This is the fourth extract from the final chapter of In My Own Way, the autobiography of Alan Watts which came out in 1972 (he died the next year). Interestingly, Watts was inspired in his early teens by Lafcadio Hearn founder of the Lost Japan genre, and like his predecessor he bemoans the industrialisation which …Read More
Tag: Alan Watts and Kyoto Zen
This is the second in a series of excerpts about Kyoto taken from the autobiography of Alan Watts, In My Own Way (1972). The passage below comes from the 2001 edition, p.345-6. ******************* That day we go down to Sanjusangendo, a long barn of a building which contains one thousand and one images of an …Read More
In his autobiography, In My Own Way(1972), Alan Watts writes of having a curious affinity with Japan even in his childhood. His early impressions were shaped by Lafcadio Hearn through Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (1894), and more substantially through Gleanings in Buddha-Fields (1897). The first marriage of Watts to the daughter of Ruth Fuller Sasaki …Read More
WiK Writing Competition
WiK Anthologies
The Nature of Kyoto (2023)
Eds. Lisa Twaronite Sone & Robert Weis
Foreword by Pico Iyer
Structures of Kyoto (2021)
Eds: Rebecca Otowa & Karen Lee Tawarayama
Foreword by Judith Clancy
Encounters with Kyoto (2019)
Eds: Jann Williams & Ian Josh Yates
Foreword by Juliet Winters Carpenter
Echoes (2017)
Eds: John Dougill, Amy Chavez, & Mark Richardson
Preface by Alex Kerr
Recent Comments