On What Is Tao?

Alan Watts is the great popularizer of the Tao and of Zen. About halfway through I thought, “Aha! I finally get it!” — and Watts knew I would, because within a page or two he’d added, “If you think you got it, it’s because I tricked you. Words can’t tell you this; only experience can.” And he’s right. I read the Daodejing for the first time in undergrad, the second in grad school, the third in May, and I’m reading it a fourth time now. The first two times I was baffled — it felt like trying to catch sand in a sieve. The third time I took a lot of notes and it grew more comprehensible, taking me about a month to get through the short text; now I’m reading the Ursula Le Guin version as a kind of conversation. I think it took a lot more life experience for things to start to click, and I feel there’s still a long way to go. I felt compelled to take notes as I read Watts, too, and then I heard his voice — exactly as in his recorded lectures — telling me not to. It’ll come, I just have to stop trying. Be soft, be supple, go with it. It’ll come. He’s right.