Alan Watts: On Blazing One's Own Way

Alan Watts was born on this day in 1915 in Britain. At an early age he developed a keen interest in Asian studies and religion. He moved to the U.S. in the late 1930’s and became an Episcopal priest in 1943. After seven years Watts left the church and returned to the study of Asian philosophy and religion full-time. By the 1960's he had become rather well-known on the American scene as much for living "in the moment" in alcohol, experimental drugs, and other excesses as for his writings. Classical Zen masters criticized him for practicing a light version of Buddhism. Many in the youth rebellion of the time latched on to his eccentrism and independent thought as a beacon in what they viewed as a western world in decline. Either way, he would say that he was what he did. We can do nothing more or less than accept the full man. 

When he died in November 1973 he left the world over two dozen books, hundreds of pamphlets and briefs, and well over a thousand hours of audiovisual recordings offering his original thoughts on the Western expression of Zen/ Zen Buddhism and Asian thought. For those who are interested I recommend his autobiography - In My Own Way (1972) - very highly as an entertaining read and a particularly memorable glimpse at American culture in the generation following World War II.