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The Book
- On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 4 hrs and 51 mins
- Categories: Politics & Social Sciences, Philosophy
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The Wisdom of Insecurity
- A Message for an Age of Anxiety
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- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
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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.
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The Way of Zen
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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.
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Smooth and Packed
- By MrCanadad on 2019-12-18
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You're It!
- On Hiding, Seeking, and Being Found
- Written by: Alan Watts
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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.
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love it
- By Shawn on 2018-07-15
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Out of Your Mind
- Written by: Alan Watts
- Narrated by: Alan Watts
- Length: 14 hrs and 22 mins
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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.
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Defrag my mind
- By Blake Nargang on 2019-01-23
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Leave It Be
- Alan Watts on the Art of Meditation
- Written by: Alan Watts
- Narrated by: Alan Watts
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
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"What would it be like to see all as one?" Alan Watts asks. "We hear about attaining great states of consciousness. But the only way to have a real transformation is to stop thinking about it - and simply experience it." From the 1950s to the 1970s, this seminal teacher sparked the West's love for Eastern wisdom. Now, in these rare recorded gems, he inspires a new generation of inner explorers seeking deeper insights into meditation - its myriad forms, how they work, and what happens when we practice them.
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The best
- By Michael J. Boyce on 2020-02-19
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Just So
- An Odyssey into the Cosmic Web of Connection, Play, and True Pleasure
- Written by: Alan Watts
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- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
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"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.
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Alan Watts was a marvellous being
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The Wisdom of Insecurity
- A Message for an Age of Anxiety
- Written by: Alan Watts
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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.
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The Way of Zen
- Written by: Alan W. Watts
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- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
-
Performance
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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.
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-
Smooth and Packed
- By MrCanadad on 2019-12-18
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You're It!
- On Hiding, Seeking, and Being Found
- Written by: Alan Watts
- Narrated by: Alan Watts
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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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.
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love it
- By Shawn on 2018-07-15
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Out of Your Mind
- Written by: Alan Watts
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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.
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Defrag my mind
- By Blake Nargang on 2019-01-23
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Leave It Be
- Alan Watts on the Art of Meditation
- Written by: Alan Watts
- Narrated by: Alan Watts
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Original Recording
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"What would it be like to see all as one?" Alan Watts asks. "We hear about attaining great states of consciousness. But the only way to have a real transformation is to stop thinking about it - and simply experience it." From the 1950s to the 1970s, this seminal teacher sparked the West's love for Eastern wisdom. Now, in these rare recorded gems, he inspires a new generation of inner explorers seeking deeper insights into meditation - its myriad forms, how they work, and what happens when we practice them.
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-
The best
- By Michael J. Boyce on 2020-02-19
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Just So
- An Odyssey into the Cosmic Web of Connection, Play, and True Pleasure
- Written by: Alan Watts
- Narrated by: Alan Watts
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
"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.
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Alan Watts was a marvellous being
- By Cassandra on 2020-01-26
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The Power of Space and Reincarnation
- Written by: Alan Watts
- Narrated by: Alan Watts
- Length: 3 hrs and 18 mins
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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.
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Still the Mind
- An Introduction to Meditation
- Written by: Alan Watts
- Narrated by: Alan Watts
- Length: 1 hr and 18 mins
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Mark Watts compiled this work from his father's extensive journals and audiotapes of famous lectures he delivered, in his later years, across the country. In three parts Alan Watts explains the basic philosophy of meditation, how individuals can practice a variety of meditations, and how inner wisdom grows naturally.
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Weak
- By Abcd12345 on 2019-12-13
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In My Own Way
- Written by: Alan Watts
- Narrated by: Jeremy Arthur
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
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Macmillan Audio presents In My Own Way, Alan Watts' acclaimed autobiography, published for the first time in audio.
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The Meaning of Happiness
- The Quest for Freedom of the Spirit in Modern Psychology and the Wisdom of the East
- Written by: Alan Watts
- Narrated by: Kern Schmidt
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Deep down, most people think that happiness comes from having or doing something. Here, in Alan Watts’s groundbreaking third book (originally published in 1940), he offers a more challenging thesis: authentic happiness comes from embracing life as a whole in all its contradictions and paradoxes, an attitude that Watts calls the “way of acceptance.” Drawing on Eastern philosophy, Western mysticism, and analytic psychology, Watts demonstrates that happiness comes from accepting both the outer world around us and the inner world inside us,
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Reality, Art and Illusion
- Written by: Alan Watts
- Narrated by: Alan Watts
- Length: 3 hrs and 30 mins
- Original Recording
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Alan Watts discusses the Indian philosophy of the world as maya - under its multiple meanings as illusion, art, magic, creative power, measure, etc. Various techniques in the arts are used to illustrate the delicate and vibrational character of the material world, and to suggest a new approach to the old philosophy that the universe is "mind" only.
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Great but incomplete
- By Michael J. Boyce on 2020-01-15
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Thusness
- Written by: Alan Watts
- Narrated by: Alan Watts
- Length: 3 hrs and 9 mins
- Original Recording
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Alan Watts discusses the word tathata, which is translated from the Sanskrit as "suchness" or "thusness." The term is used in Mahayana Buddhism to suggest how things look to a Buddha, to one who has experienced enlightenment or liberation and is, therefore, called a Tathagata - one who comes (and goes) thus. Watts shares the sense of this nonsense in Buddhist philosophy, and its practical demonstration in Zen.
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Psychotherapy East and West
- Written by: Alan Watts
- Narrated by: Jeremy Arthur
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Alan Watts examines the problem of humans in a seemingly hostile universe in ways that question the social norms and illusions that bind and constrict modern humans. Marking a groundbreaking synthesis, Watts asserts that the powerful insights of Freud and Jung, which had, indeed, brought psychiatry close to the edge of liberation, could, if melded with the hitherto secret wisdom of the Eastern traditions, free people from their battles with the self.
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Man, Nature, and the Nature of Man
- Written by: Alan W. Watts
- Narrated by: Alan W. Watts
- Length: 1 hr and 23 mins
- Abridged
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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.
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Four Ways to the Center
- Written by: Alan Watts
- Narrated by: Alan Watts
- Length: 3 hrs and 3 mins
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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.
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Great insights
- By Michael J. Boyce on 2019-08-15
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Becoming Nobody
- The Essential Ram Dass Collection
- Written by: Ram Dass
- Narrated by: Ram Dass
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Original Recording
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This audio collection brings us five essential sessions, featured in the Ram Dass documentary film Becoming Nobody, presented here in their entirety. Each beautifully illuminates a core dimension of Ram Dass’s wisdom. Through teaching stories, true accounts, eye-opening revelations, and his one-of-a-kind sense of humor, this legendary teacher helps show us the way out of the prison of our self-identity - and into the joy of being at once “nobody” and the universal divine at play in the world.
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WOW!!!
- By Daniel Toews on 2020-10-09
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Being Ram Dass
- Written by: Ram Dass, Rameshwar Das
- Narrated by: Rameshwar Das
- Length: 18 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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From Harvard psychology professor Richard Alpert to psychedelic and spiritual icon, Ram Dass tells here, for the first time, the full arc of his remarkable life. Populated by a cast of luminaries, this intimate memoir chronicles Ram Dass’ life across nine decades of cultural and spiritual transformation that resonate with us to this day.
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A beautiful life! A beautiful message!
- By Scott Taylor on 2021-02-16
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Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
- Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice
- Written by: Shunryu Suzuki
- Narrated by: Peter Coyote
- Length: 2 hrs and 58 mins
- Abridged
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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.
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Enlightening read
- By Pierce on 2018-12-06
Publisher's Summary
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.
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What listeners say about The Book
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Blake Nargang
- 2019-01-30
Perception shattering
Loved it. This is a book I'm going to spread around. The youths need some knowledge.
2 people found this helpful
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- Dylan
- 2015-04-09
Invaluable Insight
Just to get it out of the way, I gave the 'performance' 3 stars because the narrator has a bit of a lisp, but I got used to it. Anyway, the actual review:
I've long been a fan of Alan Watts. He communicates concepts from the East with much respect to the fundamental differences we in the West have in in terms of our understanding of reality and the thought process behind our actions. Most importantly, he does so with a sense of humor. I laughed out loud innumerable times throughout 'The Book', whether because of his taut mastery of dry humor or how it's used to illuminate something complicated in a refreshingly simple manner.
I've digested a lot of literature on Buddhism and meditation, and have been practicing every day for about a year now, and what's discussed in this book brought satisfaction to a number of puzzles and frustrations I've acquired on my journey, some that I didn't even realize I had until he laid them out for me. Not only did it teach me where I am on the path to understanding, but it instilled confidence in myself for the way forward.
I'd recommend this book to anyone, not until you've found some modicum of consistent success (good practice) with meditation, otherwise some of the musings may seem too ethereal to be of any value. Trust me, they aren't.
16 people found this helpful
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- Diana
- 2015-07-01
Alan Watts is THE MAN! The HUMAN!
Alan Watts gives me so many light bulb moments when he talks that I feel all warm and bright and hopeful. He is the antidote to all the stupidity we are exposed to everyday.
That's all.
18 people found this helpful
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- Ian Lacadin
- 2019-03-13
Master Alan Watts
Thank you. Thank you for reading me the book i once read. Thank you for reading me something i enjoy. Thank you for enjoying something I enjoy. Thank you.
3 people found this helpful
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- H. Lee
- 2015-10-04
Greatly enjoyed listening to narrator.
The only thing that could have made listening to this book more perfect is if Alan Watts had narrated it himself.
7 people found this helpful
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- Randy
- 2020-01-26
Esses-s-s
I could not listen to this performance past chapter one. It is poorly recorded. The hissing sibilants are so annoying they detract from the content.
The esses are so pronounced the reader often sounds like he has loose dentures.
1 person found this helpful
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- Donna Araujo
- 2019-10-23
Worst Alan Watts book I've ever listened to.
Wow- he was so rambling. It was really really hard to follow. I normally love Alan Watts
1 person found this helpful
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- Gustavo Ãvila
- 2019-06-23
Profound
Maybe If I read 20 more times I'll come to understand everything this book says
1 person found this helpful
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- Robin
- 2017-12-15
Superb! Enlightening!
Eloquence of what is and its finest. If you’re looking for peace in a world that has given you the option of ignorant religion or bleak death, this book untangles our deep connection to everything and offers a third, much needed perspective.
3 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 2017-11-27
Mindblowing, eye opening, and beautifully written
Mindblowing, eye opening, and beautifully written... A must for everyone who is in the searching of oneself
3 people found this helpful
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- Roberta and Johnny Shaughnessy, Mindfulness Meditation Teachers
- 2017-07-05
This may be THE Book.
Buckle your seatbelt. Alan Watts is about to take you for a ride that might change your life. A brief, but comprehensive exploration of metaphysics, philosophy and the meaning of life.
It may take one 100's of books and 1000's of hours to compile the knowledge and understanding presented in this book.
3 people found this helpful
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- Client Amazon
- 2018-09-02
Game changer
One of Watts' best. Exceptional insight, 50 years from now, and never as accurate as today. A fantastic discovery.