The Way of Zen

The Old Man and the sea - Hemmingway - so many things, with every reread I find something new. The Heart of the Buddhas Teaching - Thich Nhat Hanh, useful prayers, concepts for understanding and dealing with life and a moral compass for going through it. The Way of Zen - Alan Watts, opened my eyes to different forms of religious experience Also a lot of psychology and philosophy books in undergrad were foundational to my thinking. The Moral Animal, the Moral Landscape, The Blank Slate, The Republic and Plato’s writings on Socrates, Tao te Ching, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, the Tanakh and parts of the Talmud, but many of these were more academic, still holistically they have shaped my thinking and moral compass.

I recommend reading George Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces". This is about comparative mythology, aka comparative story telling. He works out the core elements and common concepts that appear in story telling across cultures and time. It opened my mind to be able to understand all kinds of storys on another level. In school I always hated literature. It was like they tried to make me do something I just didn't understand at all. Literature was just random stories for me and all interpretation and attribution of meaning was fruitless and had I to just guess/fake it. Yea maybe my education was just bad who knows, doesn't matter now. The Hero with a Thousand Faces changed that. Now I was open for all the literature and saw everything in a new light. I could recognize common concepts in stories and human life in general. It also opened my mind for later Alan Watts reads on the interconnected-ness of everything. Someone already recommended "The Way of Zen" by Alan Watts, which I can only approve of! I'd also like to add "The Book - On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are", also by Watts.

Wish I could up-vote you more, but I do agree Alan Watts was a turning point in my life.

The Way of Zen by Alan Watts. The book is a historical analysis of the culmination of zen buddhism from its roots in hindu, buddhist, and toaist philosophies. Watts presents a perspective on how to approach your everyday life (relationships, communication, work, play, boredom, stress, anxiety, happiness, sadness) that is contrary to how we're taught to live in the "western world".

Buddhism (and better living): Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Siddhartha (by Hermann Hesse), The Way of Zen (by Alan Watts - I learned a lot about meditation and satori). Also: Think and Grow Rich (by Napoleon Hill, the original self-improvement book)