Jan 12, 1977 | 160 Pages
“A gem to remember Watts by . . . There is a flamboyant and fascinating display of learning and complex indications of a personality that seems to have resisted inner pacification.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Perhaps the foremost interpreter of Eastern disciplines for the contemporary West, Alan Watts had the rare gift of ‘writing beautifully the unwritable’ . . . Watts begins with scholarship and intellect and proceeds with art and eloquence to the frontiers of the spirit . . . This is a profound and worthy work, left by a teacher to echo and re-echo.”
—Los Angeles Times
“A remarkable book because of Alan Watts’s talent for communicating Eastern ways of thought . . . not only the last of his works, but the best . . . This book is a ‘must.'”
—Shambhala Review
“Watts’s last book is in the category of his finest work, a lucid discussion of Taoism and the Chinese language . . . profound, reflective, and enlightening. Moreover, the text supplies a sense of his ebullient spirit behind the revelation of Tao.”
—Boston Globe
Foreword, by Al Chung-liang Huang vii
Preface xiv
Prolegomena xvii
The Pronunciation of Chinese Words xxi
1. The Chinese Written Language 2
2. The Yin-Yang Polarity 18
3. Tao 37
CHINESE CALLIGRAPHY 56
4. We-wei 74
CHINESE CALLIGRAPHY 99
5. Te—Virtuality 106
Once Again: A New Beginning, by Al Chung-liang Huang 123
Note on My Calligraphy 128
Bibliography 129
