Jack Kerouac's Dharma in "The Dharma Bums"

Jack Kerouac; Ashley (video); Ven. Sujato, Ellie Askew, Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

It's a good book, a famous one, a classic. Here's one sentence:

See the whole thing is a world full of rucksack wanderers, Dharma Bums refusing to subscribe to the general

demand that they consume production and therefore have to work for the privilege of consum-

ing, all that cr*p they didn't really want anyway such as

• refrigerators,
• TV sets,
• cars, and
• general junk

you finally always see a week later in the garbage anyway, all of them imprisoned in a system of

• work,
• produce,
• consume,
• work,
• produce,
• consume,

I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up

to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young

girls happy and old girls happier, all of 'em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind

and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures.