For other uses, see Incarnation (Christianity) or Incarnate (disambiguation)

Incarnation literally means embodied in flesh or taking on flesh. It refers to the conception and birth of a sentient creature (generally a human) who is the material manifestation of an entity, god or force whose original nature is immaterial.^[1]

In its religious context the word is used to mean the descent from Heaven of a god, or divine being in human/animal form on Earth.

Ancient Egypt[link]

The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt were sometimes said to be incarnations of the gods Horus and Ra.

Bahá'í[link]

In the Bahá'í Faith, God is described as a single, imperishable God, the creator of all things, including all the creatures and forces in the universe. The connection between God and the world is that of the creator to his creation.^[2] God is understood to be independent of his creation, and that creation is dependent and contingent on God. God, however, is not seen to be incarnated into this world and is not seen to be part of creation as he cannot be divided and does not descend to the condition of his creatures. Instead, in the Bahá'í understanding, the world of creation emanates from God, in that all things have been realized by him and have attained to existence.^[3] The Bahá'í concept of the intermediary between God and humanity is expressed in the term Manifestation of God, which are a series of personages, such as Jesus and Bahá'u'lláh, who reflect the attributes of the divine into the human world for the progress and advancement of human morals and civilization.^[4] In expressing God's intent, these Manifestations are seen to establish religion in the world.^[4] The Manifestations of God are also not seen as an incarnation of God, but are instead understood to be like a perfect mirror reflecting the attributes of God onto this material world.^[4][5]

Buddhism[link]

Illustration of the Ashoka Chakra, as depicted on the National flag of the Republic of India.

In the teaching of the Buddha sentient beings incarnate due to the psychological factors of ignorance, craving and clinging which results in the phenomenon of becoming and rebirth. To be born human is considered a great privilege because unlike other mammals even a person of average intelligence with sufficient effort and proper guidance can walk the path of dharma and become liberated from the cycle of rebirth. The motive force in the process of material incarnation and becoming (popularly known as 'life') is attachment to and identification with matter. This ignorance gives rise to the volitional factors which are called sankharas. These sankharas through the infinite possibilities of worldly desires propel the human being through the pattern of repeated birth and death until the dawning of wisdom (awakening) brings about the desire for liberation.

According to Buddha's teaching the soul (as that structure of sankharas that gives rise to incarnation and animates the body during 'life') is not a fixed entity but in a state of constant flux - being modified over time by actions of body, speech and mind. The constant transmutation and interdependence of phenomena mean that nothing can be said in terms of ultimate truth to have a fixed identity. This is the doctrine of anatta, the no-self doctrine applying to all phenomena (see Three marks of existence).

Liberation in Buddhism is achieved when the stock of accumulated sankharas buried in the unconscious have been dissolved through the practise of the Noble Eightfold Path, a path leading to the experience called enlightenment (Bodhi in Sanskrit and Pali). At enlightenment all the causes for future rebirth have been deleted and the sage abides in a state of being called deathlessness (Amaravati or Amrta). Such a one - called an arahant or Buddha is no longer destined for reincarnation after death.

In Tibetan Buddhism, an enlightened spiritual teacher (lama) may choose to reincarnate after death in order to continue to help people. Such a teacher is called a tulku.

Christianity[link]

Christ Pantocrator, God incarnate in the Christian faith, shown in a mosaic from Daphni, Greece, ca. 1080-1100.

The Incarnation of Christ is a central Christian doctrine that God became flesh, assumed a human nature, and became a man in the form of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the second person of the Trinity. This foundational Christian position holds that the divine nature of the Son of God was perfectly united with human nature in one divine Person, Jesus, making him both truly God and truly man. The theological term for this is hypostatic union: the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Son, became flesh when he was miraculously conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary.^[6] Biblical passages traditionally referenced in connection with the doctrine of the Incarnation include John 1:14, Colossians 2:9, and Philippians 2:7-8.

Hinduism[link]

Varaha, the boar avatar of Vishnu

In Hinduism, incarnation generally refers to an Avatar of Vishnu, the preserver in the Trimurti. Collectively, the 10 avatars of Vishnu are known as the dashavatara. Ganesha and Shiva also have avatars.

Islam[link]

Mainstream Islam[link]

Mainstream Islam completely rejects the doctrine of the incarnation of God in any form, as the concept is defined as Shirk. In mainstream Islam God is one and "neither begets nor is begotten".^[7] Islam specifically rejects the Christian idea of Jesus as a divine incarnation, but rather Jesus is seen as a prophet (nabī) and messenger (rasūl) of God. The Qur'anic text itself seems to fully reject this concept according to mainstream interpretations. Sunnism is the most prominent sect to hold this belief.

Shia[link]

There are some hadiths which tell that Muhammad and his successors carry a divine succession from God.^{[clarification needed]} Although not all Shiites claim this view, a rare few think that Imam Ali, believed to be the real caliph after Muhammad, was an incarnation of God and also God itself (see Ghulat).^{[clarification needed]} This view is vigorously rejected by Sunnis and non-Ghulati shias.^{[clarification needed]} The major conflict source between Sunnis and Shias is the Shias' believing Imam Ali to be the real caliph after Muhammad and accepting 12 "imans" as heirs of his "welayah" (rule). However, the Wahabi Muslims defend that some tales about shias incarnation create division between Shias and sunnis (both of whom they call brothers in the Quran). They also accuse the Shias of worshiping metals and woods (in fact the Shias only use them as "tabarrok" ("blesseds"/"blessed things"), just like "Hazrate Zahra" had used "tabarrok" first. In Shia philosophy, tabarrok is for showing your love to "ahle beit" ("household", the community of the devotees of Ali and Fatima) and requesting "shafa'at" (healing) from them because they believe that ahle beyt where the best God created and they use this method to have a better connection to Allah or to request "maghferat" (forgiveness) from God when they want to atone for sins and believe its an easier approach.

Ismailism[link]

The Aga Khan is the leader of the Ismailis and is believed that only he can fully understand and interpret the Quran. The Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims take the Aga Khan as an Imam (spiritual leader). In the Shia tariqah, the Light Of God (Noor) has always been present. The Islamic prophet Muhammed had this 'Noor'. There is a Hadith stating that Muhammad said "Ali and I are from the same Noor". As the Aga Khan is the direct descendant of Muhammad through Imam Ali and Bibi Fatima, the Noor has been passed down through them to him, since there needs to be a guide of the Ismailis present throughout history to interpret the Quran and give guidance to his followers as time goes by.^{[clarification needed]}

Nation of Islam[link]

The founder of the US-based black nationalist Nation of Islam, Wallace Fard Muhammad, is believed by followers to be an incarnation of God, also considered to be the Messiah of Christianity and Mahdi of Islam.

Judaism[link]

Mainstream Judaism totally rejects any doctrine of an incarnation of God and absolutely rejects any concept of an incarnation of God in any form.^[8] Jews especially rejected vehemently - even under penalty of death or threats of torture - the Christian idea of Jesus as a divine incarnation of God, and neither see Jesus as a Prophet nor Messiah.

However, some Hasidim believe in a somewhat similar concept. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, a prominent Hasidic leader, said that the Rebbe is God's essence itself put into a body of a Tzaddik.^[9] While many other Jews find this idea highly controversial, panentheism, i.e. considering everything and everyone as manifestations of God, is the accepted mainstream Hasidic and Kabbalistic doctrine.

The Kabbalah has an idea of gilgul (reincarnation) as part of the soul's journey to achieve perfection.

Rastafari[link]

The Rastafari movement views Haile Selassie I as God incarnate, who has come the second time as a deliverer.

Serer religion[link]

Kooh - the symbol of the Supreme Deity among the Serer-Noon, a subgroup of the Serer people.

Serer religion rejects any notion of an incarnation or manifestation of Rog (the Supreme Deity in Serer religion). Rog is everywhere and nowhere and has no descendants or ancestors. The Serer people who adhere to Serer religion do not make direct sacrifices to Rog, and is considered blasphemous to speak of a Rog incarnate.^[10] However, the reincarnation ("ciiɗ" in Serer language)^[11] of the ancient Serer saints and ancestral spirits, known as Pangool, is a well held principle in Serer religion. These Pangool (singular : Fangool) act as intermediaries between the living world and the Devine. When the Serers speak of incarnation, it is these Pangool they refer to, who are themselves holy by virtue of their intercession with the Devine^[12][13][10]

References[link]

External links[link]

Look up incarnation or incarnate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Alan Wilson Watts

Born	(1915-01-06)6 January 1915 Chislehurst, Kent, England
Died	16 November 1973(1973-11-16) (aged 58) Mt. Tamalpais, California, USA
Era	Contemporary philosophy
Region	Eastern Philosophy
School	Zen Buddhism · Hinduism · Pantheism · Religious naturalism · Taoism
Main interests	Personal identity · Higher consciousness · Aesthetics  · Public Ethics

Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and populariser 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 Episcopal 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 thought of as a form of psychotherapy and 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 by his son, Mark Watts, and by many of his recorded talks and lectures that have found new life on the Internet. According to the critic Erik Davis, his "writings and recorded talks still shimmer with a profound and galvanizing lucidity."^[1]

Early years[link]

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.^[2] Probably because of the influence of his mother’s religious family^[3] 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.^[4]

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...".^[5] These works of art emphasized the participative relationship of man in nature, a theme that stood fast throughout his life.

Buddhism[link]

Seated Great Buddha (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…”^[6] 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[link]

Watts attended The 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.^[7]

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. His involvement with the Buddhist Lodge in London 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[link]

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 Watts, though he 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—beginning 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[link]

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, Frederic 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. One notable student of his was Eugene Rose, who later went on to become a famous Hieromonk and theologian in the Eastern Orthodox Church of America.

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, his reading and discussions delved into Vedanta, "the new physics", cybernetics, semantics, process philosophy, natural history, and the anthropology of sexuality.

Middle years[link]

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[link]

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."^[8]

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[link]

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.^[9] 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."^[10] 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 a 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."^[11]

Applied aesthetics[link]

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."^[12] Druid Heights was founded by the writer Elsa Gidlow,^[13] and Watts dedicated his book The Joyous Cosmology to the people of this neighborhood.^[14]

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".^[15]

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[link]

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, Tao: The Watercourse Way. 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 Your 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?"^[16] 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[link]

Distrusting both the established political left and right, Watts found political inspiration in the Chinese sage Chuang-Tzu, an ancient Taoist thinker^{[citation needed]}. 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^{[citation needed]}.

On spiritual and social identity[link]

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[link]

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 ourselves 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[link]

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 user-animated videos all around the net.^[17]

Personal life[link]

Watts 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.

Watts 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 to correspond with his former mother-in-law.^[18]

After leaving Eleanor in 1950, 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 Mary Jane in Sausalito, California, in the mid-60s.^[19] He lived his later years at times on a houseboat in Sausalito called the Vallejo,^[20] and at times in a secluded cabin on Mount Tamalpais.

In October 1973, Watts returned from an exhausting European lecture tour to his cabin in Mount Tamalpais. On November 16, 1973, he died in his sleep of heart failure.

Publications[link]

• 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[link]

• 1974 The Essence of Alan Watts, ed. Mark 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 ed. Mark Watts,
• 1978 Uncarved Block, Unbleached Silk: The Mystery of Life
• 1979 Om: Creative Meditations ed. Mark Watts,
• 1982 Play to Live ed. Mark Watts,
• 1983 Way of Liberation: Essays and Lectures on the Transformation of the Self ed. Mark Watts,
• 1985 Out of the Trap ed. Mark Watts,
• 1986 Diamond Web ed. Mark Watts,
• 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 ed. Mark Watts,
• 1995 Become What You Are, Shambhala Expanded ed. 2003, ISBN 1-57062-940-4
• 1995 Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion ed. Mark Watts, A preview from Google Books
• 1995 The Philosophies of Asia ed. Mark Watts,
• 1995 The Tao of Philosophy, ed. Mark Watts, edited transcripts, Tuttle Publishing 1999, ISBN 0-8048-3204-8
• 1996 Myth and Religion ed. Mark Watts,
• 1997 Taoism: Way Beyond Seeking ed. Mark Watts,
• 1997 Zen and the Beat Way ed. Mark Watts,
• 1998 Culture of Counterculture ed. Mark Watts,
• 1999 Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion, ed. Mark Watts, 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.
• 2002 Zen, the Supreme Experience: The Newly Discovered Scripts, ed. Mark Watts, Vega
• 2006 Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life: Collected Talks, 1960-1969, New World Library

Audio and video works, essays[link]

Including recordings of lectures at major universities and multi-session seminars: Many of his works have made it easier for western people to apprehend eastern esoteric thinking, which until now required western people to travel to Asia and spend years learning the subtle nuances of the profound traditions.

• 1960 Eastern Wisdom and 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)

Biographical publications[link]

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

Academic connections[link]

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.^{[citation needed]}

Notes[link]

References[link]

• 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 1-893361-32-2
• 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[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Alan Watts

• 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)
• Works by or about Alan Watts in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Watts essay on Nothingness (This link no longer functions.)
• Alan Watts Lectures and Essays Audio, video, essays and articles – resources from deoxy.org
• Alan Watts' This Is IT: The First Psychedelic LP essay by Patrick Lundborg
• 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.
• Alan Watts. The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are