Tricycle | Awake in the World

Aldous Huxley is remembered today as an important novelist of the twentieth century, author of the now-classic Brave New World. But of his nearly fifty books, most were in fact works of nonfiction, and in these he addressed many of the ills of modern society: rampant population growth, environmental degradation, and socioeconomic inequalities, among other concerns. In his search for answers, Huxley drew deeply from Buddhist sources—and, like his close friend Alan Watts, became an early advocate of Buddhism in the West. But what about Buddhism appealed to Huxley? And how does his assessment of the tradition compare with that of Western Buddhists today?