From โperhaps the foremost interpreter of Eastern disciplines for the contemporary Westโand an author who โhad the rare gift of โwriting beautifully the unwritableโโ (Los Angeles Times)โa guide that draws on Chinese Taoism to reexamine humanityโs place in the natural world and the relation between body and spirit.
Western thought and culture have coalesced around a series of constructed ideasโthat 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 seductionโthat 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 universeโone in which the distinctions between self and other, spirit and matter give way to a more holistic way of seeing.