The Tenth Man: The Great Joke

Drawing from the ancient traditions of Buddhism, Taoism, and Advaita Vedanta, this anonymous writer renders their insights in his own radical, uncompromising language, with humor and profundity. In giving us his version of the perennial philosophy, he brings a very different perspective to the conventional notions about time, love, thought, language, and reincarnation. As one reviewer states, The nonsense of Wei Wu Wei is the sense of the infinite (Sunday Standard, Bombay).

Wei Wu Wei’s dynamic interpretation of the ancient teachings opens the reader’s eyes: I have only one object in writing books: to demonstrate that there could not be anyone to do it. In poetry, dialogs, epigrams, and essays he attempts to right our minds from their upside down view of existence and stop us in the tracks of our spiritual journey. If there is no self to enlighten, then there is no need for a path to enlightenment. A ‘way’ leads from here to there; from here to here, there can be no ‘way’.

In the years since Wei Wu Wei’s work was orginally published, his stature has only increased. He joins Paul Reps, Alan Watts, and Philip Kapleau as one of the earliest and most profound Western interpreters of Zen Buddhism and Taoist philosophies.