The Weaver Reads reviewed What is Tao? by Alan Watts
Goodreads Review of What is Tao?
5 stars
Alan Watts is the great popularizer of Dao and Zen. By the time I was around halfway through, I was like, “Aha! I finally get it!” And Watts knew I was feeling that way—within a page or two he added, “If you think you got it, it’s because I tricked you. Words can’t tell you this, only experience can.” And he’s right.
I read the Daodejing for the first time in undergrad, the second time in grad school, the third time in May, and I’m reading it for the fourth time now. On the first two gos, I was baffled. It felt like I was trying to catch sand with a sieve. On the third go, I took a lot of notes, and it felt a bit more comprehensible to me. I think it took me around a month to get through the short text. Now, I’m reading the Ursula …
Alan Watts is the great popularizer of Dao and Zen. By the time I was around halfway through, I was like, “Aha! I finally get it!” And Watts knew I was feeling that way—within a page or two he added, “If you think you got it, it’s because I tricked you. Words can’t tell you this, only experience can.” And he’s right.
I read the Daodejing for the first time in undergrad, the second time in grad school, the third time in May, and I’m reading it for the fourth time now. On the first two gos, I was baffled. It felt like I was trying to catch sand with a sieve. On the third go, I took a lot of notes, and it felt a bit more comprehensible to me. I think it took me around a month to get through the short text. Now, I’m reading the Ursula Le Guin version as a sort of conversation. I think it took a lot more life experience for things to start to click, and I feel like there’s still a long way to go.
I felt compelled to take notes as I read Watts’s text, but then I heard his voice—exactly as it is in his recorded lectures—telling me not to. It’ll come to me, I just have to stop trying. Be soft, be supple, and go with it. It’ll come.
He’s right.