Still the Mind

Life is the ultimate game of hide and seek... and the good news is that you're it! With the combination of playful irreverence and penetrating insight that made him a legend in Western philosophy, Alan Watts investigates the surprisingly liberating concept of "the universe as play" found at the heart of Hinduism, Zen, and other wisdom traditions.

With Out of Your Mind: Essential Listening from the Alan Watts Audio Archives, you are invited to immerse yourself in 12 of this legendary thinker's pinnacle teaching sessions about how to break through the limits of the rational mind and begin expanding your awareness and appreciation for the Great Game unfolding all around us.

Modern Western culture and technology is inextricably tied to the belief in the existence of a self as a separate ego, separated from and in conflict with the rest of the world. In this classic book, Watts provides a lucid and simple presentation of an alternative view based on Hindu and Vedantic philosophy.

"If you were God," asked Alan Watts, "what kind of universe would you create? A perfect one free of suffering and drama? Or one filled with surprise and delight?" With Just So, the celebrated philosopher and self-described "spiritual entertainer" invites us to explore the hidden dimensions that shape both the cosmos and our personal experience of it.

Alan Watts discusses the fundamental attitudes that run through all religions or "ways of liberation," as the Far Eastern disciplines might better be described. By following these practices to the extremes of repentance, rebellion, and resignation, one may be freed from the endless cycles of reincarnation which perpetuate the human condition.

Drawn from hundreds of hours of rare archival recordings from the personal collection of his son, Mark Watts, this program presents the essential message of Alan Watts. Here is Alan Watts, recorded live in seminars conducted in America and Japan, personally explaining how the Eastern view of man and his place in the world can be made meaningful to the contemporary Westerner.

Alan W. Watts' "message for an age of anxiety" is as powerful today as it was when this modern classic was first published. We spend too much time trying to anticipate and plan for the future, too much time lamenting the past. We often miss the pleasures of the moment in our anxious efforts to ensure the next moment is as enjoyable. Drawing from Eastern philosophy and religion, Watts argues that it is only by acknowledging what we do not and cannot know that we can find something truly worth knowing.

Space is considered to be nothingness by many. But after all it is the background in which we see everything. It is against space and within the dimension of time that we experience everything we experience. Space and time are the two basic dimensions of our world but are uncommonly illusive. We can say they are our way of thinking of the universe as being a system of patterns. And our awe at the vastness of space may be man's astonishment at himself.

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few. So begins this most beloved of all American Zen works. Seldom has such a small handful of words provided a teaching as rich as this famous opening line of Shunryu Suzuki's classic. In a single stroke, the simple sentence cuts through the pervasive tendency students have of getting so close to Zen as to completely miss what it's all about. An instant teaching in the first minutes. And that's just the beginning.

Discover how the understanding and practice of Zen can bring peace and enlightenment into your daily life in this classic work. Narrated by Sean Runnette, this audio program presents Alan Watts's classic bestseller, introducing Western listeners to Zen Buddhism and elaborating on the key concepts including: The history of Zen, the principles and practice of Zen, the tradition of Za-Zen (meditation) and the Koan, and the integration of Zen into every aspect of life. The Way of Zen presents an understandable, inspirational, and spiritually rewarding exploration of Zen Buddhism.

Macmillan Audio presents In My Own Way, Alan Watts' acclaimed autobiography, published for the first time in audio.  

This is the first book to offer the great master's incisive wisdom in short selections taken from the whole range of his voluminous works. The pithy and powerful readings, arranged according to theme, provide a perfect introduction to Dogen - and inspire spiritual practice in people of all traditions.

In 1957, four years before his death, Carl Gustav Jung, psychiatrist and psychologist, began writing his life story. But what started as an exercise in autobiography soon morphed into an altogether more profound undertaking.

The follow-up to his best-seller The War of Art, Turning Pro navigates the passage from the amateur life to a professional practice.  

Written by the 17th-century Zen master Takuan Soho (1573-1645), The Unfettered Mind is a book of advice on swordsmanship and the cultivation of right mind and intention. It was written as a guide for the samurai Yagyu Munenori, who was a great swordsman and rival to the legendary Miyamoto Musashi.