How to Meditate
By Jack Kerouac, 1961
From “Scattered Poems”

-lights out-
Fall, hands a-clasped, into instantaneous
ecstasy like a shot of heroin or morphine,
the gland inside of my brain discharging
the good glad fluid (Holy Fluid) as
i hap-down and hold all my body parts
down to a deadstop trance-Healing
all my sicknesses-erasing all-not
even the shred of a “I-hope-you” or a
Loony Balloon left in it, but the mind
blank, serene, thoughtless. When a thought
comes a-springing from afar with its held-
forth figure of image, you spoof it out,
you spuff it off, you fake it, and
it fades, and thought never comes-and
with joy you realize for the first time
“thinking’s just like not thinking-
So I don’t have to think
any
more”

Hello, and welcome back to Poetry Wednesday 10/28/09. You can sign in today and take the tour thru Thursday, so take your time.

I’ll be your hostess again this week. My sister, Sans Souci, has been very busy helping our mom get adjusted to her new assisted living residence, but she will check in.

Before we get started, please make sure that your post has a link to get back to this page to make it easier to take the tour:

1) Copy and paste the following link that I have provided for you from this page to somewhere on your poetry post.

Link back the Poetry Wednesday tour on Laurita’s page

 2) Leave the link of your poetry post in the comments section below. This is the link guests will click on to read your poem.

Born: 12 March 1922
Birthplace: Lowell, Massachusetts
Died: 21 October 1969
Best Known As: Beat-era author of On The Road
Name at birth: Jean Louis Kerouac

Jack Kerouac’s place in the literary world was secured in the 1950s with the publication of On the Road; however, his position as a Buddhist writer and practitioner was yet to be established. This paper examines his Buddhist life and texts, and explores two of his Buddhist books while focusing on his influences, their effects on his personal life and the impact these had on his writing and on Buddhism in America. Kerouac’s ‘Buddhist’ texts are not as well known as his others, although many of his more popular books include elements of Buddhism. The two Kerouac texts that are to be explored here are Some of the Dharma and The Scripture of the Golden Eternity. While the focus of this paper is on the exploration of these two texts, their content and structure, one cannot ignore the influencing factors that led Kerouac to write them and the aspects of his life that affected the way in which they were composed.

Jack Kerouac was one of the most influential writers of the 1950s, inspiring the misguided and confused youth of the post-war era. Kerouac came onto the literary scene at a time when the world was experiencing change and wanting to discover new things about a world that seemed all too familiar. Much is known about Kerouac, his life, his family and friends. Through his writings Kerouac provided readers with glimpses into almost every aspect of his wildly fun, controversial and conflicting adventures. With his most famous book, On the Road, readers were introduced to the lifestyle of what came to be known the Beat Generation.

Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac

Kerouac’s writing took a turn when in 1953 he began to read about Buddhism and Buddhist literature. Eventually Kerouac became so engrossed in Buddhism that he became a practitioner of the religion he was reading about (Kerouac 1997, introduction). Books such as The Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans and Mexico City Blues revealed how important Buddhism had become to the Catholic Kerouac.

Kerouac’s Introduction to Buddhism

In the mid-1950s Kerouac was practicing Buddhism and studying primary texts with the view that he was destined to teach the dharma and to convert millions of people (Kerouac 1997, introduction). With a change in worldview, Kerouac began writing letters about the dharma to friends like Allen Ginsberg, eventually realizing that instead of composing daily letters he would compile a text devoted to Buddhism (Kerouac 1997, introduction). The result of Kerouac’s daily thoughts, scribblings, poetry and interpretations of Buddhism became known as Some of the Dharma. What started as mere fascination with Buddhism in 1953 ended with a 420-page Buddhist text in 1956. Kerouac’s Book of Dharmas, his name for the text, became so important to him that he began to feel it was sacred. As Kerouac wrote to Ginsberg: ‘I haven’t sent you the Notes on Dharma because I keep reading it myself, have but one copy, valuable, sacred to me …Besides it is not finished, I keep adding every day …’ (Kerouac 1997, introduction). He never lived to see his masterpiece published as both publishers and editors could not seem to warm to the idea of Kerouac as a purely Buddhist author.

Kerouac was influenced both by Buddhist texts and by practicing North American Buddhists whom he encountered in his travels, including Gary Snyder—‘Japhy Ryder’ of The Dharma Bums—who was a student and practitioner of Zen. Some of the Dharma was completed on 15 March 1956; shortly thereafter, in the spring, Kerouac headed West to the Bay Area where he met up with Snyder, to whom he had shown portions of his Buddhist writings, and the two talked endlessly about philosophy and practice. While they were staying together Snyder suggested to Kerouac that he should write a sutra (scripture). He obliged, and the resulting text was The Scripture of the Golden Eternity, which was published in 1960—Kerouac living long enough to see it in print.

Kerouac’s genius was recognized by his peers, and as Allen Ginsberg’s Howl states in the dedication: ‘Jack Kerouac, new Buddha of American prose, who spit forth intelligence, creating a spontaneous bop prosody and original classic literature (Kerouac 1997, introduction). As a lone student and practitioner of Buddhism in an informal setting, Kerouac used what he had learned in formulating two books that focused on emptiness, impermanence, mind essence and transience.

Jack Kerouac studied briefly at Columbia University in New York (1940-41), where he met Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. Together they challenged the status quo in the literary world, writing frankly about their personal lives, which were dominated by alcohol and wild times. Kerouac coined the phrase “beat generation” to represent a general feeling among young intellectuals that the American dream had gone sour somewhere along the line. He is most famous for his 1957 novel On The Road, and is the author of the novels Dharma Bums and Desolation Angels.

Source: http://www.thezensite.com/ZenEssays/Miscellaneous/KerouacBuddhism.html#

The blissful and ‘golden’ tone of Scripture is an important aspect of Kerouac’s sutra because it could be said to be a direct reflection of his experience of awakening. In the prose scripture # 64. Kerouac described an experience of unconsciousness in which he realized upon awakening that everything is all right forever. Kerouac’s description of his moment of true enlightenment is as follows:

The Scripture of the Golden Eternity
By Jack Kerouac, 1960
This is only an excerpt. To view the poem in its entirety, go to:
http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/K/KerouacJack/ScriptureofG.htm

… During that timeless moment of unconsciousness
I saw the golden eternity. I saw heaven. In it
nothing had ever happened, the events of a
million years ago were just as phantom and
ungraspable as the events of now or a million
years from now, or the events of the next ten
minutes. It was perfect, the golden solitude, the
golden emptiness … There was no question
of being alive or not being alive, of likes and
dislikes, of near or far, no question of giving
or gratitude, no question of mercy or judgment,
or of suffering or its opposite or anything. … It seemed
like one smiling smile, one adorable adoration,
one gracious and adorable charity, everlasting
safety, refreshing afternoon, roses, infinite
brilliant immaterial golden ash, the Golden Age.
The ‘golden’ came from the sun in my eyelids,
and the ‘eternity’ from my sudden instant
realization as I woke up that I had just
been where it all came from and where it
was all returning, the everlasting So, and
so never coming or going; therefore I call it
the golden eternity but you can call it anything
you want …

Nirvana…going my way?

The tour starts here.

I want to thank my Multiply friend, Fred, who is a jazz expert, for giving me the inspiration (not to mention a lot of jazz ideas) for creating this post for you !