All cultures in the world have sought to develop an understanding of themselves, their realities and seek deeper truths. While the scientific and reductionist worldview of European thought has labored to formulate and postulate on the world, a divergence of thought also flourished throughout the East with a more holistic view of existence. These ideals and differing thoughts have certainly pollinated and crossed one another throughout the years. Today, the old dichotomy and division of Eastern and Western thought has largely dissolved or converged. In the past century or so, these views of the world were more alienated from one another.
In a more seemingly rapid paced world without sanctuary or peace of mind, it's time we return to these books on Eastern philosophy. Discover what has been lost and what can be found again.
Tao Te Ching
This influential and widely known Chinese text is attributed to the great sage Lao Tzu. Short and whimsical, the "Tao Te Ching" reads more like folky Aesop's fables than fundamental religious doctrine. It's a slim book and a quick read, but leaves behind new profundities on the nature of being and reality. Stephen Mitchell's poetic translation keeps the wisdom intact.
Considered the foundational text for Taoism, the "Tao Te Ching" leads its reader into a newfound, harmonious way of existing in the world. Taoism is the paradoxical concept of non-action or "doing not-doing". Mitchell writes in the introduction that: "The game plays the game; the poem writes the poem; we can't tell the dancer from the dance."
"Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity."
– Lao Tzu
The Analects
"The Analects" are a collection of Confucius' sayings after the fact; they were written sometime after his death in 497 BCE. Confucius' goal was to create and uphold the ideal vision of what a man should be. He wanted to perfect one's moral character and develop the methods toward pursuing such a grand goal.
Drawing from many different ancient Chinese texts and philosophies already in existence, the philosophy or religion of Confucianism has gone through many iterations. It shares a similarity with Christianity and the works of Socrates as both these philosophies and religions had the words of their leaders written after their deaths by their devotees.
One of the great classics of world literature, "The Analects" have to be read firsthand to be truly understood.
"Not to discuss with a man worthy of conversation is to waste the man. To discuss with a man not worthy of conversation is to waste words. The wise waste neither men nor words." – Confucius, "The Analects"
The I Ching
"The I Ching" has had an immense influence on the world. It's influenced Chinese thought for thousands of years and radically changed notions of mathematics and psychology in the West within the past few centuries. As the basis for binary code and a whole slew of other interesting phenomenon, "The I Ching" is one of the oldest efforts to try to reconcile the human mind into the greater cosmic scheme of things.
Richard Wilhelm's translation is the definitive book on "The I Ching", serving as both a reference, commentary and faithful rendition of the original text. The book can be used in a number of ways, and it stands as both the source for Confucianist and Taoist philosophy.
The Bhagavad Gita
Nowhere is there a more full picture of the rich spiritual realm and world of the Hindu faith. Considered to be a masterpiece of Sanskrit poetry, "The Bhagavad Gita" is one of our best sources for ancient Hinduism. It's part of a larger epic called "Mahabharata", but stands alone as a cornerstone of the religion.
The story describes a battle between two great armies as the god Krishna comes down mid-battle to enlighten the warrior Arjuna. The epic is non-linear and a long running philosophical treatise on the notions of freedom, understanding, meaning of life and the nature of reality. Concepts of the cyclical nature of time and cosmic oneness of the universe are all expressed in this book.
"The nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed." – "The Bhagavad Gita"
Siddhartha
Herman Hesse's classic has resonated with countless generations and remains an inspiring novel. The story is written in simple verse and follows a wealthy Indian Brahmin as he leaves a life of privilege and religiosity to try to find true spiritual fulfillment. Hesse's treatment of the religious enlightenment is diverse as he weaves into classical Eastern thought, Jungian psychology and existentialism.
Siddhartha leaves home with his friend Govinda and journeys through the many iterations of enlightenment seeking. He is not confined to any piety or guru worship as he joins the ascetics, follows the Buddha and even rejects him before going on to become a rich man and experience the pleasures of the world. Soon he understands that all experience is provisional and dependent on himself. Only the individual can find their own enlightenment.
"Words do not express thoughts very well. they always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another." – Herman Hesse, "Siddhartha"
Be Here Now
This is the recounting of a lifetime of experience and spiritual seeking from the man who would begin his journey as Dr. Richard Alpert and transcend into Baba Ram Dass. Both a biography, exploration of mysticism and period piece of the 1960s counterculture, "Be Here Now" is a riveting and unconventional book. It's a book to be experienced. There are many illustrations and wonderful poetic distillations of the many religions of the world.
Ram Dass has a simple message and that is to live in the present moment.
"Early in the journey you wonder how long the journey will take and whether you will make it in this lifetime. Later you will see that where you are going is HERE and you will arrive NOW... so you stop asking." – Baba Ram Dass, "Be Here Now"
The Way of Zen
Alan Watts wrote and lectured on Zen Buddhism for much of his life. He had an incredible way of explaining its practices and principles to early curious Western readers in the mid-20th century. Watts considered Zen to be "one of the most precious gifts of Asia to the world." He wrote:
"Since opposed principles, or ideologies, are irreconcilable, wars fought over principle will be wars of mutual annihilation. But wars fought for simple greed will be far less destructive, because the aggressor will be careful not to destroy what he is fighting to capture. Reasonable – that is, human – men will always be capable of compromise, but men who have dehumanized themselves by becoming the blind worshipers of an idea or an ideal are fanatics whose devotion to abstractions makes them the enemies of life." Alan Watts, "The Way of Zen"
Watts explains the concept of Zen as far as he can take it before that switch clicks and you're in on the cosmic laugh. Although Zen is one branch of Buddhism, it is more concerned with the ideals of spontaneous action and thought. Emptiness, detachment from desire and even renouncing the idea of enlightenment are all tenets of Zen that Watts lays out in a playful and profound way.
Joseph Campbell's life work covered a wide range of the communal human experience. Campbell explored the various mythologies of our planet and managed to elucidate on the common threads between them all. He's popularly known for coining the concept of the hero's journey, or monomyth, which is a narrative cycle that is found to some degree in all great legends and stories around the world.
This topic of discussion in an influential television series with journalist Bill Moyers brought Campbell's idea further into the mainstream posthumously in the latter half of the 20th century.
From this idea stems one of Campbell's greater points about the universality of experience and need to find your own truth or, as his famous saying goes, to "follow your bliss."
Campbell's ability to fuse comparative mythologies into one comprehensive world spanning myth can serve as the basis for discovering one's own personal truth. Human patterns repeat themselves over timescales far and wide. Once you can come to terms with the multifarious iterations of these universal stories, Campbell believed that you need to leave ideology behind once you've learned from it.
Alan Watts, had a similar sentiment to this idea, a contemporary and friend to Campbell — Watts explored the implications inherent to Campbell's view when exploring his early work of Return to the Forest.
Return to the Forest
Alan Watts - Return to the Forest Alan Watts Foundation
"You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. Where there is a way or path, it is someone else's path. You are not on your own path. If you follow someone else's way, you are not going to realize your potential." — Joseph Campbell
In Return to the Forest, Campbell explored what it meant to the individual and society when these common myths and systems begin to break down. In this chaos, when there is no central guiding myth, celestial authority or truth to guide us — what will become of the individual seeking meaning or their own truth?
Watts believed that the fundamental force guiding civilizations together has been one not only of mutually shared communication in a common language, but a common viewpoint of the world and even common types of sensuous experience. But such is the nature of change that through major cultural shifts, dynamics of technological change or ways of viewing the world, these foundational pillars of civilization begin to erode. Left in its wake is chaos and confusion.
Social cosmologies, views of the world held in common by society tend to break up.
Watts went on to say that the relativistic world of modern thought that Westerners live in, one that is largely bereft of one unifying worldview leads people to become interested in other and former attempts to reconcile the mysteries of living and the universe. For example, in Watts' time and our own, the exploration of ancient Eastern religions, occult schools of thought, and shamanism.
However, in similar Campbell monomyth fashion, even this idea of going it alone, without an overarching myth to live by, has arguably been done before. Watts explores and explains the rich ideas of shamanism in agrarian culture around the world, and how metaphorically we need to drop out back into the forest if we're to find ourselves.
"More and more each one of us is thrown on to our own resources. This seems to me an excellent state of affairs. So that in a symbolic sense we are back in the forest like the hunter of old who has nobody around him to tell him how to feel or how he ought to use his senses. He therefore must make his own exploration and find out for himself."
Watts and Campbell believed that due to the uncertainty of our times and confusion inherent in modern thought, which offers us no secure and comfortable singular view of the universe — we are forced to confront and find truth for ourselves from the universe. We are all now as Watts put it:
All alone together whistling in the dark.
In a sense, much of Campbell's work dealt with remedying these past mythological works to probe deeper into just what common truths lurks beneath all individual human psyche and communal beliefs. Or as he Campbell once quipped in The Hero with a Thousand Faces: "Mythology, in other words, is psychology misread as biography, history, and cosmology."
Now to the point of finding one's self or finding personal truth. Campbell believes that these myths and stories can become guide posts. But just what is your own personal truth? Well that's for you and only you to find out and experience.
"These are the kinds of experiences that cannot be transmitted, which for their very nature are something one finds out for themselves. If they could be explained or transmitted they couldn't be the very thing which they are intended to be. Our discoveries of something authentic, genuine, first hand and part of one's universe, cannot be codified and be factored into social communication." — Alan Watts
Campbell & Watts' exemplified living their own way
Both Joseph Campbell and Alan Watts lived a life on the fringes of their own meaning. Taking a cosmic and comprehensive look at the world-views around them, they developed both a sobering and at once wonderful view of the cosmologies of humankind. A statement made about Watts could be applied to Campbell as well:
"The pomposities of prodigious learning could be undone by him with a turn of phrase. One stood before him, disarmed — and laughed at what had just been oneself."
Together, their wisdom today still stands as a spectral guide to finding one's own truth.
