The Way of Zen

By Alan Watts

Watts traces Zen back through its Indian Buddhist and Chinese Taoist roots, then shows how it flowered in China and Japan as a way of direct experience rather than doctrine. The second half turns to practice — zazen, the koan, and the Zen spirit alive in haiku, calligraphy and the tea ceremony. Nearly seventy years on, it remains the book that opened Zen to the English-speaking world without flattening it.