MD and GEB?

[Rick Vosper]

At 10:12 AM 6/11/97 -0700, you wrote:
>And for Western Zen you takes your choice.  I like funny old 
>hard-drinking Alan Watts.

Hmmm. I also find Alan Watts funny (not to mention hard-drinking), but the
fact is the man knew nothing about Zen firsthand. Mostly, I believe, he
read DT Suzuki and other sources.

For a (somewhat) Americanized version of strict Japanese Zen practice how
about Roshi Phillip Kapleau's _Three Pillars of Zen_ (where Kapleau has
more  than one bone to pick with Watts) or the less strict/more notional
Shunryu (no relation to DT) Suzuki-Roshi's _Zen Mind, Begginer's Mind_? 

Kapleau is the first contemprary American to train in Japan (mostly in the
Rinzai lineage) receive certification there and come back to the US to
teach; S. Suzuki, the first contemporary master of traditional Japanese
lineage to come to the US and found a notably Americanzed school
(currently the San Francisco Zen Center et al). Alan Watts, witty and
dipsomniical though he may be, is neither.

--rick

--rick