A provocative and enduring work that reexamines humanity's place in the natural world -- and the spirit's relation to the flesh -- in the light of Chinese Taoism.
That human beings stand separate from a nature that must be controlled, that the mind is somehow superior to the body, and that all sexuality entails a seduction -- a danger and a problem-are all assumptions upon which much of Western thought and culture is based. And all of them in some way underlie our exploitation of the earth, our distrust of emotion, and our loneliness and reluctance to love.
Few books have challenged those assumptions as directly as this erudite and engaging work by the author of The Way of Zen. Drawing on the precepts of Taoism, Alan Watts offers an alternative vision of man and the universe -- one in which the distinctions between self and other, spirit and matter give way to a more holistic way of seeing. Nature, Man and Woman is a book of great elegance and far-reaching...
From “perhaps the foremost interpreter of Eastern disciplines for the contemporary West—and an author who ‘had the rare gift of ‘writing beautifully the unwritable’” (Los Angeles Times)—a guide that draws on Chinese Taoism to reexamine humanity’s place in the natural world and the relation between body and spirit. Western thought and culture have coalesced around a series of constructed ideas—that human beings stand separate from a nature that must be controlled; that the mind is somehow superior to the body; that all sexuality entails a seduction—that in some way underlie our exploitation of the earth, our distrust of emotion, and our loneliness and reluctance to love. Here, Watts fundamentally challenges these assumptions, drawing on the precepts of Taoism to present an alternative vision of man and the universe—one in which the distinctions between self and other, spirit and matter give way to a more holistic way of seeing.
Description:
A provocative and enduring work that reexamines humanity's place in the natural world -- and the spirit's relation to the flesh -- in the light of Chinese Taoism.
That human beings stand separate from a nature that must be controlled, that the mind is somehow superior to the body, and that all sexuality entails a seduction -- a danger and a problem-are all assumptions upon which much of Western thought and culture is based. And all of them in some way underlie our exploitation of the earth, our distrust of emotion, and our loneliness and reluctance to love.
Few books have challenged those assumptions as directly as this erudite and engaging work by the author of The Way of Zen. Drawing on the precepts of Taoism, Alan Watts offers an alternative vision of man and the universe -- one in which the distinctions between self and other, spirit and matter give way to a more holistic way of seeing. Nature, Man and Woman is a book of great elegance and far-reaching...
From “perhaps the foremost interpreter of Eastern disciplines for the contemporary West—and an author who ‘had the rare gift of ‘writing beautifully the unwritable’” (Los Angeles Times)—a guide that draws on Chinese Taoism to reexamine humanity’s place in the natural world and the relation between body and spirit. Western thought and culture have coalesced around a series of constructed ideas—that human beings stand separate from a nature that must be controlled; that the mind is somehow superior to the body; that all sexuality entails a seduction—that in some way underlie our exploitation of the earth, our distrust of emotion, and our loneliness and reluctance to love. Here, Watts fundamentally challenges these assumptions, drawing on the precepts of Taoism to present an alternative vision of man and the universe—one in which the distinctions between self and other, spirit and matter give way to a more holistic way of seeing.