bodhisattvayāna, the creation of the term Mahāyāna and its application to Bodhisattvayāna did not represent a significant turning point in the development of a Mahāyāna tradition.

Among the earliest and most important references to the term Mahāyāna are those that occur in the Lotus Sūtra (Skt. Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra) dating between the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE. Seishi Karashima has suggested that the term first used in an earlier Gandhāri Prakrit version of the Lotus Sūtra was not the term mahāyāna but the Prakrit word mahājāna in the sense of mahājñāna (great knowing). At a later stage when the early Prakrit word was converted into Sanskrit, this mahājāna, being phonetically ambivalent, was mistakenly converted into mahāyāna, possibly due to what may have been a double meaning in the famous Parable of the Burning House, which talks of three vehicles or carts (Skt: yāna).

History

Early Mahāyāna Buddhism

, Indonesia.]] , 1st–2nd century CE.]]

Origins of Mahāyāna

The origins of Mahāyāna are still not completely understood. The earliest views of Mahāyāna Buddhism in the West assumed that it existed as a separate school in competition with the so-called "Hīnayāna" schools. Due to the veneration of buddhas and bodhisattvas, Mahāyāna was often interpreted as a more devotional, lay-inspired form of Buddhism, with supposed origins in stūpa veneration, or by making parallels with the history of the European Protestant Reformation. These views have been largely dismissed in modern times in light of a much broader range of early texts that are now available. These earliest Mahāyāna texts often depict strict adherence to the path of a bodhisattva, and engagement in the ascetic ideal of a monastic life in the wilderness, akin to the ideas expressed in the Rhinoceros Sūtra. The old views of Mahāyāna as a separate lay-inspired and devotional sect are now largely dismissed as misguided and wrong on all counts.

The earliest textual evidence of "Mahāyāna" comes from sūtras originating around the beginning of the common era. Jan Nattier has noted that in some of the earliest Mahāyāna texts such as the Ugraparipṛccha Sūtra use the term "Mahāyāna", yet there is no doctrinal difference between Mahāyāna in this context and the early schools, and that "Mahāyāna" referred rather to the rigorous emulation of Gautama Buddha in the path of a bodhisattva seeking to become a fully-enlightened buddha.

There is also no evidence that Mahāyāna ever referred to a separate formal school or sect of Buddhism, but rather that it existed as a certain set of ideals, and later doctrines, for bodhisattvas.

The Chinese monk Yijing who visited India in the 7th century CE, distinguishes Mahāyāna from Hīnayāna as follows:

Much of the early extant evidence for the origins of Mahāyāna comes from early Chinese translations of Mahāyāna texts. These Mahāyāna teachings were first propagated into China by Lokakṣema, the first translator of Mahāyāna sūtras into Chinese during the 2nd century CE.

, East Java, Indonesia.]]

Earliest Mahāyāna sūtras

Some scholars have traditionally considered the earliest Mahāyāna sūtras to include the very first versions of the Prajñāpāramitā series, along with texts concerning Akṣobhya Buddha, which were probably composed in the 1st century BCE in the south of India. Some early Mahāyāna sūtras were translated by the Kuṣāṇa monk Lokakṣema, who came to China from the kingdom of Gandhāra. His first translations to Chinese were made in the Chinese capital of Luoyang between 178 and 189 CE.

# # # # # # # # # # # # # An early sūtra connected to the

Some of these were probably composed in the north of India in the 1st century CE. Thus scholars generally think that the earliest Mahāyāna sūtras were mainly composed in the south of India, and later the activity of writing additional scriptures was continued in the north. However, the assumption that the presence of an evolving body of Mahāyāna scriptures implies the contemporaneous existence of distinct religious movement called "Mahāyāna", may be a serious misstep.

Maitreya, the Buddha, and Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. 2nd–3rd century CE, Gandhāra.]]

Earliest inscriptions

The earliest stone inscription containing a recognizably Mahāyāna formulation and a mention of the Buddha Amitabha was found in the Indian subcontinent in Mathura, and dated to around 180 CE. Remains of a statue of a Buddha bear the Brahmi inscription: "Made in the year 28 of the reign of king Huvishka, ... for the Buddha Amitabha" (Mathura Museum).

However, this image was in itself extremely marginal and isolated in the overall context of Buddhism in India at the time, and had no lasting or long-term consequences. Evidence of the name "Mahāyāna" in Indian inscriptions in the period before the 5th century is very limited in comparison to the multiplicity of Mahāyāna writings transmitted from Central Asia to China at that time.

It must be noted that these views of a discrepancy between translated texts and epigraphical evidence assume the presence of Mahāyāna as distinct from the "Hīnayāna" schools. This view has been largely disproved in more recent scholarship, as Mahāyāna is now recognized as a tradition working within the context of the early Buddhist schools rather than as a separate movement.

Late Mahāyāna Buddhism

During the period of late Mahāyāna Buddhism, four major types of thought developed: Mādhyamaka, Yogācāra, Buddha Nature (Tathāgatagarbha), and Buddhist Logic as the last and most recent. In India, the two main philosophical schools of the Mahāyāna were the Mādhyamaka and the later Yogācāra.

Legacy of Early Mahāyāna Buddhism

Earlier stage forms of Mahāyāna such as the doctrines of Prajñāpāramitā, Yogācāra, Buddha Nature, and the Pure Land teachings are still popular in East Asia. In some cases these have spawned new developments, while in others they are treated in the more traditional syncretic manner. Paul Williams has noted that in this tradition in the Far East, primacy has always been given to study of the sūtras.

Legacy of Late Mahāyāna Buddhism

Late stage forms of Mahāyāna Buddhism in India are found largely in the schools of Esoteric Buddhism. These were replaced in India and Central Asia after the early millennium by Islam (Sufism etc.) and Hinduism, and in south-east Asia by Theravāda Buddhism from Sri Lanka and Islam. They continue to exist in certain regions of the Himalayas. In contrast to the East Asian traditions, there has been a strong tendency in Tibetan Buddhism and the Himalayan traditions to approach the sūtras indirectly through the medium of exegetical treatises if at all. especially its early Indian form, other than that the Buddhism practiced in China, Vietnam, Korea, Tibet, and Japan is Mahāyāna Buddhism. Mahāyāna can be described as a loosely bound collection of many teachings with large and expansive doctrines that are able to coexist simultaneously.

Mahāyāna constitutes an inclusive tradition characterized by plurality and the adoption of new Mahāyāna sūtras in addition to the earlier Āgama texts. Mahāyāna sees itself as penetrating further and more profoundly into the Buddha's Dharma. There is a tendency in Mahāyāna sūtras to regard adherence to these sūtras as generating spiritual benefits greater than those that arise from being a follower of the non-Mahāyāna approaches to Dharma. Thus the Śrīmālādevī Sūtra claims that the Buddha said that devotion to Mahāyāna is inherently superior in its virtues to the following the śravaka or pratyekabuddha paths.

The fundamental principles of Mahāyāna doctrine were based on the possibility of universal liberation from suffering for all beings (hence the "Great Vehicle") and the existence of buddhas and bodhisattvas embodying Buddha Nature. Some Mahāyāna schools simplify the expression of faith by allowing salvation to be alternatively obtained through the grace of the Amitābha Buddha by having faith and devoting oneself to mindfulness of the Buddha. This devotional lifestyle of Buddhism is most strongly emphasized by the Pure Land schools and has greatly contributed to the success of Mahāyāna in East Asia, where spiritual elements traditionally relied upon mindfulness of the Buddha, mantras and dhāraṇīs, and reading of Mahāyāna sūtras. In Chinese Buddhism, most monks, let alone lay people, practice Pure Land, some combining it with Chán (Zen).

Most Mahāyāna schools believe in supernatural bodhisattvas who devote themselves to the perfections (Skt. pāramitā), ultimate knowledge (Skt. sarvajñāna), and the liberation of all sentient beings. In Mahāyāna, the Buddha is seen as the ultimate, highest being, present in all times, in all beings, and in all places, and the bodhisattvas come to represent the universal ideal of altruistic excellence.

, the future successor of Gautama Buddha. Thikse monastery, Tibet.]]

Universalism

Mahāyāna traditions generally consider that attainment of the level of an arhat is not final. This is based on a subtle doctrinal distinction between the Mahāyāna and some views contained in the early Buddhist schools concerning the issues of Nirvāṇa With Remainder and Nirvāṇa Without Remainder. The Mahāyāna position here is similar to that of the early school of the Mahāsāṃghika.

Some of the early schools considered that Nirvāṇa Without Remainder always follows Nirvāṇa With Remainder (Buddhas first achieve enlightenment and then, at "death", Mahāparinirvāṇa) and that Nirvāṇa Without Remainder is final; whereas the Mahāyāna traditions consider that Nirvāṇa Without Remainder is always followed by Nirvāṇa With Remainder — the state of attainment of arhat is not considered final, and should be succeeded by Bodhisattvahood.

This distinction is most evident regarding doctrinal concerns about the capability of a Buddha after Nirvāṇa, which is identified by the early schools as being Nirvāṇa Without Remainder. Amongst the early schools, a completely enlightened buddha (Skt. samyaksaṃbuddha) is not able to directly point the way to Nirvāṇa after death. Some Mahayana schools however, hold that once a completely enlightened Buddha (Skt. samyaksaṃbuddha) arises, he or she continues to directly and actively point the way to Nirvāṇa until there are no beings left in saṃsāra. Consequently, some Mahāyāna schools talk of a bodhisattva deliberately refraining from Buddhahood.

The early schools held that Maitreya will be the next Buddha to rediscover the path to Nirvana, when teachings of Gautam Buddha are forgotten. In contrast, some Mahāyāna schools hold that Maitreya will be the next buddha manifest in this world and will introduce the Dharma when it no longer exists, but when he dies (or enters Mahāparinirvāṇa), he will likewise continue to teach the Dharma for all time. Moreover, some Mahāyāna schools argue that although it is true that, for this world-system, Maitreya will be the next buddha to manifest, there are an infinite number of world-systems, many of which have currently active buddhas or bodhisattvas manifesting.

Because the Mahāyāna traditions assert that eventually everyone will achieve complete enlightenment (Skt. Anuttarā Samyaksaṃbodhi), the Mahāyāna is labeled universalist, whereas the stance of the early scriptures is that attaining Nirvāṇa depends on effort and is not pre-determined.

, the bodhisattva of compassion. Ajaṇṭā Caves, Mahārāṣtra, India.]]

Bodhisattva

The Mahāyāna tradition holds that pursuing only the release from suffering and attainment of Nirvāṇa is too narrow an aspiration, because it lacks the motivation of actively resolving to liberate all other sentient beings from Saṃsāra. One who engages in this path is called a bodhisattva.

The primary focus for a bodhisattva is bodhicitta, the vow to strive for the awakened mind of buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. As Ananda Coomaraswamy notes, "The most essential part of the Mahayana is its emphasis on the Bodhisattva ideal, which replaces that of the arhat, or ranks before it." According to Mahāyāna teachings, being a high-level bodhisattva involves possessing a mind of great compassion and transcendent wisdom (Skt. prajñā) to realize the reality of inherent emptiness and dependent origination. Mahāyāna teaches that the practitioner will finally realize the attainment of Buddhahood.

Six perfections (Skt. pāramitā) are traditionally required for bodhisattvas: #: the perfection of giving #: the perfection on behavior and discipline #: the perfection of forbearance #: the perfection of vigor and diligence #: the perfection of meditation #: the perfection of transcendent wisdom

Skillful means

Skillful means (Skt. upāya) is found in the Lotus Sutra, one of the earliest dated Mahāyāna sūtras, and is accepted in all Mahāyāna schools of thought. It is any effective method that aids awakening. It does not necessarily mean that some particular method is "untrue" but is simply any means or stratagem that is conducive to spiritual growth and leads beings to awakening and nirvana. A skillful means could thus be certain motivational words for a particular listener or even the noble eightfold path itself. Basic Buddhism (what Mahāyāna would term śravakayāna or pratyekabuddhayāna) is an expedient method for helping people begin the noble Buddhic path and advance quite far. But the path is not wholly traversed, according to some Mahāyāna schools, until the practitioner has striven for and attained Buddhahood for the liberation of all other sentient beings from suffering. In an ultimate sense, all verbalised Dharma is a "skillful means", since the Dharma of ultimate truth cannot really be expressed in words or concepts. Anything that effectively points the way to liberation can be termed a "skillful means"—an effective method for awakening beings from the sleep of spiritual ignorance. Mahāyāna often adopts a pragmatic notion of truth: doctrines are "true" in the sense of being spiritually beneficial.

Some scholars have stated that the exercise of skillful means, "the ability to adapt one's message to the audience, is also of enormous importance in the Pāli canon." In fact the Pāli term upāya-kosalla does occur in the Pāli Canon, in the Sangiti Sutta of the Digha Nikāya.

Liberation

“Devotional” Mahāyāna developed a rich cosmography, with various Buddhas and bodhisattvas residing in paradise realms. The concept of the three bodies (trikāya) supports these constructions, making the Buddha himself a transcendental figure. Dr. Guang Xing describes the Mahāyāna Buddha as "an omnipotent divinity endowed with numerous supernatural attributes and qualities ...[He] is described almost as an omnipotent and almighty godhead."

Under various conditions, the realms Buddha presides over could be attained by devotees after their death so, when reborn, they could strive towards buddhahood in the best possible conditions. Depending on the sect, this salvation to “paradise” can be obtained by faith, imaging, or sometimes even by the simple invocation of the Buddha’s name. This approach to salvation is at the origin of the mass appeal of devotional Buddhism, especially represented by the Pure Land (浄土宗).

This rich cosmography also allowed Mahāyāna to be quite syncretic and accommodating of other faiths or deities. Various origins have been suggested to explain its emergence, such as “popular Hindu devotional cults (bhakti), and Persian and Greco-Roman theologies, which filtered into India from the northwest”.

Buddha nature

The teaching of a "Buddha nature" may be based on the "luminous mind" concept found in the Āgamas. The essential idea, articulated in the Buddha nature sūtras, but not accepted by all Mahāyānists, is that no being is without a concealed but indestructible interior link to the awakening of bodhi and that this link is an uncreated element (dhātu) or principle deep inside each being, which constitutes the deathless, diamond-like "essence of the self". The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra states: "The essence of the Self (ātman) is the subtle Buddha nature..." while the later Lankāvatāra Sūtra states that the Buddha nature might be taken to be self (ātman), but it is not. In the Buddha nature class of sūtras, the word "self" (ātman) is used in a way defined by and specific to these sūtras. (See Atman (Buddhism).)

According to some scholars, the Buddha nature (tathāgatagarbha) discussed in some Mahāyāna sūtras does not represent a substantial self (ātman); rather, it is a positive language and expression of emptiness (śūnyatā) and represents the potentiality to realize Buddhahood through Buddhist practices. It is the "true self" in representing the innate aspect of the individual that makes actualizing the ultimate personality possible.

The actual "seeing and knowing" of this Buddha essence (Buddha-dhātu, co-terminous with the Dharmakāya or self of Buddha) is said to usher in nirvanic liberation. This Buddha essence or "Buddha nature" is stated to be found in every single person, ghost, god and sentient being. In the Buddha nature sūtras, the Buddha is portrayed as describing the Buddha essence as uncreated, deathless and ultimately beyond rational grasping or conceptualisation. Yet, it is this already real and present, hidden internal element of awakeness (bodhi) that, according to the Buddha nature sūtras, prompts beings to seek liberation from worldly suffering, and lets them attain the spotless bliss that lies at the heart of their being. Once the veils of negative thoughts, feelings, and unwholesome behaviour (the kleśas) are eliminated from the mind and character, the indwelling Buddha principle (Buddha-dhātu: Buddha nature) can shine forth unimpededly and transform the seer into a Buddha.

Prior to the period of these sūtras, Mahāyāna metaphysics was dominated by teachings on emptiness, in the form of Madhyamaka philosophy. The language used by this approach is primarily negative, and the Buddha nature genre of sūtras can be seen as an attempt to state orthodox Buddhist teachings of dependent origination and on the mysterious reality of nirvana using positive language instead, to prevent people from being turned away from Buddhism by a false impression of nihilism. In these sūtras the perfection of the wisdom of not-self is stated to be the true self; the ultimate goal of the path is then characterized using a range of positive language that had been used in Indian philosophy previously by essentialist philosophers, but was now transmuted into a new Buddhist vocabulary that described a being who has successfully completed the Buddhist path.

An exegetical treatise (i.e., interpretive text) on Buddha nature (tathāgatagarbha) is the Uttaratantra, which sees Buddha nature not as caused and conditioned (saṃskṛta), but as eternal, uncaused, unconditioned, and incapable of being destroyed, although temporarily concealed within worldly beings by adventitious defilements. According to Buddhist scholar Dr. C. D. Sebastian, the Uttaratantra's reference to a transcendental self (ātma-pāramitā) should be understood as "the unique essence of the universe," thus the universal and immanent essence of Buddha nature is the same throughout time and space.

Mahāyāna scriptures

Mudra, symbolizing his teaching of the Dharma. Sarnath, Vārāṇasī.]]

Mahāyāna and the Āgamas

Mahāyāna Buddhism takes the basic teachings of the Buddha as recorded in early scriptures as the starting point of its teachings, such as those concerning karma and rebirth, anātman, emptiness, dependent origination, and the Four Noble Truths. Mahāyāna Buddhists in East Asia have traditionally studied these teachings in the Āgamas preserved in the Chinese Buddhist canon. "Āgama" is the term used by those traditional Buddhist schools in India who employed Sanskrit for their basic canon. These correspond to the Nikāyas used by the Theravāda school. The surviving Āgamas in Chinese translation belong to at least two schools, while most of the Āgamas teachings were never translated into Tibetan.

In addition to accepting the essential scriptures of the various early Buddhist schools as valid, Mahāyāna Buddhism also maintains large additional collections of sūtras that are not used or recognized by the Theravāda school. In the past, these were also not recognized by some individuals within the early Buddhist schools. In other cases, Buddhist communities were divided along these doctrinal lines. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, the Mahāyāna sūtras are often given greater authority than the Āgamas. The first of these Mahāyāna-specific writings were written probably around the 1st century BCE or 1st century CE.

Turnings of the Dharma Wheel

Dating back at least to the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra is a classification of the corpus of Buddhism into three categories, based on ways of understanding the nature of reality, known as the "Three Turnings of the Dharma Wheel". According to this view, there were three such "turnings":

#In the first turning, the Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths at Vārāṇasī for those in the śravaka vehicle. It is described as marvelous and wonderful, but requiring interpretation and occasioning controversy. The doctrines of the first turning are exemplified in the Dharmacakra Pravartana Sūtra. This turning represents the earliest phase of the Buddhist teachings and the earliest period in the history of Buddhism. #In the second turning, the Buddha taught the Mahāyāna teachings to the bodhisattvas, teaching that all phenomena have no-essence, no arising, no passing away, are originally quiescent, and essentially in cessation. This turning is also described as marvelous and wonderful, but requiring interpretation and occasioning controversy. In the Indian philosophical schools, the third turning is exemplified by the Yogācāra school of Asaṅga and Vasubandhu.

Some traditions of Tibetan Buddhism consider the teachings of Esoteric Buddhism and Vajrayāna to be the third turning of the Dharma Wheel. Tibetan teachers, particularly of the Gelugpa school, regard the second turning as the highest teaching, due to their particular interpretation of Yogācāra doctrine. The Buddha Nature teachings are normally included in the third turning of the wheel. The Chinese tradition has a different scheme.

Mahāyāna and early canon

Scholars have noted that many key Mahāyāna ideas are closely connected to the earliest texts of Buddhism. The seminal work of Mahāyāna philosophy, Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, mentions the canon's Katyāyana Sūtra (SA 301) by name, and may be an extended commentary on that work. Nāgārjuna systematized the Mādhyamaka school of Mahāyāna philosophy. He may have arrived at his positions from a desire to achieve a consistent exegesis of the Buddha's doctrine as recorded in the canon. In his eyes the Buddha was not merely a forerunner, but the very founder of the Mādhyamaka system. Nāgārjuna also referred to a passage in the canon regarding "nirvanic consciousness" in two different works.

Yogācāra, the other prominent Mahāyāna school in dialectic with the Mādhyamaka school, gave a special significance to the canon's Lesser Discourse on Emptiness (MA 190). A passage there (which the discourse itself emphasizes) is often quoted in later Yogācāra texts as a true definition of emptiness. According to Walpola Rahula, the thought presented in the Yogācāra school's Abhidharmasamuccaya is undeniably closer to that of the Pali Nikayas than is that of the Theravadin Abhidhamma.

Both the Mādhyamikas and the Yogācārins saw themselves as preserving the Buddhist Middle Way between the extremes of nihilism (everything as unreal) and substantialism (substantial entities existing). The Yogācārins criticized the Mādhyamikas for tending towards nihilism, while the Mādhyamikas criticized the Yogācārins for tending towards substantialism.

Key Mahāyāna texts introducing the concepts of bodhicitta and Buddha nature also use language parallel to passages in the canon containing the Buddha's description of "luminous mind" and may have been based on this idea.

Mahāyāna and the Theravāda school

Role of the bodhisattva

In the early Buddhist texts, and as taught by the modern Theravada school, the goal of becoming a teaching Buddha in a future life is viewed as the aim of a small group of individuals striving to benefit future generations after the current Buddha's teachings have been lost, but in the current age there is no need for most practitioners to aspire to this goal. Theravada texts do, however, hold that this is a more perfectly virtuous goal.

Theravāda and Hīnayāna

Although the Theravāda school is usually described as belonging to Hīnayāna, some authors have argued that it should not be considered such from the Mahāyāna perspective. Their view is based on a different understanding of the concept of Hīnayāna. Rather than regarding the term as referring to any school of Buddhism that hasn't accepted the Mahāyāna canon and doctrines, such as those pertaining to the role of the boddhisatva, Adherents of Mahāyāna Buddhism disagreed with the substantialist thought of the Sarvāstivādins and Sautrāntikas, and in emphasizing the doctrine of emptiness, Kalupahana holds that they endeavored to preserve the early teaching. The Theravādins too refuted the Sarvāstivādins and Sautrāntikas (and other schools) on the grounds that their theories were in conflict with the non-substantialism of the canon. The Theravāda arguments are preserved in the Kathāvatthu. Thus, according to this view, no form of real Hīnayāna Buddhism survives today.

Some contemporary Theravādin figures have indicated a sympathetic stance toward the Mahāyāna philosophy found in texts such as the Heart Sūtra (Skt. Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya) and Nāgārjuna's Fundamental Stanzas on the Middle Way (Skt. Mūlamadhyamakakārikā).

See also

History of Buddhism

Mahayana sutras

Silk Road transmission of Buddhism

Early Buddhist Schools

Schools of Buddhism

Rebirth

Golden Light Sutra

Shunyata

Buddha nature

Tathagatagarbha

Nirvana Sutra

God in Buddhism

Faith in Buddhism

Lotus Sutra

Pure Land

Zen

Dzogchen

Tendai

Buddhist Ceremonies

References

Notes

Further reading

Beal (1871). Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese

Kuroda, S. (1893). Outline of Mahayana

Lowenstein, Tom. The Vision of the Buddha. ISBN 1-903296-91-9

Lynch, Kevin (2005). The Way Of The Tiger: A Buddhist's Guide To Achieving Nirvana. Yojimbo Temple

Murdoch (1910). History of Japan, volume i.

Schopen, G. "The inscription on the Kusan image of Amitabha and the character of the early Mahayana in India", Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 10, 1990

Suzuki, D. T. (1914). In Paul Carus, ed., The Monist, volume xxiv,.

Suzuki, D. T. (1907). Outline of Mahayana Buddhism

Williams, Paul (1989). Mahayana Buddhism. Routledge.

External links

Digital Dictionary of Buddhism

Sacred Library Contains many Mahāyāna sūtras

Comparison of Buddhist Traditions (Mahayana - Therevada - Tibetan)

Mahayana Buddhist Sutras in English

The Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra: complete text and analysis.

Major Mahayana Tathagatagarbha sutras in English translation

Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in Mahayana Buddhism

April 2010 Smithsonian Magazine Article

Category:Buddhist philosophical concepts Category:Buddhist terms Category:Sanskrit words and phrases Category:Buddhist practices

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0000 — No Strings Attached — (Unknown Year)

0000 — Celtic Mist 3 — (Unknown Year)

0000 — Music For Dolphin Experience — (Unknown Year)

1987 — Emergence — (New World Music)

1987 — Innocence

1987 — Kindred Spirits — (New World Music)

1988 — In The Stillness Of A Moment

1988 — Paradise Moon — (Discover)

1989 — In the Stillness of a Moment — (New World Music)

1989 — Angel Sleep — (New World Company)

1989 — Gifts of Comfort and Joy

1990 — Druid — (New World Company)

1990 — Excalibur — (New World Company)

1990 — Leo — (Oreade Music)

1990 — Merlin — (New World Company)

1991 — Earth Healer — (New World Company)

1991 — Medicine Woman — (New World Company)

1992 — The Way of the Dolphin — (New World Company)

1992 — Kingdom of the Sun God — (New World Company)

1992 — Great Spirit — (New World Company)

1993 — Coral Sand

1993 — Antarctica

1993 — Eagle Spirit — (New World Company)

1994 — Goddess From The Sea

1994 — Nazca

1994 — Phoenix — (with Simon Cooper)

1994 — The Four Horsemen

1994 — Golden Dreams Forever

1994 — Bach

1994 — Beethoven

1994 — Mozart

1994 — Purple Dream

1994 — Return To Eden

1994 — Alpha And Omega

1994 — Green Dream

1994 — Neptune, God of the Oceans

1994 — Siesta — (New World Music)

1995 — Tintagel

1995 — Eternal Pathways

1995 — Odyssey

1995 — Ashley Moon — Sapphire

1995 — Guardian Spirit

1995 — Pagan Dawn

1995 — Moon Goddess — (New World Company)

1995 — Where Angels Tread — (New World Music)

1995 — The Gift of Excalibur

1995 — Visions

1996 — Angel Helpers

1996 — Myth and Magic — (New World Music)

1996 — Gifts of Comfort and Joy — (New World Company)

1996 — King Shaman — (Oreade)

1996 — Soshone Dream — (Oreade Music)

1996 — Priestess Return to Atlantis — (New World Company)

1996 — Guinevere

1996 — The Round Table

1996 — Winds Across the Pacific

1996 — Celtic Sunrise — (Label: Dawn Awakening, UK)

1996 — Dream Catcher — (Label: Dawn Awakening, UK)

1996 — Celtic Sunrise — (Label: Dawn Awakening, UK)

1996 — Dream Catcher — (Label: Dawn Awakening, UK)

1997 — Alcazar — (Oreade Music)

1997 — Nazca, Land of the Incas — (Oreade Music)

1997 — Grail Quest: The Arthurian Collection, Vol. 1 — (Oreade Music)

1997 — The Gift of Excalibur: The Arthurian Collection, Vol. 2 — (Oreade Music)

1997 — Fair Queen Guinevere: The Arthurian Collection, Vol. 3 — (Oreade Music)

1997 — All Good Things

1997 — A Christmas Tapestry — (New World Company)

1997 — Dolphin Quest — (Oreade)

1997 — Way of the Ocean — (New World Music)

1997 — Clan: A Celtic Journey — (New World Company)

1997 — Ancient Nazca: Inca Mysteries — (Oreade Music)

1998 — Way of the Moon — (New World Company)

1998 — Spirit of Christmas — (Oreade Music)

1998 — Wisdom Of The Forest

1998 — Best of Medwyn Goodall — (Oreade Music)

1998 — Gregorian Harmonny — (New Music World)

1998 — Secret Of The Panpipes — (New Music World)

1999 — Medicine Woman II: The Gift — (New World Company)

1999 — Catalan Siesta — (Sanctuary)

1999 — Peaceful Garden

1999 — Millennium — (New World Company)

1999 — Comet — (New World Company)

2000 — Lightstream

2000 — The Scroll (Clan II) — (New World Music)

2000 — Visions — (New World Music)

2000 — Bali — (New Music World)

2000 — Winds Across the Pacific — (Oreade Music)

2000 — Mind Body Soul Series Sleep — (New World Music)

2001 — Mind Body Soul Series — Meditation & Visualisation — (New World Music)

2001 — Mind Body Soul Series — Feng Shui -(New World Music)

2001 — Earth Love

2001 — The Essence of Magic — (New World Company)

2001 — Timeless — (New World Music)

2001 — English Summer

2001 — Sacred Medicine — (Oreade Music)

2001 — Autumn (series Four Seasons) — (Label: New Beginnings)

2001 — Spring (series Four Seasons) — (Label: New Beginnings)

2001 — Summer (series Four Seasons) — (Label: New Beginnings)

2001 — Winter (series Four Seasons) — (Label: New Beginnings)

2001 — April Showers — (Label: New Beginnings)

2001 — Clam Ocean — (Label: New Beginnings)

2001 — Heaven’s Breath — (Label: New Beginnings)

2001 — The Magic Of Easter Island — (Label: New Beginnings)

2001 — Scarborough Fair — (New Music World)

2001 — April Showers — (Label: New Beginnings)

2001 — Clam Ocean — (Label: New Beginnings)

2001 — Heaven’s Breath — (Label: New Beginnings)

2001 — The Magic Of Easter Island — (Label: New Beginnings)

2002 — Snows of Kilimanjaro — (New World Company)

2002 — Shoshone Dream — (Oreade Music)

2002 — Bonsai Garden — (New Music World)

2002 — Reflexology — (New Music World)

2002 — Anam Cara — (Oreade Music)

2003 — Rhythm of the Ancients — (New World Company)

2003 — Dragon’s Keep (with Tony O’Connor) — (Label: Studio Horizon)

2003 — Classics for Healing — (New World Music)

2004 — Classics for Tranquillity — (New World Music)

2004 — Classics for Creativity — (New World Music)

2004 — Copyright Free Music Series, Vol. 1: Movement — (MG Music)

2004 — Copyright-Free Music Series, Vol. 2: Stillness — (MG Music)

2004 — Copyright Free Music Series, Vol. 4: Expression — (MG Music)

2004 — Copyright Free Music Series, Vol. 5: Overdub — (MG Music)

2004 — Copyright Free Music Series, Vol. 6: Christmas — (MG Music)

2004 — Copyright Free Music Series, Vol. 7: Medieval Wedding — (MG Music)

2004 — Copyright Free Music Series, Vol. 8: Celtic — (MG Music)

2004 — Eye of the Wolf — (MG Music)

2004 — Dolphins And Sea — (Oreade Music)

2004 — Guinevere — (MG Music)

2004 — Land of the Inca — (MG Music)

2004 — Momentum — (MG Music)

2004 — Chronicles: An Epic Tale in Music — (Oreade Music)

2004 — Natural Sound Series — Dolphins — (MG Music)

2004 — Natural Sound Series — Morning Birdsong — (MG Music)

2004 — Natural Sound Series — Mountain Stream — (MG Music)

2004 — Natural Sound Series — Ocean Waves — (MG Music)

2004 — Natural Sound Series — Raindrops — (MG Music)

2004 — Natural Sound Series — Rainforest — (MG Music)

2004 — Natural Sound Series — Thunderstorm — (MG Music)

2004 — Natural Sound Series — Pebble Beach — (MG Music)

2004 — Natural Sound Series — Woodland Walk — (MG Music)

2004 — The Dragon’s Breath — Re-release of The Dragon’s Keep — (MG Music)

2004 — Pagan Dawn: The Selected Music Of Medwyn Goodall — (New World Music)

2004 — The Legend of King Arthur — (MG Music)

2004 — The Round Table — (MG Music)

2004 — Tintagel — (MG Music)

2005 — Medicine Woman III, The Rising — (New World Company)

2005 — Tribal Nation (with Scott Jasper) — (MG Music)

2005 — Natural World — (New World Music)

2006 — Native Spirit — Original Soundtrack

2006 — Celtic Visions (New Music World)

2006 — Gregorian Devotion — (New Music World)

2006 — Series Life Style — Music For Crystal Healing

2006 — Series Life Style — Music For Healing

2006 — Series Life Style — Music For Perfect Sleep

2006 — Series Life Style — Music For Aromatherapy & Massage

2006 — The Sorcerer’s Daughter — (MG Music)

2006 — Medwyn’s Cornwall — (MG Music)

2006 — Om (with Terry Oldfield) — (MG Music)

2006 — True Champissage — Indian Head Massage — (MG Music)

2006 — True Reiki — (MG Music)

2007 — Earth Goddess — (MG Music)

2008 — Amun Ra

2008 — Serve chilled (with Tim Rock) — (MG Music)

2009 — Druid II

2009 — Origins

2009 — Medicine Woman IV — Prophecy 2012

2010 — Clan III — The Lands Beyond

References

Category:1961 births Category:Living people Category:English New Age musicians

Name	Aldous Huxley
Alt	Blurry monochrome head-and-shoulders portrait of Aldous Huxley, facing viewer's right, chin a couple of inches above hand
Birthname	Aldous Leonard Huxley
Birthdate	July 26, 1894
Birthplace	Godalming, Surrey,England
Deathdate	November 22, 1963
Deathplace	Los Angeles, California,United States
Resting place	Compton, Surrey,England
Occupation	Writer (fiction & non-fiction)
Notableworks	Brave New World, Island, Point Counter Point, The Doors of Perception
Influences	Swami Prabhavananda, J. Krishnamurti, F. Matthias Alexander, Yevgeny Zamyatin, William Blake, Charles Dickens, H. G. Wells
Influenced	Christopher Isherwood, Michel Houellebecq, Jim Morrison, George Orwell, Huston Smith

Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. He spent the later part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death in 1963. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel writing, and film stories and scripts.

Aldous Huxley was a humanist and pacifist, and he was latterly interested in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism. He is also well known for advocating and taking psychedelics.

By the end of his life Huxley was considered, in some academic circles, a leader of modern thought and an intellectual of the highest rank, and highly regarded as one of the most prominent explorers of visual communication and sight-related theories as well.

Early life

Aldous Huxley was born in Godalming, Surrey, UK in 1894. He was the third son of the writer and schoolmaster Leonard Huxley and his first wife, Julia Arnold who founded Prior's Field School. Julia was the niece of educator Matthew Arnold and the sister of Mrs. Humphrey Ward. Aldous was the grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, the zoologist, agnostic and controversialist ("Darwin's Bulldog"). His brother Julian Huxley and half-brother Andrew Huxley also became outstanding biologists. Huxley had another brother, Noel Trevenen (1891–1914), who committed suicide after a period of clinical depression.

Huxley began his learning in his father's well-equipped botanical laboratory, then continued in a school named Hillside. His teacher was his mother who supervised him for several years until she became terminally ill. After Hillside, he was educated at Eton College. Huxley's mother died in 1908, when he was 14. In 1911, he suffered an illness (keratitis punctata) which "left [him] practically blind for two to three years". Aldous's near-blindness disqualified him from service in the First World War. Once his eyesight recovered sufficiently, he was able to study English literature at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1916 he edited Oxford Poetry and later graduated with first class honours. His brother Julian wrote,

I believe his blindness was a blessing in disguise. For one thing, it put paid to his idea of taking up medicine as a career... His uniqueness lay in his universalism. He was able to take all knowledge for his province.

Following his education at Balliol, Huxley was financially indebted to his father and had to earn a living. He taught French for a year at Eton, where Eric Blair (later known by the pen name George Orwell) and Stephen Runciman were among his pupils, but was remembered as an incompetent and hopeless teacher who couldn’t keep discipline. Nevertheless, Blair and others were impressed by his use of words. For a short while in 1918, he was employed acquiring provisions at the Air Ministry.

Significantly, Huxley also worked for a time in the 1920s at the technologically-advanced Brunner and Mond chemical plant in Billingham, Teesside, and the most recent introduction to his famous science fiction novel Brave New World (1932) states that this experience of "an ordered universe in a world of planless incoherence" was one source for the novel.

Career

Huxley completed his first (unpublished) novel at the age of 17 and began writing seriously in his early 20s. His first published novels were social satires, beginning with Crome Yellow (1921).

Bloomsbury set

members - Lady Ottoline Morrell, Maria Nys, Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant, and Vanessa Bell.]] During the First World War, Huxley spent much of his time at Garsington Manor, home of Lady Ottoline Morrell, working as a farm labourer. Here he met several Bloomsbury figures including Bertrand Russell and Clive Bell. Later, in Crome Yellow (1921) he caricatured the Garsington lifestyle. In 1919 he married Maria Nys a Belgian woman he met at Garsington; they had one son. The family lived in Italy part of the time in the 1920s, where Huxley would visit his friend D. H. Lawrence. Following Lawrence's death in 1930, Huxley edited Lawrence's letters (1933).

Works of this period included important novels on the dehumanizing aspects of scientific progress, most famously Brave New World, and on pacifist themes (for example, Eyeless in Gaza). In Brave New World Huxley portrays a society operating on the principles of mass production and Pavlovian conditioning. Huxley was strongly influenced by F. Matthias Alexander and included him as a character in Eyeless in Gaza.

The U.S.

In 1937, Huxley moved to Hollywood, California with his wife Maria, son Matthew, and friend Gerald Heard. He lived in the U.S., mainly in southern California, until his death, but also for a time in Taos, New Mexico, where he wrote Ends and Means (published in 1937). In this work he examines the fact that although most people in modern civilization agree that they want a world of "liberty, peace, justice, and brotherly love", they have not been able to agree on how to achieve it.

Heard introduced Huxley to Vedanta (Veda-Centric Hinduism), meditation, and vegetarianism through the principle of ahimsa. In 1938 Huxley befriended J. Krishnamurti, whose teachings he greatly admired. He also became a Vedantist in the circle of Hindu Swami Prabhavananda, and introduced Christopher Isherwood to this circle. Not long after, Huxley wrote his book on widely held spiritual values and ideas, The Perennial Philosophy, which discussed the teachings of renowned mystics of the world. Huxley's book affirmed a sensibility that insists there are realities beyond the generally accepted "five senses" and that there is genuine meaning for humans beyond both sensual satisfactions and sentimentalities.

Huxley became a close friend of Remsen Bird, president of Occidental College. He spent much time at the college, which is in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles. The college appears as "Tarzana College" in his satirical novel After Many a Summer (1939). The novel won Huxley that year's James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. Huxley also incorporated Bird into the novel.

During this period Huxley earned some Hollywood income as a writer. In March 1938, his friend Anita Loos, a novelist and screenwriter, put him in touch with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer who hired Huxley for Madame Curie which was originally to star Greta Garbo and be directed by George Cukor. (The film was eventually filmed by MGM in 1943 with a different director and stars.) Huxley received screen credit for Pride and Prejudice (1940) and was paid for his work on a number of other films, including Jane Eyre (1944).

However, his experience in Hollywood was not a success. When he wrote a synopsis of Alice in Wonderland, Walt Disney rejected it on the grounds that "he could only understand every third word". Huxley's leisurely development of ideas, it seemed, was not suitable for the movie moguls, who demanded fast, dynamic dialogue above all else. For Dick Huemer, during the 1940s, Huxley went to the first of a five meetings' session to elaborate the script of Alice in Wonderland but never came again. For author John Grant, although the movie's character, the Caterpillar displays some characteristics familiar from Huxley's discussion of his experiments with hallucinogens, Huxley's contribution to the movie is nonexistent.

On 21 October 1949, Huxley wrote to George Orwell, author of Nineteen Eighty-Four, congratulating Orwell on "how fine and how profoundly important the book is". In his letter to Orwell, he predicted:

Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience.

Post World War II

After the Second World War, Huxley applied for United States citizenship. His application was continuously deferred on the grounds that he would not say he would take up arms to defend the U.S. He claimed a philosophical, rather than a religious objection, and therefore was not exempt under the McCarran Act. So, he withdrew his application. Nevertheless, he remained in the country, and in 1959 he turned down an offer of a Knight Bachelor by the Macmillan government. During the 1950s Huxley's interest in the field of psychical research grew keener, and his later works are strongly influenced by both mysticism and his experiences with psychedelic drugs.

In October 1930, the English occultist Aleister Crowley dined with Huxley in Berlin, and to this day rumours persist that Crowley introduced Huxley to peyote on that occasion. He was introduced to mescaline (considered to be the key active ingredient of peyote) by the psychiatrist Humphry Osmond in 1953. Through Dr. Osmond, Huxley met millionaire Alfred Matthew Hubbard who would deal with LSD on a wholesale basis. On 24 December 1955, Huxley took his first dose of LSD. Indeed, Huxley was a pioneer of self-directed psychedelic drug use "in a search for enlightenment", famously taking 100 micrograms of LSD as he lay dying. His psychedelic drug experiences are described in the essays The Doors of Perception (the title deriving from some lines in the book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake), and Heaven and Hell. Some of his writings on psychedelics became frequent reading among early hippies. While living in Los Angeles, Huxley was a friend of Ray Bradbury. According to Sam Weller's biography of Bradbury, the latter was dissatisfied with Huxley, especially after Huxley encouraged Bradbury to take psychedelic drugs.

Association with Vedanta

Beginning in 1939 and continuing until his death in 1963, Huxley had an extensive association with the Vedanta Society of Southern California, founded and headed by Swami Prabhavananda. Together with Gerald Heard, Christopher Isherwood, and other followers he was initiated by the Swami and was taught meditation and spiritual practices.

In 1944 Huxley wrote the introduction to the "Bhagavad Gita: The Song of God", translated by Swami Prabhavanada and Christopher Isherwood, which was published by The Vedanta Society of Southern California.

From 1941 through 1960 Huxley contributed 48 articles to Vedanta and the West, published by the Society. He also served on the editorial board with Isherwood, Heard, and playwright John van Druten from 1951 through 1962.

Huxley also occasionally lectured at the Hollywood and Santa Barbara Vedanta temples. Two of those lectures have been released on CD: Knowledge and Understanding and Who Are We from 1955.

After the publication of The Doors of Perception, Huxley and the Swami disagreed about the meaning and importance of the LSD drug experience, which may have caused the relationship to cool, but Huxley continued to write articles for the Society's journal, lecture at the temple, and attend social functions.

Eyesight

With respect to details about the true quality of Huxley's eyesight at specific points in his life, there are differing accounts. Around 1939, Huxley encountered the Bates Method for better eyesight, and a teacher, Margaret Corbett, who was able to teach him in the method. In 1940, Huxley relocated from Hollywood to a ranchito in the high desert hamlet of Llano, California, in northernmost Los Angeles County. Huxley then said that his sight improved dramatically with the Bates Method and the extreme and pure natural lighting of the southwestern American desert. He reported that for the first time in over 25 years, he was able to read without glasses and without strain. He even tried driving a car along the dirt road beside the ranch. He wrote a book about his successes with the Bates Method, The Art of Seeing which was published in 1942 (US), 1943 (UK). It was from this period, with the publication of the generally disputed theories contained in the latter book, that a growing degree of popular controversy arose over the subject of Huxley’s eyesight.

It was, and to a noticeable extent, still is widely held that, for most of his life, since the illness in his teens which left Huxley nearly blind, that his eyesight was exceedingly poor (despite the partial recovery which had enabled him to study at Oxford). For instance, some ten years after publication of The Art of Seeing, in 1952, Bennett Cerf was present when Huxley spoke at a Hollywood banquet, wearing no glasses and apparently reading his paper from the lectern without difficulty: "Then suddenly he faltered—and the disturbing truth became obvious. He wasn't reading his address at all. He had learned it by heart. To refresh his memory he brought the paper closer and closer to his eyes. When it was only an inch or so away he still couldn't read it, and had to fish for a magnifying glass in his pocket to make the typing visible to him. It was an agonizing moment."

On the other hand, Huxley's second wife, Laura Archera Huxley, would later emphasize in her biographical account, This Timeless Moment: "One of the great achievements of his life: that of having regained his sight." Here, she portrays the accomplishment as both metaphorical and considerably physiological in nature, attributing that which she cites J. Krishnamurti as naming the spirit of "freedom from the known", which she suggests that Huxley applied, non-exhaustively, in writing The Art of Seeing and utilizing the Bates Method. After revealing a letter she wrote to the Los Angeles Times disclaiming the label of Huxley as a "poor fellow who can hardly see" by Walter C. Alvarez, she tempers this: "Although I feel it was an injustice to treat Aldous as though he were blind, it is true there were many indications of his impaired vision. For instance, although Aldous did not wear glasses, he would quite often use a magnifying lens." Laura Huxley proceeds to elaborate a few nuances of inconsistency peculiar to Huxley's vision. Her account, in this respect, is discernibly congruent with the following sample of Huxley's own words from The Art of Seeing. "The most characteristic fact about the functioning of the total organism, or any part of the organism, is that it is not constant, but highly variable." Nevertheless, the topic of Huxley’s eyesight continues to endure similar, significant controversy, regardless of how trivial a subject matter it might initially appear.

Personal life

He married Maria Nys (10 September 1899 – 12 February 1955), a Belgian woman he met at Garsington, in 1919. They had one child, Matthew Huxley (19 April 1920 – 10 February 2005), who had a career as an epidemiologist. In 1955, Maria died of breast cancer.

In 1956 he married Laura Archera (1911–2007), also an author. She wrote This Timeless Moment, a biography of Huxley. In 1960 Huxley himself was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer, and in the years that followed, with his health deteriorating, he wrote the Utopian novel Island, and gave lectures on "Human Potentialities" at the Esalen institute, which were fundamental to the forming of the Human Potential Movement.

Death

On his deathbed, unable to speak, Huxley made a written request to his wife for "LSD, 100 µg, intramuscular". According to her account of his death, in This Timeless Moment, she obliged with an injection at 11:45 am and another a couple of hours later. He died at 5:21 pm on 22 November 1963, aged 69. Huxley's ashes were interred in the family grave at the Watts Cemetery, home of the Watts Mortuary Chapel in Compton, a village near Guildford, Surrey, England.

Media coverage of his death was overshadowed by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, on the same day, as was the death of the Irish author C. S. Lewis who also died on 22 November. This coincidence was the inspiration for Peter Kreeft's book Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis, & Aldous Huxley.

Huxley was survived by his only child, Matthew Huxley, an author, as well as an educator, anthropologist, and prominent epidemiologist. Aldous Huxley is also survived by two grandchildren.

Awards

1939 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for After Many a Summer Dies the Swan.

1959 Aldous Huxley American Academy of Arts and Letters Award of Merit for Brave New World.

1962 the Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature.

Film adaptations of Huxley's work

1968 Point Counter Point BBC mini-series by Simon Raven.

1971 The Devils (Ken Russell) adapted Huxley's The Devils of Loudun.

1998 US TV adaptation of Brave New World

scheduled 2011 Brave New World by Ridley Scott and Leonardo DiCaprio

Selected works

Novels

Crome Yellow (1921)

Antic Hay (1923)

Those Barren Leaves (1925)

Point Counter Point (1928)

Brave New World (1932)

Eyeless in Gaza (1936)

After Many a Summer Dies the Swan (1939)

Time Must Have a Stop (1944)

Ape and Essence (1948)

The Doors of Perception (1954)

The Genius and the Goddess (1955)

Island (1962)

Short stories collections

Limbo (1920)

Mortal Coils (1922)

Little Mexican (U.S. title: Young Archimedes) (1924)

Two or Three Graces (1926)

Brief Candles (1930)

(discovered 1997) co-written with Christopher Isherwood

Collected Short Stories (1957)

Twice seven (Huxley)Fourteen selected stories (1944)

Poetry collections

Oxford Poetry (magazine editor) (1916)

The Burning Wheel (1916)

Jonah (1917)

The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems (1918)

Leda (1920)

Selected Poems (1925)

Arabia Infelix and Other Poems (1929)

The Cicadas and Other Poems (1931)

Collected Poems (1971, posthumous)

Essay collections

On the Margin (1923)

Along the Road (1925)

Essays New and Old (1926)

Proper Studies (1927)

Do What You Will (1929)

Vulgarity in Literature (1930)

Music at Night (1931)

Texts and Pretexts (1932)

The Olive Tree and other essays (1936)

Ends and Means (1937)

Words and their Meanings (1940)

The Art of Seeing (1942)

The Perennial Philosophy (1945)

Science, Liberty and Peace (1946)

Themes and Variations (1950)

The Doors of Perception (1954)

Heaven and Hell (1956)

Adonis and the Alphabet (U.S. title: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow) (1956)

Collected Essays (1958)

Brave New World Revisited (1958)

Literature and Science (1963)

Moksha: Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience 1931-63 (1977)

The Human Situation: Lectures at Santa Barbara, 1959 (1977)

Screenplays

Brave New World

Ape and Essence

Pride and Prejudice (Collaboration. 1940)

Madame Curie (Collaboration. 1943)

Jane Eyre (Collaboration with John Houseman. 1944)

A Woman's Vengeance 1947

Original screenplay for Disney's animated Alice in Wonderland 1951 (rejected) Eyeless in Gaza BBC Mini-series (Collaboration with Robin Chapman. Aired 1971)

Travel books

Along The Road: Notes and essays of a tourist (1925)

Jesting Pilate: The Diary of a Journey (1926)

Beyond the Mexique Bay: A traveller's Journey (1934)

Children's fiction

The Crows of Pearblossom (1967)

The Travails and Tribulations of Geoffrey Peacock (1967)

Drama

The Discovery (adapted from Francis Sheridan, 1924)

The World of Light (1931)

Mortal Coils - A Play. (Stage version of The Gioconda Smile, 1948)

The Genius and the Goddess (stage version, co-written with Betty Wendel, 1958)

The Ambassador of Captripedia (1967)

Now More Than Ever (Huxley's lost play discovered in 2000 in the University of Münster, Germany's Department of English Literature)

Articles written for Vedanta and the West

Distractions (1941)

Distractions II (1941)

Action and Contemplation (1941)

An Appreciation (1941)

The Yellow Mustard (1941)

Lines (1941)

Some Replections of the Lord's Prayer (1941)

Reflections of the Lord's Prayer (1942)

Reflections of the Lord's Prayer II (1942)

Words and Reality (1942)

Readings in Mysticism (1942)

Man and Reality (1942)

The Magical and the Spiritual (1942)

Religion and Time (1943)

Idolatry (1943)

Religion and Temperament (1943)

A Note on the Bhagavatam (1943)

Seven Meditations (1943)

On a Sentence From Shakespeare (1944)

The Minimum Working Hypothesis (1944)

From a Notebook (1944)

The Philosophy of the Saints (1944)

That Art Thou (1945)

That Art Thou II (1945)

The Nature of the Ground (1945)

The Nature of the Ground II (1945)

God In the World (1945)

Origins and Consequences of Some Contemporary Thought-Patterns (1946)

The Sixth Patriarch (1946)

Some Reflections on Time (1946)

Reflections on Progress (1947)

Further Reflections on Progress (1947)

William Law (1947)

Notes on Zen (1947)

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread (1948)

A Note on Gandhi (1948)

Art and Religion (1949)

Foreword to an Essay on the Indian Philosophy of Peace (1950)

A Note on Enlightenment (1952)

Substitutes for Liberation (1952)

The Desert (1954)

A Note on Patanjali (1954)

Who Are We? (1955)

Foreword to the Supreme Doctrine (1956)

Knowledge and Understanding (1956)

The "Inanimate" is Alive (1957)

Symbol and Immediate Experience (1960)

Other

The Devils of Loudun (1953)

Grey Eminence (1941)

Selected Letters (2007)

Bibliography

Charles J. Rolo (ed.),The World of Aldous Huxley, Grosset Universal Library, 1947.

John Atkins, Aldous Huxley: A Literary Study, J. Calder, 1956

Nicholas Murray, Aldous Huxley, Macmillan, 2003, ISBN 0312302375

Laura Archera Huxley, This Timeless Moment, Celestial Arts, 2001, ISBN 0890879689

Sybille Bedford, Aldous Huxley: A Biography, Harper and Row, 1974, rev. ed., Ivan R. Dee, 2002 ISBN 1566634547

James Sexton (ed.), Aldous Huxley: Selected Letters, Ivan R. Dee, 2007, ISBN 1566636292

David King Dunaway, Huxley in Hollywood, HarperCollins 1990, ISBN 0385415915

Aldous Huxley, The Human Situation: Aldous Huxley Lectures at Santa Barbara 1959, Flamingo Modern Classic, 1994, ISBN 0006547327

Conrad Watt (ed.), Aldous Huxley, Routledge, 1997, ISBN 0415159159

Dana Sawyer, Aldous Huxley, Crossroad Publishing Co., 2002, ISBN 0824519872

Jerome Meckier, Aldous Huxley: modern satirical novelist of ideas, Firchow and Nugel editors, LIT Verlag Berlin-Hamburg-Münster, 2006, ISBN 3825896683

References

External links

Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery

BBC discussion programme In our time: "Brave New World". Huxley and the novel. 9 April 2009. (Audio, 45 mins)

BBC In their own words series. 12 October 1958. (Video, 12 mins).

UC Berkeley, 20 March 1962)">"The Ultimate Revolution" (talk at UC Berkeley, 20 March 1962)

Huxley interviewed on The Mike Wallace interview 18 May 1958. (Video)

Centre for Huxley Research

Category:19th-century English people Category:Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:Consciousness researchers and theorists Category:Deaths from esophageal cancer Category:Duke University faculty Category:English essayists Category:English expatriates in the United States Category:English humanists Category:English novelists Category:English pacifists Category:English poets Category:English satirists Category:English science fiction writers Category:English short story writers Category:English travel writers Category:English vegetarians Category:Huxley family Category:People associated with the Human Potential Movement Category:People from Godalming Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:Psychedelic drug advocates Category:Western mystics Category:British people of Cornish descent Category:1894 births Category:1963 deaths

Region	Eastern Philosophy
Era	Contemporary philosophy
Color	#B0C4DE
Image name	AlanWatts.jpg
Name	Alan Wilson Watts
Birth date	January 06, 1915
Birth place	Chislehurst, Kent, England
Death date	November 16, 1973
Death place	Mt. Tamalpais, California
School tradition	Zen Buddhism Hinduism Pantheism Religious naturalism Taoism
Main interests	Personal identity Higher consciousnessAesthetics Public Ethics

Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and popularizer of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. Born in Chislehurst, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York. Pursuing a career, he attended Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, where he received a master's degree in theology. Watts became an Episcopalian priest but left the ministry in 1950 and moved to California where he joined the faculty of the American Academy of Asian Studies.

Living on the West Coast, Watts gained a large following in the San Francisco Bay Area while working as a volunteer programmer at KPFA, a Pacifica Radio station in Berkeley. Watts wrote more than 25 books and articles on subjects important to Eastern and Western religion, introducing the then burgeoning youth culture to The Way of Zen (1957), one of the first bestselling books on Buddhism. In Psychotherapy East and West (1961), Watts proposed that Buddhism could be best thought of as a form of psychotherapy, not just a religion. Like Aldous Huxley before him, he explored human consciousness in the essay, "The New Alchemy" (1958), and in the book, The Joyous Cosmology (1962).

Towards the end of his life, he divided his time between a houseboat in Sausalito and a cabin on Mount Tamalpais. His legacy has been kept alive with the help of his son, Mark Watts, and many of his recorded talks and lectures have found new life on the internet. Critic Erik Davis notes the freshness, longevity, and continuing relevance of Watts's work today, observing that his "writings and recorded talks still shimmer with a profound and galvanizing lucidity."

Early years

Watts was born to middle class parents in the village of Chislehurst, Kent, in 1915, living at 3 (now 5) Holbrook Lane. His father was a representative for the London office of the Michelin Tyre Company, his mother a housewife whose father had been a missionary. With modest financial means, they chose to live in pastoral surroundings and Alan, an only child, grew up playing at brookside, learning the names of wildflowers and butterflies. Probably because of the influence of his mother’s religious family the Buchans, an interest in "ultimate things" seeped in. But it mixed with Alan’s own interests in storybook fables and romantic tales of the mysterious Far East.

Watts also later wrote of a mystical vision he experienced while ill with a fever as a child. 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. 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. It seemed to float...". These works of art emphasized the participative relationship of man in nature, a theme that stood fast throughout his life.

Buddhism

(Daibutsu), Kamakura, Japan]] By his own assessment, Watts was imaginative, headstrong, and talkative. He was sent to boarding schools (which included both academic and religious training of the Muscular Christianity sort) from early years. Of this religious training, he remarked “Throughout my schooling my religious indoctrination was grim and maudlin…” During holidays in his teen years, Francis Croshaw, a wealthy Epicurean with strong interests in both Buddhism and the exotic little-known aspects of European culture, took Watts on a trip through France. It 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. He chose Buddhism, and sought membership in the London Buddhist Lodge which had been established by Theosophists, and was now run by the barrister Christmas Humphreys. Watts became the organization’s secretary at 16 (1931). The young Watts explored several styles of meditation during these years.

Education

Watts attended King's School next door to Canterbury Cathedral. Though he was frequently at the top of his classes scholastically, and was given responsibilities at school, he botched an opportunity for a scholarship to Oxford by styling a crucial examination essay in a way that was read as presumptuous and capricious.

Hence, when he graduated from secondary school, Watts was thrust into the world of employment, working in a printing house and later a bank. He spent his spare time involved with the Buddhist Lodge and also under the tutelage of a "rascal guru" named Dimitrije Mitrinović. (Mitrinović was himself influenced by Peter Demianovich Ouspensky, G. I. Gurdjieff, and the varied psychoanalytical schools of Freud, Jung and Adler.) Watts also read widely in philosophy, history, psychology, psychiatry and Eastern wisdom. By his own reckoning, and also by that of his biographer Monica Furlong, Watts was primarily an autodidact. Living in London and his involvement with the Buddhist Lodge afforded Watts a considerable number of opportunities for personal growth. Through Humphreys, he contacted eminent spiritual authors (e.g., Nicholas Roerich, Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan) and prominent theosophists like Alice Bailey. In 1936, aged 21, he attended the World Congress of Faiths at the University of London, heard D.T. Suzuki read a paper, and afterwards was able to meet this esteemed scholar of Zen Buddhism. Beyond these discussions and personal encounters, Watts absorbed, by studying the available scholarly literature, the fundamental concepts and terminology of the main philosophies of India and East Asia.

Influences and first publication

In 1936, Watts' first book was published, The Spirit of Zen, which he later acknowledged to be mainly digested from the writings of Suzuki.

In 1938 he and his bride left England to live in America. He had married Eleanor Everett, whose mother Ruth Fuller Everett was involved with a traditional Zen Buddhist circle in New York. A few years later, Ruth Fuller married the Zen master (or "roshi"), Sokei-an Sasaki, and this Japanese gentleman served as a sort of model and mentor to Alan, though Watts chose not to enter into a formal Zen training relationship with Sasaki.

During these years, according to his later writings, Watts had another mystical experience while on a walk with his wife.

Watts' fascination with the Zen (or Chan) tradition – which began for him during the 1930s – developed because that tradition embodied the spiritual interwoven with the practical, as exemplified in the subtitle of his Spirit of Zen: "A Way of Life, Work, and Art in the Far East". "Work," "life," and "art" were not demoted due to a spiritual focus.

Priesthood and after

Watts left formal Zen training in New York because the method of the teacher didn't suit him. He was not ordained as a Zen monk, but he felt a need to find a professional outlet for his philosophical inclinations. He entered Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, an Anglican (Episcopalian) school in Evanston, Illinois, where he studied Christian scriptures, theology, and Church history. He attempted to work out a blend of contemporary Christian worship, mystical Christianity, and Asian philosophy. Watts was awarded a master's degree in theology in response to his thesis, which he published as a popular edition under the title Behold the Spirit. The pattern was set, in that Watts did not hide his dislike for religious outlooks that he decided were dour, guilt-ridden, or militantly proselytizing—no matter if they were found within Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, or Buddhism.

All seemed to go reasonably well in his next role, as Episcopalian priest (beginning in 1945, aged 30), until an extramarital affair resulted in his young wife having their marriage annulled. It also resulted in Watts leaving the ministry by 1950. He spent the New Year getting to know Joseph Campbell; his wife, Jean Erdman; and John Cage.

In early 1951, Watts moved to California, where he joined the faculty of the American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco. Here he taught alongside Saburō Hasegawa, Frederick Spiegelberg, Haridas Chaudhuri, lama Tokwan Tada, and various visiting experts and professors. Hasegawa, in particular, served as a teacher to Watts in the areas of Japanese customs, arts, primitivism, and perceptions of nature.

Besides teaching, Watts served for several years as the Academy's administrator. When he left the Academy, the position was inherited by another faculty member, the Sanskrit scholar, former Theosophy insider, and practicing yogi Ernest Wood.

Watts also studied written Chinese and practiced Chinese brush calligraphy with Hasegawa as well as with some of the Chinese students who enrolled at the Academy. While Watts was noted for an interest in Zen Buddhism, with its origins in China, his reading and discussions delved into Vedanta, "the new physics", cybernetics, semantics, process philosophy, natural history, and the anthropology of sexuality.

Middle years

After heading up the Academy for a few years, Watts left the faculty for a freelance career in the mid 1950s. In 1953, he began what became a long-running weekly radio program at Pacifica Radio station KPFA in Berkeley, which continued until his death in 1973. Like other volunteer programmers at the listener-sponsored station, Watts was not paid for his broadcasts; they did, however, gain him a large following in the San Francisco Bay Area. These programs were later carried by additional Pacifica stations, and were re-broadcast many times over in the decades following his death. The original tapes are currently held by the Pacifica Radio Archives, based at KPFK in Los Angeles, and at the Electronic University archive founded by his son, Mark Watts (alanwatts.org).

In 1957 when 42, Watts published one of his best known books, The Way of Zen, which focused on philosophical explication and history. Besides drawing on the lifestyle and philosophical background of Zen, in India and China, Watts introduced ideas drawn from general semantics (directly from the writings of Alfred Korzybski and also from Norbert Wiener's early work on cybernetics, which had recently been published). Watts offered analogies from cybernetic principles possibly applicable to the Zen life. The book sold well, eventually becoming a modern classic, and helped widen his lecture circuit.

Around this time, Watts toured parts of Europe with his father, meeting the renowned psychiatrist Carl Jung. In relation to modern psychology, Watts's instincts were closer to Jung's or Abraham Maslow's than to those of Freud.

Experimentation

When he returned to the United States, he began to dabble in psychedelic drug experiences, initially with mescaline given to him by Dr. Oscar Janiger. He tried LSD several times with various research teams led by Drs. Keith Ditman, Sterling Bunnell, and Michael Agron. He also tried marijuana and concluded that it was a useful and interesting psychoactive drug that gave the impression of time slowing down. Watts’ books of the 60s reveal the influence of these chemical adventures on his outlook. He would later comment about psychedelic drug use, "When you get the message, hang up the phone."

For a time, Watts came to prefer writing in the language of modern science and psychology (Psychotherapy East and West is a good example), finding a parallel between mystical experiences and the theories of the material universe proposed by 20th-century physicists. He later equated mystical experience with ecological awareness, and typically emphasized whichever approach seemed best suited to the audience he was addressing.

Supporters and critics

Watts's explorations and teaching brought him into contact with many noted intellectuals, artists, and American teachers in the human potential movement. His friendship with poet Gary Snyder nurtured his sympathies with the budding environmental movement, to which Watts gave philosophical support. He also encountered Robert Anton Wilson, who credited Watts with being one of his 'Light[s] along the Way' in the opening appreciation of Cosmic Trigger.

Though never affiliated for long with any one academic institution, he did have a fellowship for several years at Harvard University. He also lectured to many college and university students. His lectures and books gave him far-reaching influence on the American intelligentsia of the 1950s-1970s, but he was often seen as an outsider in academia. When questioned sharply by students during his talk at University of California Santa Cruz in 1970, Watts responded that he was not an academic philosopher but rather "a philosophical entertainer."

Watts has been criticized by Buddhists such as Roshi Philip Kapleau, John Daido Loori, and D. T. Suzuki for allegedly misinterpreting several key concepts of Zen Buddhism. Examples of the criticisms by those who believe that zazen can only be achieved by a strict and specific means of sitting as opposed to a cultivated state of mind available at any moment in any situation would be when Kapleau claimed that Watts dismissed zazen on the basis of only half a koan. In regard to the aforementioned koan, Robert Baker Aitken reports that Suzuki told him "I regret to say that Mr. Watts did not understand that story." In Loori's translation of Dogen's The True Dharma Eye, the author also mentions this and expands further to suggest that Zen in its essence is zazen, and cannot be grasped without the practice. This had been the predominant interpretation of Zen in the West before Alan Watts began to write. One major point raised today, however, is that the state of Zen is like that of dog, always in the moment, regretting nothing. Although in one Koan Zhaozhou is said to have answered that a Dog does not have Buddha nature, in a different Koan from the same period Zhaozhou answered the same question in the positive, demonstrating the disagreements between the sects of 'walking monks' and 'sitting monks' that go back thousands of years. In his talks, Watts addressed the issue of defining zazen practice when he said, "A cat sits until it is tired of sitting, then gets up, stretches, and walks away."

He did, however, have his supporters in the Zen community, including Shunryu Suzuki, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center. As David Chadwick recounted in his biography of Suzuki, when a student of Suzuki's disparaged Watts by saying “we used to think he was profound until we found the real thing," Suzuki "fumed with a sudden intensity," saying, "You completely miss the point about Alan Watts! You should notice what he has done. He is a great bodhisattva"

Applied aesthetics

Watts often wrote about, or sometimes alluded to, a group of neighbors in Druid Heights (near Mill Valley, California), who had endeavored to combine architecture, gardening, and carpentry skills to make a beautiful and comfortable life for themselves. These neighbors accomplished this by relying on their own talents and using their own hands, as they lived in what has been called "shared bohemian poverty." Druid Heights was founded by the writer Elsa Gidlow, and Watts dedicated his book The Joyous Cosmology to the people of this neighborhood.

Regarding his intentions, Watts attempted to lessen the alienation that accompanies the experience of being human that he felt plagued the modern Westerner, and (like his fellow British expatriate and friend, Aldous Huxley) to lessen the ill will that was an unintentional by-product of alienation from the natural world. He felt such teaching could improve the world, at least to a degree. He also articulated the possibilities for greater incorporation of aesthetics (for example: better architecture, more art, more fine cuisine) in American life. In his autobiography he wrote, "… cultural renewal comes about when highly differentiated cultures mix".

In his last novel Island (1962), Aldous Huxley mentions the religious practice of maithuna as being something like what Roman Catholics call "coitus reservatus". A few years before, Alan Watts had discussed the theme in his own book Nature, Man and Woman. There, he discusses the possibility of the practice being known to early Christians and of it being kept secretly by the Church.

Later years

In his writings of the 1950s, he conveyed his admiration for the practicality in the historical achievements of Chán (Zen) in the Far East, for it had fostered farmers, architects, builders, folk physicians, artists, and administrators among the monks who had lived in the monasteries of its lineages.

In his mature work, he presents himself as "Zennist" in spirit as he wrote in his last book, . Child rearing, the arts, cuisine, education, law and freedom, architecture, sexuality, and the uses and abuses of technology were all of great interest to him.

Though known for his Zen teachings, he was equally if not more influenced by ancient Hindu scriptures, especially Vedanta, and spoke extensively about the nature of the divine Reality Man that Man misses, how the contradiction of opposites is the method of life and the means of cosmic and human evolution, how our fundamental Ignorance is rooted in the exclusive nature of mind and ego, how to come in touch with the Field of Consciousness and Light, and other cosmic principles. These are discussed in great detail in dozens of hours of audio that are in part captured in the ‘Out of Our Mind’ series.

On the personal level, Watts sought to resolve his feelings of alienation from the institutions of marriage and the values of American society, as revealed in his classic comments on love relationships in "Divine Madness" and on perception of the organism-environment in "The Philosophy of Nature".

In looking at social issues he was quite concerned with the necessity for international peace, for tolerance and understanding among disparate cultures. He also came to feel acutely conscious of a growing ecological predicament; as one instance, in the early 1960s he wrote: “Can any melting or burning imaginable get rid of these ever-rising mountains of ruin – especially when the things we make and build are beginning to look more and more like rubbish even before they are thrown away?" These concerns were later expressed in a television pilot made for NET filmed at his mountain retreat in 1971 in which he noted that the single track of conscious attention was wholly inadequate for interactions with a multi-tracked world.

Political stance

In his writings, Watts alluded to his own political shift from Republican conservatism to a more libertarian legal and political outlook. Distrusting both the established political left and right, he found inspiration in the Chinese sage Chuang-Tzu. He disliked much in the conventional idea of "progress." He hoped for change, but personally he preferred amiable, semi-isolated rural social enclaves, and also believed in tolerance for urban tenderloins, social misfits, and eccentric artists. Watts decried the suburbanization of the countryside and the way of life that went with it.

In one campus lecture tour, which Watts titled "The End to the Put-Down of Man", Watts presented positive images for both nature and humanity, spoke in favor of the various stages of human growth (including the teenage years), reproached excessive cynicism and rivalry, and extolled intelligent creativity, good architecture and food.

On spiritual and social identity

Watts felt that absolute morality had nothing to do with the fundamental realization of one’s deep spiritual identity. He advocated social rather than personal ethics. In his writings, Watts was increasingly concerned with ethics applied to relations between humanity and the natural environment and between governments and citizens. He wrote out of an appreciation of a racially and culturally diverse social landscape.

He often said that he wished to act as a bridge between the ancient and the modern, between East and West, and between culture and nature.

Watts led some tours for Westerners to the Buddhist temples of Japan. He also studied some movements from the traditional Chinese martial art T'ai Chi Ch'uan, with an Asian colleague, Al Chung-liang Huang.

Worldview

In several of his later publications, especially Beyond Theology and The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Watts put forward a worldview, drawing on Hinduism, Chinese philosophy, pantheism, and modern science, in which he maintains that the whole universe consists of a cosmic self playing hide-and-seek (Lila), hiding from itself (Maya) by becoming all the living and non-living things in the universe, forgetting what it really is; the upshot being that we are all IT in disguise. In this worldview, Watts asserts that our conception of ourself as an "ego in a bag of skin" is a myth; the entities we call the separate "things" are merely processes of the whole.

Internet phenomenon

Since the inception of alanwattspodcast.com by Amber Star of Zencast.org, and the success of internet based user-generated videos, many of Alan's audio contents have been made into videos.

As part of his growing popularity, Matt Stone and Trey Parker—creators of the animated series South Park—have also contributed a video tribute by animating some of his lectures. This has spawned a culture of many hundreds of user animated videos all around the net.

Personal life

Alan Watts was married three times and had seven children, five daughters and two sons. His oldest son, Mark Watts, currently serves as curator of his father's work.

He met Eleanor Everett in 1936, when her mother, Ruth Fuller Everett, brought her to London to study piano. They met at the Buddhist Lodge, were engaged the following year, and married in April 1938. A daughter, Joan, was born November 1938, and another, Anne, was born in 1943. Their marriage ended eleven years later, but Watts continued after that to correspond with his ex-mother-in-law.

After leaving Eleanor in 1950 Alan Watts married Dorothy DeWitt and moved to San Francisco in early 1951 to teach. They began a family that grew to include five children: Tia, Mark, Richard, Lila, and Diane. However the couple separated in the early sixties after Watts met Mary Jane Yates King while lecturing in New York. After a difficult divorce he married Mary Jane in 1964.

Watts lived with his wife Mary Jane in Sausalito, California in the mid-60s. He lived his later years at times on a houseboat in Sausalito and at times in a secluded cabin on Mount Tamalpais. Laden with social and financial responsibilities, he struggled increasingly with alcohol addiction, which may have contributed to his premature death.

In October 1973, Watts returned from an exhausting European lecture tour. He died of heart failure in his sleep at his home on Mt. Tamalpais the following month, at the age of 58.

Books

1936 The Spirit of Zen, Paperback. 1969 ISBN 0-8021-3056-9 A preview from Google Books

1937 The Legacy of Asia and Western Man

1940 The Meaning of Happiness, Paperback. 1970, ISBN 0-06-080178-6

1944 Theologica Mystica of St. Dionysius, (translation from Greek of pseudo-Dionysius, available online)

1948 Behold the Spirit:A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion, Vintage ed. 1972, ISBN 0-394-71761-9

1950 Easter - Its Story and Meaning

1950 The Supreme Identity, Vintage ed. 1972, ISBN 0-394-71835-6

1951 The Wisdom of Insecurity, Vintage ed. 1968, ISBN 0-394-70468-1

1953 Myth and Ritual in Christianity, Beacon Press 1971, ISBN 0-8070-1375-7

1957 The Way of Zen, Vintage Spiritual Classics 1999, ISBN 0-375-70510-4

1958 Nature, Man, and Woman, Vintage reissue 1991, ISBN 0-679-73233-0

1959 Beat Zen Square Zen and Zen, Paperback, ASIN B000F2RQL4

1960 "This Is It" and Other Essays on Zen and Spiritual Experience, Vintage reprint 1973, ISBN 0-394-71904-2

1961 Psychotherapy East and West, Vintage ed. 1975, ISBN 0-394-71609-4 An excerpt

1962 The Joyous Cosmology - Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness

1963 The Two Hands of God - The Myths of Polarity

1964 Beyond Theology - The Art of Godmanship, Vintage 1973, ISBN 0-394-71923-9

1966 The Book - On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Vintage reissue 1989, ISBN 0-679-72300-5 An excerpt

1967 Nonsense, ISBN 0-525-47463-3. (This book is a spiritual application of literary nonsense).

1970 Does It Matter?: Essays on Man's Relation to Materiality, Vintage ed. 1971, ISBN 0-394-71665-5

1971 Erotic Spirituality - The Vision of Konarak

1972 The Art of Contemplation

1972 In My Own Way - An Autobiography 1915-1965, Vintage 1973, ISBN 0-394-71951-4 A preview from Google Books

1973 Cloud-hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: A Mountain Journal, Vintage 1974, ISBN 0-394-71999-9

Posthumous publications

1974 The Essence of Alan Watts, Celestial Arts 1977, ISBN 0-89087-210-4

1975 Tao: The Watercourse Way, with Al Chung-liang Huang, Pantheon 1977, ISBN 0-394-73311-8

1976 Essential Alan Watts

1978 Uncarved Block, Unbleached Silk: The Mystery of Life

1979 Om: Creative Meditations

1982 Play to Live

1983 Way of Liberation: Essays and Lectures on the Transformation of the Self

1985 Out of the Trap

1986 Diamond Web

1987 The Early Writings of Alan Watts, Paperback. 1995, ISBN 0-89087-794-7

1990 The Modern Mystic: A New Collection of Early Writings

1994 Talking Zen

1995 Become What You Are, Shambhala Expanded ed. 2003, ISBN 1-57062-940-4

1995 Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion A preview from Google Books

1995 The Philosophies of Asia

1995 The Tao of Philosophy, edited transcripts, Tuttle Publishing 1999, ISBN 0-8048-3204-8

1996 Myth and Religion

1997 Taoism: Way Beyond Seeking

1997 Zen and the Beat Way

1998 Culture of Counterculture

1999 Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion, edited transcripts, Tuttle Publishing, ISBN 0-8048-3203-X

2000 What Is Zen?, editor: Mark Watts, New World Library, ISBN 0-394-71951-4 A preview from Google Books

2000 What Is Tao?, ed. Mark Watts, New World Library, ISBN 1-57731-168-X

2000 Still the Mind: An Introduction to Meditation, ed. Mark Watts, New World Library, ISBN 1-57731-214-7

2000 Eastern Wisdom, ed. Mark Watts, MJF Books, ISBN 1-56731-491-0, three books in one volume: What is Zen?, What is Tao?, and An Introduction to Meditation (Still the Mind). These were assembled from transcriptions of audio tape recordings made by his son Mark, of lectures and seminars given by Alan Watts during the last decade of his life. They constitute simplified introductions to the philosophies he taught.

Audio and video works, essays

Including recordings of lectures at major universities and multi-session seminars:

1960 Eastern Wisdom in Modern Life, television series, (here)

1960 Essential Lectures, audio recordings, (here)

1960 Nature of Consciousness, essay, (here)

1960 The Value of Psychotic Experience

1960 The World As Emptiness

1960 From Time to Eternity

1960 Lecture On Zen

1960 The Cross of Cards

1960 Taoism

1962 This Is IT

1968 "Psychedelics & Religious Experience", in California Law Review (here)

1969 Why Not Now: The Art of Meditation

1971 A Conversation With Myself (part 1 part 2part 3)

1994 Zen: The Best of Alan Watts (VHS)

2005 Do You Do It, or Does It Do You?: how to let the universe meditate you (CD)

2007 Zen Meditations with Alan Watts, DVD, (here)

Other books

Genuine Fake: a Biography of Alan Watts, by Monica Furlong, Published by Heinemann, 1986

Academic connections

Saybrook University offers the only course on Watts in the United States and perhaps the world (HTP 3075: The Life of Alan Watts). Saybrook also has the only Watts academic chair in the world, which is held by Stanley Krippner, Executive Faculty Member.

Notes

References

Aitken, Robert. Original Dwelling Place. Counterpoint. Washington, D.C. 1997. ISBN 1-887178-41-4 (paperback)

Charters, Ann (ed.). The Portable Beat Reader. Penguin Books. New York. 1992. ISBN 0-670-83885-3 (hard cover); ISBN 0-14-015102-8 (paperback)

Furlong, Monica, Zen Effects: The Life of Alan Watts Houghton Mifflin. New York. 1986 ISBN 0-395-45392-5, Skylight Paths 2001 edition of the biography, with new foreword by author: ISBN 1-89336132-2

Kapleau, Philip. Three Pillars of Zen (1967) Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-5975-7

Stirling, Isabel. "Zen Pioneer: The Life & Works of Ruth Fuller Sasaki" Shoemaker & Hoard. 2006. ISBN 978-1-59376-110-3

Watts, Alan, In My Own Way New York. Random House Pantheon. 1973 ISBN 0-394-46911-9 (his autobiography)

External links

The Alan Watts Electronic University- Alan Watts audio and video courses, co-founded by Alan Watts, Mark Watts, and Henry Jacobs in 1973.

Alan Watts Podcast - The official Podcast of Alan Watts

Master Enlightenments Arts Seminars and Lectures by Alan Watts - Looking at many different forms of enlightenment - Recorded by Henry Jacobs in 1964/65 who set up the original Alan Watts radio network.

Alan Watts Online - Project Unicorn (also via Archive.org)

Watts essay on Nothingness

"Alan Watts Theatre" - audio recordings of Watts set to animations

Alan Watts audio archive from the DIY Dharma website

Alan Watts Lectures and Essays Audio, video, essays and articles - resources from deoxy.org

Alan Watts Resource Compilation A collection of audio and video links of Alan Watts lecture and essays

Alan Watts on YouTube, South Park Interview with Mark Watts on the resurgence of his father's work

watts.progressiveradionetwork.org Gary Nulls online station with Alan Watts show including some archived audio lectures.

www.souljerky.com Collection of Trey Parker and Matt Stone animations.

Alan Watts. The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

Category:1915 births Category:1973 deaths Category:20th-century philosophers Category:Buddhism in the United States Category:Converts to Buddhism Category:Buddhist philosophers Category:Mahayana Buddhists Category:English Buddhists Category:English philosophers Category:English spiritual teachers Category:English spiritual writers Category:English Taoists Category:Harvard Fellows Category:Metaphysicians Category:Modern Buddhist writers Category:People associated with the Human Potential Movement Category:Western mystics Category:American Episcopal priests

Name	Terry Oldfield
Background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
Born	August 12, 1949 Palmers Green, North London, England
Url	http://www.terryoldfield.com/

Terence "Terry" Oldfield (born 12 August 1949, in Palmers Green, North London) is an English composer. He is brother to well-known music composers and performers Sally and Mike Oldfield.

History

Early life

Terry and his siblings were raised in the Roman Catholic faith of their mother, Maureen. Terry Oldfield was born in London, England and spent his childhood partly in Dublin and partly in Reading, Berkshire. He later attended a Benedictine Monastery School. His earliest musical experiences were in the myriad of folk clubs that sprung-up in the UK during the late 60s and early 70s, listening to the songs of Leonard Cohen, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Bob Dylan.

Terry left school at 16 to travel the world and worked as a roadie for various bands including the Byrds, setting-up stage and sound mixing systems. During an extended stay on the Greek island of Hydra, he took up his first musical instrument, the flute. "I think it was learning to play in this way, with no formal guidance, that allowed me to develop the ability to compose music. I spent many happy days improvising tunes and discovering scales and arpeggios for myself, and soon started to teach myself to write these things down". Terry's only formal music training was in Agra, India where he spent some time learning to play the Tabla.

In the early 1970s, Terry and his brother Mike formed a band called 'Barefoot' playing rock'n'roll at colleges and clubs throughout the UK. Mike later went on to record the highly successful Tubular Bells and later Terry played the flute in the famous live performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London.

Solo career

Terry, his brother Mike and his sister Sally all completed the Exegesis Programme Large Group Awareness Training course. Terry recorded a piece of flute music which was used to accompany the last section of the course.

Terry's career began in earnest when he was asked by the BBC to compose music for a series called Great Railway Journeys of the World. Since then Terry has composed music for over 50 film and TV productions, receiving two Emmy nominations for Land of the Tiger and Twilight of the Dreamtime and a BAFTA nomination for the BBC series Kingdom of the Ice Bear. He also worked on Meerkats United, which in a recent National Television Poll was voted 'Best Wildlife Film Ever'.

Terry had a relationship with New World Music, one of the world's leading 'World' music labels, for over 10 years and has a back catalogue of over 15 recordings. In 2001, Terry signed a multi-record contract with New Earth Records in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His work contains an enormous range of ideas and influences and has sold over 1 million units worldwide.

Currently Terry has been looking at new directions to take his music. "Recently I have found the advent of Global music very inspiring. Especially the Amnesty International Concerts". In 2001, Terry Oldfield moved to Australia.

Discography

Albums

Sunshine Holidays – 1983

In Search of the Trojan War – 1985

Cascade – 1986

Reverence – 1986

Return to Treasure Island – 1987

In the Presence of Light – 1987

Resonance – 1988

Star of Heaven – 1989

Spirit of the Rainforest – 1990

Angel – 1990

Zen – 1991

Illumination – 1992

Spiral Waves – 1992

Out of the Depths – 1993

Spirit of Africa – 1993

Australia – 1994

Spirit of Tibet – 1994

Earth Spirit – 1995

Icon – 1995

Theme for the Telford Time Machine – 1996

Spirit of India – 1996

South East Asia – 1997

All The Rivers Gold – 1999

Music for Wildlife – 2000

Reflections - The Best of Terry Oldfield 1985-1995 – 2000

Across the Universe – 2000

Spirit of the World – 2000

Turning Point 2002

A Time for Peace – 2003

Yoga Harmony – 2004

Celt – 2004

De Profundis / Out of the Depths II – 2005

Ethereal – 2005

Reiki Harmony – 2006

Labrynth – 2007

References

External links

New Earth Records

Category:1949 births Category:Living people Category:English composers Category:People from Palmers Green Category:People from Reading, Berkshire