Powerful ideas from top nonfiction
Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 5,500+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.
Start your free trial
Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
The Way of Zen summary
Alan W. Watts
The history and core principles of the Eastern philosophy of Zen
Listen to the first key idea
Key idea 1 of 8
4.5 (561 ratings)
23 mins
8 key ideas
Audio & text
What is The Way of Zen about?
The Way of Zen (1957) is a classic work that lays out the historical origins and core principles of Zen Buddhism. Our world is changing at breakneck speed, and it often seems that the old rules cease to apply as soon as we’ve gotten used to them. The Eastern philosophy of Zen can help us find the mental stillness and the joy in uncertainty we desperately need.
About the Author
Alan Watts was a writer, speaker, and Zen philosopher who played a major role in popularizing Eastern religion in the West. He wrote several highly influential books, including Psychotherapy East and West and The New Alchemy.
Table of Contents
Key idea 1 of 8
Chinese Taoist philosophy laid the original foundation for Zen Buddhism.
Do you know how to breathe? Sure, you feel as if you know how to breathe – after all, you’re doing it constantly. But if you had to explain the exact physiological processes that allow you to breathe, you might be quite lost.
What Westerners think of as knowledge is concrete and fact-based. Yet few people anywhere in the world would say that they don’t know how to breathe, see, or move their legs. So, in fact, what you know constitutes a multitude of things about whose precise workings you have no idea. As soon as you realize this, you'll understand the concept of knowledge in Taoism, one of the major forebears of Zen Buddhism.
The key message here is: Chinese Taoist philosophy laid the original foundation for Zen Buddhism.
The earliest source of Taoist thought is an important book called the I Ching, or Book of Changes, written in China sometime between 3000 and 1200 BC. The book outlines a method of divination by which an oracle first “sees” a hexagram pattern somewhere in his environment. He then matches the hexagram’s characteristics to those in the I Ching to predict his subject’s future.
Now, you may not believe in making decisions based on an oracle’s prediction of your future. But is your method of decision-making any more rational? You may want to say yes. But how do you identify the exact point at which you've collected enough information to make a decision? Isn’t there always more information you could gather in order to make an even more “rational” decision?
To make a truly fact-based decision would take a very long time – so long that the time for action would have passed by the time you’d gathered all the data.
Our decisions ultimately come down to a feeling about which choice is right. Good decisions depend on good intuition – or, as a Taoist would say, being in the Tao. If you’re in the Tao, your mind is clear and your intuition is at its most effective.
Think about it this way: There’s no amount of work you can do to force the muscles in your tongue to taste more accurately. You just have to trust them to do their job. Similarly, you must be able to trust your mind.
Clear-mindedness, and trust in the mind’s natural abilities, would later become central to Zen. But before we get there, let’s look at the origins of Buddhism.
Want to see all full key ideas from The Way of Zen?
Key ideas in The Way of Zen
More knowledge in less time
Read or listen
Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.
Find your next read
Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.
Shortcasts New
We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.
Who should read The Way of Zen
- Newcomers to Eastern philosophy and history
- Those who want to challenge their minds to see the world differently
- Fans of Alan Watts
Categories with The Way of Zen
Books like The Way of Zen
What our members say
Sven O.
It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.
Thi Viet Quynh N.
Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.
Jonathan A.
Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.
Renee D.
Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.
Start growing with Blinkist now
25 Million
Downloads on all platforms
4.7 Stars
Average ratings on iOS and Google Play
91%
Of Blinkist members create a better reading habit*
*Based on survey data from Blinkist customers