The Way of Zen

Two of the ideas you’ll keep

The Clif summary of The Way of Zen pulls out 7 insights. Here are the first two.

1. Zen is not a doctrine to believe but a **way of liberation** (Watts's term, echoing the Indian *moksha*). Its whole aim is to free us from the confusion of mistaking our conventional descriptions of the world, words, ideas, the grid of names, for the living reality they only point at.
2. The Taoist principle of **wu-wei** is not passivity but action that follows the natural grain of things, called **li**, the swirling pattern in wood or water. To live by wu-wei is to stop forcing and instead move *with* reality, like a sailor tacking with the wind rather than rowing against it.

The other 5 — and the full 12-minute summary — are in the app.

What’s inside: 8 chapters

The whole summary runs about 12 minutes, read or listened to.

1. What Zen Actually Is
2. The Philosophy of the Tao
3. The Origins of Buddhism
4. Mahayana Buddhism and Emptiness
5. The Rise and Development of Zen
6. Empty and Marvelous
7. Sitting Quietly, Doing Nothing
8. The Koan and Zen in the Arts