Alan Watts' Tao: The Watercourse Way — What It Actually Is and How to Use It
Most people who pick up Tao The Watercourse Way Abnehmore have no idea what they're getting into. The book isn't a meditation manual, a self-help system, or a philosophy textbook in any traditional sense. It's Alan Watts collecting essays, stories, and observations from the Tao Te Ching and weaving them into a guide about how to live without constantly fighting against the current of life. The title itself is a metaphor Watts borrows from Lao Tzu — flowing like water rather than resisting it. I first encountered this book around 2003, going through a phase where I was reading everything I could on Eastern philosophy and practical spirituality. At the time, I was working a corporate job that felt increasingly misaligned with anything I cared about, and someone recommended Watts as someone who could actually explain these ideas without turning them into another New Age gimmick. The book didn't solve my problems, but it changed the framework I used to think about them.
Understanding Tao The Watercourse Way Abnehmore
The word "Abnehmore" that sometimes appears in search queries alongside this title appears to be a garbled or corrupted version of something — possibly a misspelling of "author," a confused concatenation of terms, or an artifact from a bad OCR scan of a physical copy. The actual title is simply Tao: The Watercourse Way, authored by Alan Watts and first published in 1975. If you're looking to download or purchase it, search for the correct title and author. Using the misspelled version will get you nowhere useful. Inside the book, Watts takes passages from the Tao Te Ching (traditionally attributed to Lao Tzu, translated by various scholars) and pairs them with his own commentary. The structure is deliberately non-linear. There is no step-by-step method because that would contradict the entire point of the text. Instead, each chapter is a short essay on a particular theme — effortlessness, spontaneity, the nature of desire, the illusion of control — illustrated with parables, Taoist stories, and Watts' own observations. The core teaching is this: suffering comes from resisting the natural flow of existence. We try to force outcomes, cling to fixed identities, and treat life as a problem to be solved rather than an experience to be lived. The Tao is not a god or a doctrine. It's the underlying pattern of reality itself — the way things naturally work when you stop getting in their way. Water is the perfect metaphor because it doesn't struggle. It finds the path of least resistance and still wears down rock over time.
How to Actually Read This Book
Here's the thing most people miss: you shouldn't read Tao: The Watercourse Way cover to cover in one sitting. That approach defeats the purpose. Watts designed these essays to be absorbed slowly, with time to sit with each idea. Try reading one chapter at a time, maybe two per week, and actually paying attention to what comes up in your own thinking. The book works best as a mirror, not a manual. I learned this the hard way. On my first read-through, I sprinted through the whole thing in a couple days, took some notes, and felt like I'd "completed" it. A few months later, rereading the chapter on "The Uselessness of Usefulness," I had a completely different experience. The words were the same, but my understanding shifted significantly. That's the pattern with Taoist texts — they reveal different layers depending on where you are in life. If you read it during a stressful period, you'll notice the passages about letting go. If you read it when you're feeling stagnant, the ones about spontaneous action will hit harder. For practical application, here's what actually helps: pick one essay that resonates with a current problem in your life, read it slowly, and then spend a day or two observing how that idea shows up in your behavior. Don't try to force a change. Just notice. The Taoist approach to personal transformation is paradoxical — you improve by stopping the forced effort to improve.
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Common Pitfalls and What Watts Gets Wrong (Or Rather, What Readers Get Wrong)
The biggest mistake people make with this material is turning wu wei — often translated as "effortless action" — into just another productivity technique. You'll find plenty of articles online that repackage Taoist ideas as "how to achieve more by doing less." That's not what Watts is saying. Wu wei isn't about optimizing your output. It's about recognizing that much of what you're straining after is based on a false premise — that life is something you need to control. Another trap: treating the Tao as a thing you can attain. It's not a destination. It's the ground you're already standing on. The moment you think you've "reached" the Tao, you've already missed it because you've turned it into another goal, which is exactly the kind of grasping the whole tradition warns against. I ran into a specific edge case once that illustrates this well. A colleague of mine was going through a brutal divorce and became deeply interested in Taoist philosophy. He started applying the concept of non-attachment as a way to suppress his grief rather than process it. He'd read passages about letting go and then interpret that as "I shouldn't feel this way." It wasn't until he actually sat with a Watts passage about how even water has to move through obstacles before he realized he'd been using the philosophy as an emotional bypass. The Tao isn't about avoiding difficulty. It's about moving through it without adding unnecessary resistance on top of the natural pain.
Where the Book Falls Short
Tao: The Watercourse Way is not a comprehensive introduction to Taoism. It's Alan Watts' personal curatorial selection, filtered through his particular voice and sensibility. If you want deeper engagement with the primary sources, you should eventually read the Tao Te Ching in a more scholarly translation — Robert Gonzalez or Stephen Mitchell both have decent versions, though Gonzalez is closer to the original Chinese. Watts was a brilliant popularizer, but he was also an entertainer first and a scholar second. He took liberties with the text for rhetorical effect. The book also doesn't address the institutional or ritual dimensions of Taoism. If you're looking for a complete picture of Taoist practice — including meditation techniques, breathwork, or religious Taoism — this won't give it to you. It's strictly philosophical and contemplative in scope. For readers who want a more systematic approach to applying Taoist principles to daily life, I'd recommend pairing Watts with Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. The two complement each other well — Watts gives you the conceptual framework, and Suzuki gives you the practical meditation guidance that grounds it.
Where to Find the Book
Tao: The Watercourse Way is still in print and available through major booksellers, Amazon, and independent bookstores. There is no legitimate free download — any site offering a PDF under the misspelled title is either hosting pirated material or scamming you. The current publisher is HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins. If you prefer audio, the audiobook narrated by the author himself is widely available and adds significant value since Watts' delivery carries a tone that the written page alone can't replicate. The cheapest legitimate route is usually a used paperback on Amazon or AbeBooks. First editions and early printings tend to be overpriced by collectors, but there's no meaningful difference in content between editions. Just make sure you're getting the correct title and author listed above.
Final Note
If you're approaching this book looking for a quick fix or a set of actionable steps, you'll be frustrated. If you're approaching it as a set of lenses to look through while you navigate an already complicated life, it might actually help. That's the Taoist way — not forcing anything, just seeing more clearly what's already there.
