Book Recs on East Meeting West?

December 27, 2015 8:22 AM

I recently read The Monk and the Philosopher and enjoyed it. Any other recommendations for serious books comparing, contrasting, or describing encounters between eastern philosophy and spiritual practices and the western intellectual tradition?

I guess I'm really looking for sociology, anthropology, or comparative religious studies. Not so much "how to" or self help.

I also dig Peter Matthiessen, Alan Watts, and some Chögyam Trungpa, though I have something different in mind here. Ideally, I'd love a book that charts the cultural exchange over the last hundred years and offers insight into where we are today. Does that exist?

Thanks in advance.

posted by vecchio to Religion & Philosophy (5 answers total)

Best answer: Check out McEvilley's Shape of Ancient Thought and McMahan's Buddhist Modernism.
posted by mbrock at 8:31 AM on December 27, 2015

Best answer: Thomas Merton's Mystics and Zen Masters is both very well-informed and well-researched and deeply personal. Merton's an idiosyncratic figure but his engagement with Eastern religious traditions was scholarly and not all superficial, and he represents one of the most important meeting-points between the traditions in the 20th century.
posted by Aravis76 at 8:49 AM on December 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

Raymond Smullyan is a serious logician who writes in a very non serious way, but you may enjoy The Tao is Silent...it's a series of musings from a Western logic perspective on the overlap with Taoist thinking, and is both very funny and intelligent.
posted by zinful at 11:39 AM on December 27, 2015

The Art of Happiness is based on a psychologist's conversations with the Dalai Lama, and offers his reflections on the contrast between "Western" psychology and Buddhism.

If I recall the details correctly, anyway.
posted by cacao at 11:47 AM on December 27, 2015

Response by poster: Great, thanks all.
posted by vecchio at 8:53 PM on December 29, 2015