[xavoy]

Alan Watts is great, but he talks too much. It's interesting, and encouraging for those with an already established practice, but people who are new to meditation need to just sit. It's _very_ tempting to read about Zen and think it is nothing but an interesting philosophy.

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is one of my favorite books, but there's very little actual instruction there and, once again, without an established practice, it would be easy to write it off as beautifully poetic but essentially baseless philosophy. (hehe, essentially baseless. Sorry, that's a bad Zen pun)