Alan Watts Introduces America to Meditation & Eastern Philosophy: Watch the 1960 TV Show, Eastern Wisdom and Modern Life

Alan Watts moved from his native Lon­don to New York in 1938, then even­tu­al­ly head­ed west, to San Fran­cis­co in the ear­ly 1950s. On the left coast, he start­ed teach­ing at the Acad­e­my of Asian Stud­ies, wrote his best­seller Way of Zen, and began deliv­er­ing a long-run­ning series of talks about east­ern phi­los­o­phy on KPFA radio in Berke­ley. Dur­ing these years, Watts became one of the fore­most pop­u­lar­iz­ers of Zen Bud­dhism, Hin­duism, and Tao­ism, which made him some­thing of a celebri­ty, espe­cial­ly when the 60s coun­ter­cul­ture move­ment kicked into gear.

Now, 40 years and change after his death, you can find no short­age of vin­tage Watts’ media online (includ­ing this archive of stream­ing lec­tures). And today we’re fea­tur­ing an episode from a TV series called East­ern Wis­dom and Mod­ern Life, which aired in San Fran­cis­co cir­ca 1960. “The Silent Mind” runs 28 min­utes, and it offered Amer­i­can view­ers an intro­duc­tion to the phi­los­o­phy and prac­tice of med­i­ta­tion, some­thing still con­sid­ered exot­ic at the time. His­to­ry in the mak­ing. You’re watch­ing it hap­pen right here. Find more med­i­ta­tion and Alan Watts resources below.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Wis­dom of Alan Watts in Four Thought-Pro­vok­ing Ani­ma­tions

The Zen Teach­ings of Alan Watts: A Free Audio Archive of His Enlight­en­ing Lec­tures

Free Guid­ed Med­i­ta­tions From UCLA: Boost Your Aware­ness & Ease Your Stress

Med­i­ta­tion 101: A Short, Ani­mat­ed Beginner’s Guide

Son­ny Rollins Describes How 50 Years of Prac­tic­ing Yoga Made Him a Bet­ter Musi­cian

David Lynch Explains How Med­i­ta­tion Enhances Our Cre­ativ­i­ty