American Buddhist Beat Poet Jack Kerouac

Those dirty hippies on the road took over America with the movie Easy Rider (1969):

What is he holding in his hands? Drink, smoke

What's the big deal about Kerouac (1922-1969) — can he even write? Let's look at an excerpt from On the Road the book that made him famous:

"...and I shambled after as usual as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

American Buddhist Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) is recognized for his style, which is stream of consciousness called "spontaneous prose."

Sit like the Buddha sat.

Thematically, his work covers topics such as Buddhism, promiscuity, his Catholic spirituality, drugs, jazz, travel, life in New York City, and poverty.

He became an underground celebrity and, with other Beat Poets, a progenitor (precursor) of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements [8]. He has left a lasting legacy; he greatly influenced many 1960s cultural icons, including the Beatles, the Doors, Bob Dylan, and the founder of the Grateful Dead Jerry Garcia.

At age 6, he went to Catholic Confession and was told to say a rosary as punishment, during which he heard God tell him that he had a good soul, that he would suffer in life and die in pain and horror, but that in the end he would receive salvation [22]. His dying brother had a vision of the Virgin Mary (as the nuns fawned over him, convinced that he was a saint). This, combined with a later study of Buddhism and an ongoing commitment to Christianity, solidified the worldview that informed his work [22].

In 1954, Kerouac discovered Dwight Goddard's A Buddhist Bible at the San Jose Library, which marked the beginning of his study of Buddhism.

Between 1955 and 1956, he lived on and off with his sister, whom he called "Nin," and her husband, Paul Blake, at their home outside of Rocky Mount, N.C. ("Testament, Va." in his works) where he meditated on Buddhism and studied it [49].

He wrote Some of the Dharma, an imaginative treatise on Buddhism, while living there [50, 51]. However, Kerouac had earlier taken an interest in Eastern thought.

In 1946, he read Heinrich Zimmer's Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization.

In 1955, Kerouac wrote a biography of Siddhartha Gautama entitled Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha, which remained unpublished during his lifetime, but eventually serialized in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, 1993–95. It was published by Viking in September 2008 [52].

On the Road (50th anniversary)

The success of his book On the Road brought Kerouac instant fame. His celebrity status brought publishers desiring unwanted manuscripts that were previously rejected before its publication [19].

After nine months, he no longer felt safe in public. He was badly beaten by three men outside the San Remo Cafe at 189 Bleecker Street in NYC one night. Neal Cassady, possibly as a result of his new notoriety as the central character of the book, was framed (set up) then arrested for selling marijuana [58, 59].

In response, Kerouac chronicled parts of his own experience with Buddhism, as well as some of his adventures with Gary Snyder and other San Francisco-area poets, in The Dharma Bums, set in California and Washington and published in 1958.

I'm like a rebel without a cause, Daddy-O.

It was written in Orlando between Nov. 26 [60] and Dec. 7, 1957 [61]. To begin writing The Dharma Bums, Kerouac typed onto a ten-foot length of teleprinter paper, to avoid interrupting his flow for paper changes, as he had done six years previously for On the Road [60].

Kerouac was demoralized by criticism of The Dharma Bums from such respected figures in the American field of Buddhism as Zen teachers Ruth Fuller Sasaki and the great Alan Watts.

Jewish Zen monk Leonard Cohen, folk singer and seeker, with his Japanese teacher K.J. Sasaki.

.

He wrote to Snyder, referring to a meeting with Zen teacher and Nobel Peace Prize nominee (1963) D. T. Suzuki, that "even Suzuki was looking at me through slitted eyes as though I was a monstrous imposter."

He passed up the opportunity to reunite with Snyder in California and explained to Philip Whalen, "I'd be ashamed to confront you and Gary now I've become so decadent and drunk and don't give a shit. I'm not a Buddhist any more" [62].

In further reaction to their criticism, he quoted part of Abe Green's café recitation, Thrasonical Yawning in the Abattoir of the Soul: "A gaping, rabid congregation, eager to bathe, are washed over by the Font of Euphoria, and bask like protozoans in the celebrated light."

Kerouac used earnings from On the Road to purchase the first of three homes in Northport, New York — a wood-framed Victorian on Gilbert Street that he shared with his mother, Gabrielle. They moved there in March 1958 and stayed in Northport for six years, moving twice during that time.

Kerouac is generally considered to be the father of the Beat movement, although he actively disliked such labels. Kerouac's method was heavily influenced by the prolific explosion of jazz, especially the Bebop genre established by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and others.

On the Road excerpt (center of Jack Kerouac Alley)

Later, Kerouac included ideas he developed from his Buddhist studies that began with Gary Snyder. He often referred to his style as "spontaneous prose" [78].

Although Kerouac's prose was spontaneous and purportedly without edits, he primarily wrote autobiographical novels (or roman à clef) based upon actual events from his life and the people with whom he interacted.

This approach is reflected also by his plot structure: Kerouac's narratives were not heavily focused on traditional plot structures. Instead, his works often revolved around a series of episodic encounters, road trips, and personal reflections.

The emphasis was on the characters' experiences and the exploration of themes such as freedom, rebellion, and the search for meaning.

Many of his books exemplified this spontaneous approach, including On the Road, Visions of Cody, Visions of Gerard, Big Sur, and The Subterraneans.

The central features of this writing method were the ideas of breath (borrowed from jazz and from Buddhist breathing meditation), improvising words over the inherent structures of mind and language, and limited revision.

Connected with this idea of breath was the elimination of the period (.), substituting instead a long connecting dash (—). As such, the phrases occurring between dashes might resemble improvisational jazz licks.

Kerouac's early writing, particularly his first novel, The Town and the City, was more conventional and bore a strong influence of Thomas Wolfe.

The technique Kerouac developed that later gained him notoriety was heavily influenced by jazz, especially Bebop, and later, by Buddhism, as well as the Joan Anderson letter written by Neal Cassady [91].

Mahayana Buddhist sutra

The Diamond Sutra was the most important Buddhist text for Kerouac and "probably one of the three or four most influential things he ever read" [92].

In 1955, he began an intensive study of this sutra, in a repeating weekly cycle, devoting one day to each of the six spiritual perfections (pāramitās), and the seventh to the concluding passage on meditative stillness or superconsciousness (samādhi).

This was his sole reading on Desolation Peak, and he hoped by this means to condition his mind to emptiness (aware of the universal characteristic that all things are impersonal), and possibly to have a vision [93] like an Indian seer (rishi).

Hooray for influential Irishman James Joyce!

Irish James Joyce (author of Finnegans Wake, 1939) was also a literary influence on Kerouac, who alluded to Joyce more than any other author [94]. Kerouac had high esteem for Joyce, and he often used Joyce's stream-of-consciousness technique [94, 95].

Regarding On the Road, he wrote in a letter to fellow Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, "I can tell you now as I look back on the flood of language. It is like Ulysses and should be treated with the same gravity" [96].

Additionally, Kerouac admired Joyce's experimental use of language, as seen in his novel Visions of Cody, which uses an unconventional narrative as well as a multiplicity of authorial voices [97]. More: Jack Kerouac

• Dhr. Seven, Charles Harmon, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit Kerouac