Customer Reviews

Alan Watts Teaches Meditation

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Alan Watts not only teaches you how to meditate; he also teaches you what meditation is, why it is important, and what good it can bring to your life. This tape is a must for beginners and meditators with varying levels of experience alike. I recommend this for beginners especially because tapes are easier to follow in meditation than books, and, in my opinion, this is one of the best tapes available. Beyond that, Alan Watts makes meditation easy, although this is not his goal. Instead of insulting the listener by attempting to "dumb down" meditation in order to make it easier for the inexperienced to follow, he makes it easy by showing that meditation, by nature, <i>is</i> easy. He explains the Eastern traditions of meditation, how to do it, and why it is so important in profound, yet accessible and understandable ways. The tape itself is laid out well; the various sections on it are culled from various recordings, from Watts's instructions on the basics of meditation to lectures on its importance. This tape is especially wonderful due to Alan Watts's wonderful personality and sense of humour; you'll find yourself nodding your head in agreement with him and laughing at his idiosyncratic wit. His insight will help you see the world in a different way, and will help you to understand human nature and the roots of our collective problems. He uses concepts learned and understood through meditation, such as self-awareness, inner peace, and lack of ego (in the Freudian sense) to explain issues as diverse as conflict, competition, war, religious traditions, philosophical and religious ideas, and much more. The wisdom and the peace this tape will bring you is priceless. If you are open to new ideas that are radical even today, and new ways of seeing and experiencing the world, you will find this tape a wonderful breath of fresh air. I could go on and list plenty of other reasons that this tape is wonderful and a must for those interested in meditation, but I feel that to truly appreciate it, you'll have to listen to it yourself. You won't regret buying it, and I promise you will find it a wonderful addition to your tape collection and your life.

This tape gave me great insight into meditation, particularly the use of chants. I alternate between using this and using Joyce Levine's tape on Meditation that uses the chakra system. The balance keeps me in tune with myself

Alan Watts walks your consciousness to the threshold of "Experential Reality" rather than leaving you to ponder on an intellectual level. I have a library of Spiritual Growth literature and only a few have had a profoundly immediate impact. If your heart feels unsatisfied and is yearning for "that Something more", this discourse on meditation points to "That" which all souls seek after.

Alan's presentational format is comfortable, witty and there is no chance of falling off to sleep during this energetic meditation. Your ego will never be the same, that is if you can find whats left of it.

While ostensibly about "how to meditate," this tape treats the listener to the insight, humor, and depth of knowledge of Alan Watts, who explains how to meditate in a very simple yet fascinating way. I've played this tape again and again and find it intriguing. Learn about Asian chanting, what some of the chants mean, and how using chants, gongs, and other techniques yourself can help you silence the chatter of the mind. Refreshing, too, because it is free of the dubious promises of so many "self-help" tapes.

Alan Watts has a very soothing voice. I found that when I listened to him talk on the tape about how to meditate that I was able to achieve reasonable relaxation. However, I never truly reached a true meditative state while trying to meditate on my own. I have since switched to a yoga/meditation routine that works much better for me.

This audiocassette is superb. An excellent tool for learning proper meditation along with his articulate way of expressing himself and his sophisticated sounding British accent all work in nicely. The only ommission that would have been necessary was mentioning Jesus as God as some arrogant concept, he could definitely offend some Christians here and that's not at all what should be discussed, it's his opinion injected unnecessarily, which can ruffle some feathers, is that something he wants to do when he's trying to get people into a proper state of mind to meditate? Aside from that, this tape is brilliant with some of the best meditational techniques that I have actually put into practice and now can say I feel many times better and refreshed. Thank you Alan and God bless you!

This was my first experience with Alan Watts, & after this I read all his works & have heard all of his talking shows. This is a great piece of Watts.

Alan Watts is a master of communication. He wrote over twenty books on the philosophy and psychology of religion, on Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and Zen. Alan is a master of the art of communication and this is even more apparent in his spoken words on this audio tape. He describes meditation beautifully. He gets to the core of the inquiry of one's mind and conveys, with skill and wit, just what meditation is and how to meditate.

"We could say that meditation doesn't have a reason or doesn't have a purpose. In this respect it's unlike almost all other things we do except perhaps making music and dancing. When we make music we don't do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment." ~Alan Watts

I found this tape to be more of the ancient times, then anything. He really doesn't take you into any real type of meditation and really was not interesting at all to me to even keep my attention up. The only good part of the whole tape was at the end, when he can really make you laugh yourself silly, other than that this tape was not helpful to me at all.