Don Lelillo's Novels and Tibetan Buddhism

Tibetan Buddhism in Don DeLillo's Novels: The Street, The Word and The Soul
Author(s): Robert E. Kohn

Source: College Literature, Vol. 38, No. 4, General Issue (Fall 2011), pp. 156-180
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Tibetan Buddhism in Don DeLillo's
Novels: The Street, The Word and
The Soul
Robert E. Kohn
E. Kohnretired
Robert in 1990 Dewey conveys the breadth of
Don DeLillo's novels by dividingthem
fromtheEconomics Department
into three chronological stages, with
Joseph
at Southern IllinoisUniversityeach
stage representinga different strategy
at Edwardsville.His current "for restoringthe self to authenticity"after
the punishmentof"unshakeablehelplessness"
interest is inhypermodernism as
endured by Americans over the past fifty
a sequeltopostmoderism andin years(2006, 8, 7). The firststage,in which"he
-
literaryandaesthetic Darwinism embracedthe street"(8) thatis,the materi-
al spectacleof everydaylife- coversDeLillo's
as a complement totraditional
early novels: Americana(1971), End Zone
tools. (1972), GreatJonesStreet(1973), Ratner'sStar
critical
(1976), Players (1977) and Running Dog
(1978). The second stage,in which DeLillo
"tested his own deep fascinationwith the
word" (8), embodies The Names(1982), White
Noise (1986), Libra(1988) and Mao II (1991).
The thirdstage,in which DeLillo "has turned
to the implicationsof the soul" (8), includes
Underworld (1997), The Body Artist(2001),
Cosmopolis(2003) and FallingMan (2007).
E.Kohn 157
Robert
With the exception of Underworld , which is moved fromthe second to the

thirdstageforthe presentpaper,I followDewey's orderinghere.
DeLillo "repeatedlyconstructscontemporaryAmericans as a people
driven by homeless spiritualimpulses and mesmerized by new religious
movements" (McClure 1995, 142). This twofold focus reflectsDeLillo's
Catholic background,which giveshis "work an essentialvocabularyof spir-
ituality"(Dewey 2006, 11), and his postmodernist"watch" for"breaks,. . .
shiftsand irrevocablechangesin the representation of things"(Jameson1991,
ix). In contrastto Dewey's view that DeLillo "channeled" his Catholicism
"into his evidentfascinationwith the vision and metaphorsof Easterntradi-
tions,"the presentessayarguesthathis spirituality was in factchanneledin
the opposite direction,startingnot with Catholicismbut ending up there
(2006, 11). This view is based on DeLillo 's assertionthat he reacted to
Catholicismin "the way I reacttodayto theatre.Sometimesit was awesome,
sometimesit was funny"(LeClair 1982, 26). Althoughthisstatementis cryp-
tic, it does suggestthatDeLillo 's commitmentto the religionof his youth
was less thanspiritual.He appears,in the firstand second stagesof his writ-
ing, to have developed his sense of spiritualityfromEasterntraditions, espe-
cially Tibetan Buddhism, and then in the third stage channeled thatspiritu-
alitybackinto Catholicism.That criticsmightdisagreeon the directionof
DeLillo 's spiritualdevelopmentis not surprising,given Thomas LeClair's
view thatreviewerspraisehis work"forverydifferent, sometimescontradic-
tory intentions" (19).
The threestagesof DeLillo's novels,which Dewey treatsas successive,are
seen here as cumulative.It is not surprisingthatthesestageshave a Tibetan
Buddhistparallel,forin all fourofW.Y.Evans-Wentz'sbooks,which DeLillo
appearsto have read,thereare discussionsof the Tri-Kaya , which is Sanskrit
for"the Three Divine Bodies" throughwhich "the Buddha Essence is pres-
ent and perpetuallymanifested"(Evans-Wentz1968, 3). These are the "the
Buddha, the " Dharma (or Scriptures),[and] the Sangha (or Priesthood)"
(1960, 14). Dewey's "the street"correspondsto the Priesthood- surelythe
sightof meditatingadeptsin park-likesettingswould have caughtDeLillo's
attentionin the 60s- "the word" connotesthe Scripturesand "the soul,"the
Buddha. However,Dewey's interpretations of the threestagesas "strategies
forrestoringthe selfto authenticity" has no analogue in Tibetan Buddhism
(8), where"thereis no longera clingingto selfhood"(1968, 76).
Literature
158 College 2011]
38.4[Fall
TheStreet
By "the street,"Dewey has in mind DeLillo's "unabashed love for the
reachof the alertsenses"(2006, 8). DeLillo's acknowledgementthathisinter-
estin Zen had "more to do withpeople playingat Easternreligionthanany-
thingelse" atteststo his focuson what was happeningin the street(LeClair
1982, 26). 1 One of the shiftsof the 1960s thatfascinatedpostmodernwrit-
ers and was largelyfound"in the street"was the attractionof Americansto
Buddhism. In the 1950s, Jack Kerouac stirredpopular interestin Zen
Buddhismwith"street-sounding" titleslike On theRoad and DharmaBums.
Inspiredby Evans-Wentz'sseminaltranslation of TheTibetanBookoftheDead,
TimothyLeary and his Harvardcolleagues publisheda versionspecifically
forthe 60's psychedelicculture.Thomas Pynchon'sallusionto a "bead-cur-
tainedentrance"in the second paragraphof The CryingofLot 49 evokesthe
storefront meditationcenterswhere MaharishiMaheshYogi'sTranscendental
Meditationwas taught(Pynchon 1966, 10). The Sgt. Pepper'sLonelyHearts
Club Band album, written afterthe Beatles' visit to India, spurred the
Maharishi's movement,which had overtonesof Buddhism.Althoughthere
are references to both Zen and Tibetan Buddhismin DeLillo's novels,it was
the latter,especiallyas interpretedin the fourbooks on Tibetan Buddhism
by Evans-Wentz,all of which were reissuedby the Oxford Pressduringthe
1960s,thatmost stronglyinfluencedhim.
When LeClair asked DeLillo which of his firstsix novels"is closestto
your own experience,"the authoranswered,affirming the relevanceof the
it is " Americana in the sense that I drewmaterialmore
"street,"that , probably
directlyfrompeople and situationsI knew firsthand. . . . It's not an autobio-
graphical novel. But I did use many things I'd seen, heard,knew about"
(LeClair 1982, 20, 21). In that novel,DeLillo's an
first, actress has an arcane
conversationwith the narratorin which she tellshim that "'When I die I'll
talkmyselfinto anotherwomb and startall over.That'swhat theydo in Tibet
-
people who couldn't even get into Princetonenteringfreshwombs like
crazy'" (1971, 324). Picking up on her esoteric referenceto the Tibetan
bardo- the intervalbetween death and rebirth - the narrator
discerningly
replies:"Through a womb-door" (324). "That's right,"the actress nods,"And
thereare good wombs and bad wombs"(324). These referencesto wombs
and womb-doors can be tracedback to Evans-Wentz'sTibetanBook of the
Dead and itswarningthatin "selectingthe womb-door,""good wombs may
appearbad and bad wombs may appear good" (1960, 2, 191).
In End Zone, the football-playing narratorfindsthat"Exile compensates
thebanishedby offering certainopportunities. Each day,forexample,I spent
some time in meditation"(DeLillo 1972, 30). The most characteristic spiri-
tual practiceof Buddhism,meditation(see Figure 1), demands"Simplicity,
E.Kohn 159
Robert
disciplineupon discipline.There were profits

repetition,solitude,starkness,
here,thingsthatcould be used to make me stronger;the smallfanaticalmonk
who clung to my liverwould thriveon such ascetic scraps"(30). The rela-
tionshipof Dewey's "street"to Tri-Kaya's priesthoodis signaledby the small
fanaticalmonk thatEnd Zone's Gary Harknessinternalizes.Meditationis a
centraltheme in GreatJonesStreet.The rock starprotagonistfashions"an
impersonationof sleep, eyes closed, body lax, a studied evenness to my
breathing"(1973, 29). "Do somethinglike thisover and over,"he says,"and
show up in the routine.Unconscious, unbidden"
soon littleirregularities
that give rise to those
(26). He is referringto the occasional irregularities
spontaneous burstsof productiveinsightduring Buddhist meditation.Later
in thissame novel,the protagonistexplicitlyrefersto a room that"draws a
personinward,"so providing"a good room formeditationand inwardthink-
ing" (251).
BuckyWunderlick,the protagonistof GreatJonesStreet,parodiesTibet's
greattwelfthcenturyyogi,Milarepa,whose biographyis the subject of one
of the reissued Oxford books on Tibetan Buddhism by Evans-Wentz.
Milarepa took "no pleasurein the worldlylife" and wanted nothingmore
than "a life of meditationand devotion" (Evans-Wentz,1969, 178). Both
Milarepa and Bucky were famousfortheirsongs,renouncedworldlyfame,
secluded themselvesin mountainretreats, attracteddisciples,were depressed
and contemplatedsuicide,ate littlemore than soup and become emaciated,
willinglyaccepted poison but survived,and eventuallyleft their isolation
behind.ElsewhereI elaborateon the manyparallelsbetweenBucky and the
greatyogi (Kohn 2005a). AlthoughBucky's similarity to thereveredMilarepa
is never made explicitby DeLillo, the Sanskritwords sutraand bodhisattvas
deployedin the novel are keywordsin Tibetan Buddhism,and it is likelythat
the title GreatJonesStreetsignifiesthe "Great Path,"which is a common
English translationof Mahayana, the northernBuddhist movement that
Milarepa championed in his lifetime (97, 99). That "Mahayana" is the
Sanskritequivalent of a kind of streetassociates Dewey's firststage of
DeLillo 's novelswith the definingbeliefsystemofTibetan Buddhism.
The allusionin Ratner'sStarto a thirdeye- "the pineal glandis a vestige
of such an eye in the middleof the forehead"- conjuresup the manyimages
of three-eyedTantricdeitiesin Tibetan Buddhism (DeLillo 1976, 105). The
mostimportantof thesedeitiesis ShakyamuniBuddha,who is picturedmed-
itatingin the traditionallotus positionin Figure l.The stylizedpositionsof
the Buddha's hands and armsare called mudrds and typicallyhave meaning.
The gestureof the right-hand Shakyamuni Figure1 is called the touch-
of in
ingtheearthmudrcl. The "men surrenderedto meditation"in Ratner'sStarare
likelyto have thisimage of the Buddha in mind,just as the novel's"children
160 College 38.4[Fall
Literature 2011]
with begging bowls" are honoring the traditionenshrinedin the begging

bowl thatShakyamuniholds in his left-handin Figure 1 (430).
"'When I go into mysticalstates,'Ratner said,'I pass beyond the oppo-
sitesof the worldand experienceonlythe union of theseoppositesin a radi-
antburstof energy'"(DeLillo 1976, 218). When Ratner adds that"all things
are present in all other things.Each in its opposite" (219), he evokes
Milarepa'srealizationof"the stateof non-duality, whereinall opposites,even
good and evil,are seen as unity"(Evans-Wentz 1969, 46, 46n). DeLillo is not
the only postmodernwriterto incorporatethisanti-rationalbut spiritually
comforting Tibetan dualityin his writing;William Gaddis does it in a major
in
way Carpenter's Gothic(See Kohn 2004).
Charactersin End Zone, GreatJonesStreet , Ratner'sStar; and probablythe
narratorof Americana whereas
, activelymeditate, in Players,the protagonist,
Lyle Wynant,relies strictlyon his money for"spiritualindemnity"(1977,
110). "It existed in his mind, mymoney , a reinforcingsort of meditation"
(110). Significantly,this fifth , in which no one is observedmed-
novel,Players
itating,is consideredby Dewey to be one of DeLillo's "Narrativesof Failed
Engagement"(2006, 49-68).
DeLillo's RunningDog mentions"a smallBuddhistshrinein the garden,"
"lessonsin meditation," "remembering]otherlives,"the notion that"Dying
is an art in . . . Tibet," and that"When you leave the earth-plane,there'sa
rightplace and a rightway" (1978, 93, 224, 233, 245). This novel concludes
withthe revelationthatSelvy,the slainprotagonist, had requesteda Buddhist
burial,and his BuddhistfriendLevi intendedto comply:
[FJirst theescape,theseparation
Leviwouldsitand chant,directing of the
deceasedfromhisbody,as taughtby themasters of thesnowyrange.This
was a lama function,and therefore
an enormouspresumption on Levi's
part,buthe knewthechant,afterall,and he had lovein hisheartforthe
world.(DeLillo 1978,245)
Afterchanting,Levi "would tryto determinewhetherthe spirithad indeed
departed"fromSelvy's body (245-46). He
wasn'tsurehe knewhow to do this.But he believedhe wouldfeelsome-
thing;something would tellhim whetherhe was on the rightpath.He
knewforcertainhowyoustarted. You startedbypluckinga fewstrandsof
hairfromthetop ofthedeadman'shead.(DeLillo 1978,246)
The same or similarphrasesare used in The TibetanBook oftheDead when
Evans-Wentzrefersto the"Land of the Snowy Ranges,Tibet,"and "describes
the mysticchantcontainingdirectionsforthe spiritof the deceased" to find
itsway to
escape- ifkarma - theundesirable
permits Intermediate
State.Aftercom-
the to
manding spirit quit the bodyand its to
attachment livingrelatives
E.Kohn 161
Robert
and goods,thelamaexaminesthecrownof thehead of thecorpseat the

lineofthesagittal ifthespirithasdepartedthence,
suture... to determine
as it shouldhavedone;and ifthescalpbe notbald,he pullsout a fewof
thehairsdirecdyovertheaperture. (Evans-Wentz1960,2, 18)
In thisway,the lamadeterminesthatthe deceased is properly"separatedfrom
the human-planebody" (1960, 29).
In what Dewey definesas DeLillo's "street"stage,the novelistbecame
acquainted with aspects of Tibetan Buddhism,particularlymeditationand
the transmigration of souls,which are mostcloselyassociatedwiththepriest-
hood. It is fittingthatthe lifeof BuckyWunderlick,a man of the street,is a
parodyof the greatBuddhistyogi,Milarepa,and thatone of the characters
in the finalbook of the "street"stage,though a lay person himself,tem-
porarilyassumesthe role of a lama, a member of Tibetan Buddhism'shigh
priesthood,and conductsa bardoserviceforthe deceased protagonist.
TheWord
On the second rung of Dewey's three-stagemodel, DeLillo builds on
"his own deep fascinationwith the word as our species' definingand
empoweringgesture"(Dewey 2006, 8). DeLillo spoke of his satisfactionin
seeing"words being formed"as he typedthem:"What the wordslook like
is important.How they look in combination.I have to see the words"
(LeClair 1982, 30). While he lived in Greece,and made tripsfromthereto
the Middle East and India, DeLillo savored four new languages,Greek,
Arabic,Hindi, and Urdu: "The simple fact,"he told Robert Harris,"that I
was confrontingnew landscapesand freshlanguages made me feel almost
dutybound to get it right"(1982, 26). Anand Dass, the local archaeologistin
The Names, who was "looking at Hellenistic and Roman influenceson
Indian sculpture,"expressedDeLillo 's fascinationwith India: "Not a large
subjectbut interesting. FiguresofBuddha. I am gettingveryinterestedin fig-
ures of Buddha. I want to go to Kabul to see the Buddha of the Great
Miracle. . . . It's a transitional
Buddha" (255). In fourconsecutivesentences,
Anand repeatsthe ancient and reveredword "Buddha." The novel's main
character, Owen Brademas,is searchingall over India
fortherockedictsofAshoka.They markedthewayto holyplacesor com-
memorateda local eventin the lifeof Buddha.Near the borderwith
Nepal he saw the fine-grained sandstonecolumnthatwas thebestpre-
servedof the edicts,thirty-five
feettall,a lion seatedatop a bell capital.
(DeLillo 1982,277)
The narratoris referring to the single-lioncapitalinVaishali,India,less than
50-kilometersnorth of the city of Patna, where the remainsof Ashoka's
palace at Patliputracan stillbe seen. There are other such pillars,though
38.4[Fall
Literature
162 College 2011]
devoid of their capitals,which appear to have marked the course of the

ancientroyalhighwayfromPatliputrato the Nepal Valleynorthof Patna.
"In the countrysidenorthof Madras,"Owen foundanotherofAshoka's
columns;thisone,"on forgiveness and nonviolence,[was] translatedforhim
two weeks laterby one T.V. Coomeraswamyof theArcheologicalMuseum
in Sarnath.Tothe studyof Dharma, to the love of Dharma, to the inculca-
tionof Dharma" (DeLillo 1982, 277, 278). The triplerepetitionof"Dharma,"
each timein a different combinationof words,is indicativeof DeLillo 's ded-
ication not only to the"word,"but,as Dewey nicelyput it,to "the extraor-
dinarypower of language"and "the sublimeexertionof articulation"(2006,
9). PerhapsDeLillo picked the name "Brademas"because it had some of the
same soundsas "Buddha" and "Dharma." Owen is "a sixty-year-old man with
a western voice and a who
long stride," "used to saythateven random things
take ideal shapes and come to us in painterlyforms.It's a matterof seeing
what is there.He saw patternsthere,momentsin the flow.. . . He had an
2
unsettlingmentalforce"(DeLillo 1982, 19).
Earlyin WhiteNoise,DeLillo refersto Tibetan Buddhismwhen Murray
SiskindtellsBabette,while theyare pushinga loaded cart down one of the
aislesof a supermarket, that
Tibetansbelievethereis a transitional statebetweendeathand rebirth.
Deathis a waiting Soon
period,basically. a wombwillreceivethesoul.
fresh
In themeantime thesoulrestores to itselfsomeofthedivinitylostatbirth.
. . .That'swhatI thinkofwhenever I comein here.Thisplacerecharges us
it
spiritually,prepares us,it'sa or
gateway pathway. (DeLillo 1986,37)
That DeLillo uses the word "basically"in an esotericcontextand perceives
a grocerystoreas a spiritualgatewayinvokesEvans-Wentz'sinsistencethat
"the Art of Dying" is the "complement and summation"of "the Art of
Living" (1960, xiii). When Murraygoes on to say that"This is not Tibet.
Even Tibet is not Tibet" we understandwhy (DeLillo 1986, 38), as Mark
Osteen tellsus, DeLillo 's WhiteNoise had the originalworkingtitleof The
AmericanBook oftheDead (2000, 165). Murrayreinforcesthe point thatthe
preparationfordyingis also the preparationforlivingwhen he explainsthat
"Tibetanstryto see deathforwhatit is. It is the end of attachmentto things"
(DeLillo 1986, 38). "Attachment"is typicallyinvoked in Buddhism in the
contextof Right Living,as when Evans-Wentzargues"that attachmentto
worldly things" makes "material progressinimical to spiritualprogress"
(1967, 71).
In the scene in a supermarketin WhiteNoise, Murrayand Babette expe-
rience"[b]lastsof colors,layersof oceanic sound.We walked under a bright
banner announcinga raffleto raise money forsome incurabledisease. . . .
Murraylikenedthebannerto a Tibetan prayerflag"(DeLillo 1986, 288). The
E.Kohn 163
Robert
blastsof colors and layersof oceanic sound are evocativeof a Tibetan prayer
service. Babette's assertion (142) that "[scientists at Princeton's famed
InstituteforAdvanced Studieshave stunnedtheworldby presentingabsolute
and undeniable proof of life afterdeath,"appears to have been based on
Evans-Wentz'sreferenceto the"unequivocal testimonyof yoginswho claim
to have died and re-enteredthe human womb consciously" (1960, v).
DeLillo's fascinationwith exotic words is evidentwhen he contrivesa way
of informingreadersof WhiteNoisethatin itsoriginalTibetan languageren-
"
dering,TheTibetanBook oftheDead was entitled"BardoThodol (1986, 72).
Besides the fictionalizedLee Harvey Oswald's visit "to a Buddhist
shrine"and a laterreferenceto "a Buddhistmonk who setshimselfon fire,"
the novel Libracontainsno other explicitsignifiersof Buddhism (DeLillo
1988, 87, 261). However, these two referencesset up the reader for a
Buddhistcommentaryon God when the Dallas police,frustrated by Oswald's
denial of involvementin, or knowledgeof,Kennedy'sassassination, ask"him
ifhe believedin a deity"(415). DeLillo uses the word"deity"as a suggestive
forit is more likelythatthe police would have asked Oswald if he
signifier,
believed in God. Evans-Wentzuses the more sophisticatedcognomen when
he argues that in Tibetan Buddhism "the belief and the non-beliefin a
SupremeDeity" has been "set aside,as being non-essentialto mankind'sspir-
itual enlightenment"(1960, 236). Instead of an all-powerfulGod, Tibetan
Buddhists have a panoply of exotic deities, buddhas- including
-
Shakyamuni and bodhissatvas , whom theyvisualize to focus theirmedita-
tion.These deities"existnot in reality"but in the imagination(Evans-Wentz
1960, 148).
PresumablyThe TibetanBook of theDead is "the timelessEasterntext"
that Scott Martineau carries during his search for the famous but elusive
writer,Bill Gray,whom he is trackingin DeLillo's tenthnovel,Mao II (1991,
58). This is the only allusion to Tibetan Buddhism in thisparticularnovel,
which is mostlyabout Christianand Islamic fundamentalism and has more
discussionabout religionand God thanany of DeLillo's precedingnovels.In
her discussionswith Bill, the photographer,Brita,revealsthat she doesn't
"like not believing.I'm not at peace with it. I take comfortwhen others
believe" (69). She continues,"I need these people to believe forme. I cling
to believers.Many,everywhere. Without them,the planet goes cold" (69).
Scott,who is Bill's self-appointedassistant,
repeatsGray'swords:"The novel
used to feed our searchformeaning.Quoting Bill. It was the greatsecular
transcendence. The Latin mass of language,character,occasional new truth.
But our desperationhas led us towardsomethinglarger"(72). Emotivewords
are no longer enough; DeLillo is preparingto move onto that"something
larger"in the thirdstageof his writing.
Literature
164 College 38.4[Fall
2011]
TheSoul
Not untilthe third-stage of his writingdoes DeLillo take on "the diffi-
cult confirmationof a viable spiritualdimension"(Dewey 2006, 8). Though
he referredto it earlyin his"street"stage,DeLillo had yetto come to terms
with the "divinity"that"the soul restoresto itself"(1986, 37). In the third
stage,divinityproceedsdirectlyfromGod or,shortof that,it definesthesoul.
"From the beginning,"Dewey notes,"DeLillo's charactershave struggledfor
some evidence of a transcendent realm" (2006, 11). Transcendenceis signi-
fiedby the Christiancrossand the Roman columns on the prescientdust-
jacket of Underworld, and the factthatthisnovel was publishedsix yearsafter
Mao II, itselfa transitionalnovel forDeLillo, arguesforits inclusionin the
thirdstage of DeLillo's output,ratherthan the second stage where Dewey
places it in his table of contents.
It is fittingthat Underworld -
begins the third of the three bodies
-
Priesthood,Scriptures,and Buddha of the Tri-Kaya, as correlatedwith
Dewey's threestage scheme,forit containsno fewerthan six referencesto
the"Buddha" or to things"Buddhist"(DeLillo 1997, 18, 171, 321, 546, 604,
612). Moreover,the best knownTibetan meditationmantra"om manipadme
"
hum appears not once but twice in its pages (462, 463). Of this mantra,
Robert Thurman writes:
[T]he perfectlyenlightenedBuddha, spoke to the Bodhisattva
'Give me,gentleson,thequeen,thegreatscienceof the
Avalokiteshvara:
mantra
six-syllable withwhichI mayliberatefromsuffering hundreds of
thousands ofmillions so thatI maycause[their
ofbillionsofvariousbeings,
souls] to reachunexcelledperfectenlightenment as swiftly
as possible.
(Thurman1997,266)
In hisinterviewwithMaria Moss,DeLillo acknowledgedthat"writingbrings
me closerto spiritualfeelingsthananythingelse.Writingis the finalenlight-
enment"(1999, 87). In Buddhism,Nirvana (or enlightenment) is oftensigni-
fied by specificwords,such as "emptiness"and "void." In a book entirely
devotedto "emptiness"and Buddhism,Newman Glassdeclaresthatemptiness
is equivalentto "total presence"(1995,1). The "most persistentmeaningof
underworld"in DeLillo's eleventhnovel,accordingtoJohnDuvall,"isthevol-
ume of wastegeneratedbyAmericanconsumerculture"(24). DeLillo's nar-
ratorexplainsthat"Waste is an interesting word thatyou can tracethrough
Old English and Old Norse back to the Latin,findingsuch derivativesas
empty,void, vanishand devastate"(1997, 120). The connectionto Buddhist
enlightenment, signifiedby "empty"and "void" in that definitionof waste,
becomes explicitwhen the protagonist, who is employedin waste recycling,
tellshis colleague who hasjust describedhow,afterenteringthe industry, he
has become conscious of seeingwaste and garbageeverywhere:
E.Kohn 165
Robert
becauseit is everywhere."
"You see it everywhere
"But I didn'tsee itbefore."
"You'reenlightened now.Be grateful." (DeLillo 1997,283)
There is a sense of redemptionand enlightenment in the novel'sdescrip-
tion of a recyclingfacilitynear Phoenix; visitorswatch while the
thestyrofoam
tin,thepaper,theplastics, ... allfliesdowntheconveyor belts,
fourhundredtonsa day,assembly linesof garbage, sorted, compressed and
baled, transformed in theend to square-edged units,products again,wire-
boundandsmartly stackedandreadyto be marketed Brightness streams
fromskylights downto thefloorof theshed,fallingon thetallmachines
witha numinous glow.Maybewe feela reverence forwaste, fortheredemp-
tivequalitiesofthethings we use anddiscard. (DeLillo 1997,809)
The resonance of words in this hauntingparagraph -
brightnessstreaming
fromskylights,numinousglow,reverenceforwaste,the redemptivequalities
of the thingswe use and discard- demonstrates why DeLillo envisionswrit-
ing as "the finalenlightenment" (Moss 1999, 87)
The image on the 1997 dustjacket of Underworld , portraying theWorld
TradeTowersbeing approachedby what appearsat firstglance to be an air-
plane,is so strikingtodaythatone is likelyto overlookthe churchsteeplein
the lower foreground, prominently topped by a cross.The crossis especially
significant on the cover of a book in which Dewey surmises:"DeLillo never
beforeused so directlymaterialsfromhis own life"(2006, 115). The obvious
importanceof nuns in his childhood resonatesin the portrayalof Sisters
Edgar and Grace,who deliverfood and medical servicesto drugaddictsand
AIDS patientsin an impoverishedghetto of the South Bronx. Since the
recenttragedyin which the homelesstwelve-yearold, EsmeraldaLopez, was
raped on a roofand thrownto her death,her image has been miraculously
appearingfora few secondson a billboardwhen commutertrainsgo by it at
night.Thousands of New Yorkershave come to marvelat the flashingvision
of the murderedgirl.For skepticalSisterGrace, this is "the worst kind of
tabloidsuperstition," and she is astonishedthatSisterEdgar feelssuch a strong
need to witnessthe happening(1997, 8 19).When theydo,thefacethatGrace
sees is simply"a trickof light,. . . the image fromthe papered-overad [show-
ing] throughthe currentad" (821-22). But SisterEdgar"is in body shock.She
had seen it but so fleetingly, too fastto absorb- she wantsthe girlto reap-
pear" (821). One gets the feelingthat Grace representsthe fadingside of
DeLillo thathad been supercilioustowardtheparanormal, whereasEdgarrep-
resentsthe emergingside thatwantsto respectspirituallonging.
Only recentlyhave non-Catholicslike me learned thatthe "Vatican is
quietlyconductingtwo sweepinginvestigations ofAmericannuns,[who are]
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startledand dismayed"that"they are the targetsof a doctrinalinquisition"

(Goodstein 2009, Al). Accordingto Laurie Goodstein,"many fearthatthe
realmotivationis to reelin Americannunswho have reinterpreted theircall-
ing for the modern world" by leaving their "convents to live independently,"
and who have enterednew lines of work such as "social and politicaladvo-
cacy and grass-rootsorganizationsthatservethe poor or promotespirituali-
ty" (Al). Goodstein reportsthat"Some sisterssurmisethattheVatican and
even some Americanbishopsare tryingto shiftthemback into . . . ordering
their schedules around daily prayersand working primarilyin Roman
Catholic institutions, like schools and hospitals"(Al, A4).This finalfocuson
SistersEdgar and Grace in Underworld suggeststhatDeLillo is steeringback
to Catholicism,but in its more liberal,contemporarypersuasion.As the
heraldictrainrushesby in the dark,SisterEdgar
holdstheimagetightin hermind,thefleeting faceon thelightedboard,
hervirgintwinwho is alsoherdaughter Thereis nothing leftto do but
die and thisis preciselywhatshe does, Sister
Alma Edgar,brideof Christ,
passingpeacefully in hersleep.(DeLillo 1997,824)
Appropriately, the verylast word of the novel,"takingall its meanings,its
sense of serenitiesand contentments out into the streetssomehow,itswhis-
of
per reconciliation, a word extendingitselfever outward,. . . throughthe
raw sprawlof the cityand out acrossthe dreamingbourns and orchardsto
the solitaryhills"is "Peace" (1997, 827). The referencesto "the streets"and
the "word" in the finalsentenceof Underworld and theirconnectionto the
peaceful passing of Sister Edgar's soul affirm that Dewey's sequence of
"street,""word,"and "soul" are cumulativeratherthan sequentialover the
successivestagesof DeLillo 's novels.
DeLillo's twelthnovel,The BodyArtist, was firstrecommendedto me by
San Francisco poet Adam Cornford,who found it profoundlyBuddhist.
AlthoughTuttle appears out of nowhere soon afterthe suicide of Rey
Robles, embodyingthe voice and mannerismsof the deceased,such intra-
generationalmetempsychosis is alien to Buddhism.There is a hintofTibetan
Buddhismin J.Heath Atchley'sperceptionofTuttleas "completelystuckin
thepresent"and having"no awarenessof a pastor future"(2004, 339), which
is compatiblewith Evans-Wentz'sdescriptionof "timelessness"and "unend-
ing present"in the absence of"pastand future"(Evans-Wentz1968, 7). There
is even some of postmodernism 's slightingof Zen Buddhismwhen Lauren
loses her patience withTuttle'skoan-like retortsand accuses him of acting
like "a Zen master,you littlecreep" (DeLillo 2001, 55; for more on post-
modernism'sslightingof Zen, see Kohn 201 la). Though the firsttwo sen-
- "Time seems to
tencesof The BodyArtistare strange pass.The world hap-
pens, unrolling into moments, and you stop glance a spiderpressedto
to at
E.Kohn 167
Robert
its web" (7)- thismay be a case of DeLillo 's "writingwithoutfullyintend-

ing the constructionof particularmeanings,"as Amy Hungerfordexplains
can be true for"a pre-VaticanII Catholic worshipper,trainedin the Latin
mass,"reciting"prayerswithoutknowing the meaning of the words while
nevertheless understanding the experienceof sayingthosewordsas his or her
mostpowerfulapproachto God" (2006, 352). Stillstranger is an unnumbered
chapterbetweenchapterssix and seven,entitled"Body Artin Extremis:Slow,
Spare and Painful,"which containsthe followingdescription:
Thereis themanwho standsin an artgallerywhilea colleaguefiresbul-
letsintohis arms.This is art.Thereis thelavishly tattooedmanwho has
himselffittedwitha crownof thorns. This is art.. . . Thereare thenaked
man and womanwho chargeinto each otherrepeatedly at increasing
This
speeds. is art.
(DeLillo 2001, 104-05)
In LaurenHartke'sperformance piece,she appearsas a completelynakedman:
He wantsto tellus something His wordsamountto a monologuewith-
out a context. Verbsand pronounsscatterin theair and thensomething
happens.
startling The bodyjumpsintoanotherlevel.In a seriesofelectro-
convulsive motions, whippingand spinning
thebodyflailsout of control,
Hartke
appallingly. makesher body things onlyseen in animated
do I've
cartoons. fliesthemanout ofone reality
It is a seizurethatapparendy and
intoanother. (DeLillo 2001,107-08)
I see thisinserted,unnumberedchapter,which gives The BodyArtistits title,
as a digressionon DeLillo's part,in responseto his interestin Paul Virilio.In
his book Artand Fear,Virilioexpresseshis dismayabout an artistwho "actu-
ally died aftera bout of castrationhe inflictedon himselfduringone of his
performancepieces"; about "Stelarc,the Australianadept at 'body art,'"
famousforhis hyper-modernconvictionthatthe human body had become
obsolete,who had eighteensharpenedstainless-steel hooks pushed through
the back of his torso and limbs,fromwhich his body,totallynude,was sus-
pended on thinwiresand levitatedover a gapingaudience; and about "con-
temporaryart accepting the escalation in extremism"(2004, 42, 43, 56).
Virilio has writtenextensivelyon his manyfearsabout extremescience.His
dreadthatrogueeugenicistswould createchimericalsuper-beingsin timefor
the Olympic Games of the year 2020 or 2030, that space-timewould be
contaminatedby optoelectronics,that the "informationbomb" poses a
greaterthreatthanthe atomicbomb,and thattelesexualinteractivity threat-
ens to turnstill-vitalcopulationinto the practiceof remote-controlmastur-
bation- were satirizedin Thomas Pynchon'sAgainsttheDay, fiveyearsafter
The BodyArtistwas published(see Kohn 2010a).
Another philosopherof hypermodernism, Franco Berardi,writes that
"Only today,at the beginningof the twenty-first century,does dystopiatake
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centerstage and conquer the whole field of the artisticimagination,thus

drawingthe narrativehorizon of the centurywith no future"(2008, 43). I
suggestthatDeLillo interrupted hisworkon thestreet, theword and thesoul
to respondto what Randy Laist called a "generaltrendin twenty-first cen-
tury DeLillo criticism ... to tryto rescueDeLillo from the postmodernthe-
oristswho busilylaid claimto him in hundredsof scholarly journalsfromthe
1980s and 1990s" (2007, 70). In fact,DeLillo 's writinghas strongelementsof
modernism, postmodernism,and what Virilio calls hypermodernism.
ElsewhereI argue thatmodernismwas distinguished by its adorationof sci-
ence and technology(Kohn 2009b), postmodernismby its disillusionwith
science and invention,and hypermodernism by its outrightfearof science
and technology.ElsewhereI argue thatin WhiteNoise, DeLillo was the first
novelistto conceptualizehypermodernism (Kohn 2010b, 13).
For Philip Nel, The BodyArtist"offersa perfectoccasion to discussthe
language of DeLillo because it is his homage to modernistpoetics" (2002,
736). Indeed,when the narratorof The BodyArtisttellsus that"Rey is alive
now in the man's mind,"but only fourpages later,that"Rey is not alive in
thisman'sconsciousness"(DeLillo 2001, 87, 91), DeLillo is takingus back to
"the traditionof radicallyunreliablemodernistnarrators"(McHale 1987,
18). As modernistas it is, The BodyArtistis also DeLillo 's most postmodern
novel:"A summaryof the book," writesJesseKavadlo,"doesn't allow us to
understandit" (2004, 150). WhatJ.KerryGrantfamouslysaid of The Crying
ofLot 49 which spearheadedpostmodernism, applies to The BodyArtistas
well: it "resistsinterpretation to an extraordinary degree,especiallyif"inter-
pretation"is takento mean the effortto tease out a unitaryand more or less
comprehensiveaccount of the novel'smessage"(1994, xii). ElsewhereI argue
that this resistanceto totalization,characteristicof the postmodernethos,
reached a peak and became a stylisticcharacteristicof the postmodern
American art of the 1980s (Kohn 2009a). TylerKessel manages to totalize
The BodyArtist , but his approachis uniquely personal,which is compatible
withFrenchpost-structuralism, but not withAmerican modernismor post-
modernism(Kessler2008; see Goldfordet al. 201 1). LikeVirilio,Berardi,and
Berio, his fellowgeniusesof Italian descent,DeLillo anticipatedin Ratner's
Star and WhiteNoise the fear of science and inventionthat characterized
what would be called hypermodernism. We know thatwe are in the hyper-
modern age when we read on the frontpage of The NewYorkTimesthat"a
group of computerscientists," impressedand "alarmedby advancesin artifi-
cial intelligence," currently"debatingwhetherthereshould be limitson
is
research"(Markoff2009, 1). Having broughthis writingto the culturalfron-
tierwith the insertionof the miseen abymein The BodyArtist , DeLillo turns
back in earnestto his spiritualquest.
E.Kohn 169
Robert
evokesan icon ofTibetan

A passagenear the end of DeLillo's Cosmopolis
Buddhism.Beforesunrise,while it is stilldarkand the streetsrelativelyquiet
in lowerManhattan,Eric Packer,the novel'sprotagonist, serendipitouslyhap-
pens upon the artistic
filming of 300 naked volunteerssprawled in a barri-
caded, floodlitintersection.Surprisedand intrigued,he takesoffhis clothes
and joins them. Unbeknown to Eric, who has come alone and purelyby
chance,his newly-wedded wifeElise is not only in the crowd,but also turns
out to be thepersonnearestto him.When the filmingis completed,he "took
one step and extendedhis arm behind him. He felther hand in his.She fol-
lowed him into a boarded-offsection of sidewalk,where he turnedin the
darkand kissedher,sayingher name" (2003, 177). In thisisolatedplace,she
climbedhisbodyand wrappedherlegsaroundhimand theymadelove
there,manstanding, womanastraddle in thestoneodor of demolition. "I
lostall yourmoney,,, he toldher.He heardherlaugh.. . . "I lose thingsall
thetime,"she said."Whatdo poetsknowaboutmoney?Love theworld
and traceit in a lineofverse.Nothingbutthis," shesaid,"Andthis."Here
sheputa handto hisheadand tookhim,seizedhimbythehair,a thrilling
drawinghisheadback and bendingto kisshim,so prolongedand
fistful,
abandoneda kiss,withsucha heatofbeing,thathe thought he knewher
his
finally, Elise,sighing,
tonguing, his
biting mouth, breathingmuggywords
and dyingmurmurs, babytalking, body fusedto his,
whisper-kissing, her
legsgirdling,buttocks hot in hishands.(DeLillo 2003,177-78)
This depictionof Elise climbingEric's free-standing body,wrappingher legs
around him,her buttocksheld in his hands,theirpassionatetonguingwhile
makinglove,enactsthe iconicTantricimage,known as the Chakrasamvara , of
male and female deities in sexual union. A sacred tangkaof the Buddhist
blue-colored deity Chakrasamvaraand his consortVajravarahiis shown in
3
Figure2.
This Tantricimage is all the more vital because, as PeterWolfe gleans
fromhis close readingof the novel,untilthismorningEric "hasn'tyet con-
summated his marriage of three weeks" (2004, 184). Just as the
Chakrasamvararepresents the union of wisdom (the female)and compassion
(the male), so Elise, who has the rare wisdom to value earthlylove above
financialwealth,epitomizeswisdom.But Eric's representation of compassion
is a hardcase to make,forhe is perhapsthe mostunfeelingprotagonistin all
of DeLillo's fiction. Dewey calls him "morallythin,grandlyflawed,stub-
bornlynarcissistic, redundantly vicious,"a "serialadulterer"and a "murderer"
(2006, 140, 149). Perhaps the Chakrasamvara- Vajravarahiunion transforms
him- indeed, the union of wisdom and compassion is said to symbolize
-
enlightenment forat the end of the novel,when he deftlygets the upper
hand on a gunman who had caught him by surprise,Eric intentionally
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woundshimselfby firinghis lastbulletinto his own hand.Benno,the assassin,

forwhom Eric will gratuitouslygivehislife,tellshisformeremployer,
now his
helplessvictim,thathe had oftenwatchedhim meditate:
The face,the calmposture.I couldn'tstopwatching. You meditated for
hourssometimes. All it did was sendyou deeperintoyourfrozenheart.I
watchedeveryminute.I lookedintoyou.I knewyou.It wasanotherrea-
son to hateyou,thatyou couldsitin a cell and meditate and I couldnot.
(DeLillo 2003,198)
Benno's reason forkillingEric, because "there'sno life forme unless I do
this,"is at leastbetterthanEric's sudden whim- "When you pay a man to
-
keep you alive,he gainsa psychicedge" to kill his own bodyguard:(2003,
210, 147). Actually,Eric "wanted whateverwould happen to happen,"since
he knew therewere witnessesto his shootingof the bodyguardand he had
been seen throwingthe gun into the bushes (147).
What meaningcan Chakrasamvara's andVajravarahi'senlightening union
of wisdom and compassion have in CosmopolislWas it enough that Eric,
howeverdespicablehispastactions,meditatedforhoursat a timeand thathe
had the compassion to give his life for someone who needed his death?
PerhapsDeLillo is makingtheTibetan Buddhistcase that"good cannot be
conceived apartfromevil; thatthereis neithergood perse nor evil perse"
and that"the GreatLiberation,"which is enlightenment, depends upon the
"transcendenceover all opposites,over both good and evil" (Evans-Wentz
1968, 37). DeLillo appearsto have writtenall or most of Cosmopolis in the
wake of 9/11,while he was wrestlingwith thesekindsof issueson a grander
scale.Perhapshe setthe novelin "a singleruinousdayin April2000" in order
to testsome of those feelingsthatwere stirringin him (Dewey 2006, 138).
In his subsequentnovel FallingMan, "crypticsayingsfromTibet,""Bible
study"and "English-languageeditionsof the Koran" all come together, and,
because theydo, some of DeLillo 's are
characters finallyable to know the
divinityof theirown souls (2007, 38, 156, 231). Like a personwho setsaside
periods during the day for meditation,the protagonist,Keith Neudecker,
practicesa set of prescribedhand exercisesto mend the wristinjuryhe suf-
feredin his dauntingescape fromthe first-hit WorldTradeTower:
He satin deep concentration.He recalledthesetups,everyone,and the
numberofsecondsforeach,andthenumberofrepetitions. Withyourpalm
down,bendyourwristtowardthefloor. Withyourforearm restingside-
ways,bendyourwristtowardthefloor Hold to a countoffive.Repeat
ten times.He did the fullprogrameverytime,handraised,forearm flat,
handdown,forearm sideways, dayto night
slowingthepace just slightly,
andthenagainthefollowing day,drawingit out,makingit last.He count-
ed theseconds,he countedtherepetitions.
(DeLillo2007,235-236)
E.Kohn 171
Robert
Meditativemethods are intimatedin this description.The palm down and

wristbent towardthe floorevoke the touch-the-earthmudraof the meditat-
ing Buddha in Figurel.The deep concentrationand countingprotocolscor-
respond to meditational algorithms. As in the enactment of the
Chakrasamvaraunion,Buddhistpracticeshave become symbolicin DeLillo's
thirdstage.In FallingMan, thereis a woman "readingon a bench,in the lotus
position"(32), a kick on a door,not in angerbut "completelycalm,... a lit-
tle Zenlike,a gestureto shock and stimulateone's meditationsor reversetheir
directions"(96), and a room "like a monk's cell with a pair of giantprayer
wheels beatingout a litany"(151).
There is but scant mentionof God by the charactersin DeLillo's thir-
teen previousnovels.This changesdramatically in FallingMan, especiallyfor
Lianne Neudecker,Keith'swife,fromwhom he has inexplicablyestranged
himselfsince his traumaticescape fromthe tower.She wonders whether
thereis a forcebehind human existence,"a principalbeing who was and is
and evershallbe" and remembershow her father"believed thatGod infused
time and space with pure being" (2007, 231, 232). She also recallsher skep-
ticism:what her fatherbelieved"was crap wasn'tit,nightskiesand divinely
inspiredstars"(232). Now she has all kindsof questions:
God,shethought, Whatdoesit meanto saythatword?Areyoubornwith
God? If you neverhearthewordor observetheritual,do you feelthe
breathaliveinsideyou,in brainwavesorpoundingheart Butisn'titthe
worlditself thatbringsyouto God?Beauty, theemptydesert,
terror,
grief,
theBach cantatas. (DeLillo 2007, 234)
Still,she fearedthatif she believed in Him, "God would consume her. . . .
That's why she was resistingnow.Because, thinkabout it.Because once you
believe such a thing,God is, then how can you escape, how survivethe
power of it,is and was and evershallbe" (235). But multiculturalism,one of
postmodernism's reactionsto becomes
modernity'sexclusivity, a catalystfor
Lianne's gradualacceptanceof God. She is moved thatthe"voices in chorus
in praiseof God" include"Allah-uuAllah-uuAllah-uu" (38): "Those men who
did thisthing.They'reantieverything we standfor.But theybelieve in God"
(90). She later reflects
"[H]ow awful to imagine this,God's name on the
tongues of killersand victimsboth,firstone plane and then the other,the
one thatwas nearlycartoonhuman,with flashingeyesand teeth,the second
plane,the south tower"(134). Nevertheless,she sees thatpeople are buying
"English-languageeditions of the Koran and are tryingearnestlyto learn
something,findsomethingthatmighthelp themthinkmore deeplyinto the
question of Islam" (231).
The blendingofTibetan Buddhisminto Christianity symbolicallypeaks
in FallingMan when Lianne "walked,withoutplan,west on 116thStreet,. . .
172 College
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38.4[Fall
2011]
turnedsouth forfiveblocks,""came to a buildingmarkedGreaterHighway

DeliveranceTemple,"and then"paused a moment,absorbingthe name and
noticingthe ornatepilastersabove the entranceand the stone crossat roof's
edge" (156). The name of the GreaterHighway Deliverance Temple that
Lianne pointedlypaused to absorb,like the title of GreatJonesStreet , has
Tibetan Buddhistconnotationsbecause it is based on the Englishtranslation
of the Sanskritword Mahayana -
great or greaterpath.There is in fact a
GreaterHighwayDeliveranceTemple in New York City;it is located at 132
East IIIth Street,fiveblocks south of the above mentioned116thStreet.
Lianne stood in frontof the templeand thoughtabout Rosellen, one of
themembersof the early-Alzheimer'ssupportgroupthatshe facilitated, who
"seemed to be a presencein thisstreet.Here was theplace,thistemplewhose
name was a hallelujah shout, where she'd found refuge and assistance"
(DeLillo 2007, 156, emphasisadded). When Lianne handed out lined pads
and ballpointpens at the lastmeetingof the supportgroup,she finallysaid
thattheycould writeabout the planes,which is what"all of thembut Omar
H." had wanted to write about fromthe verybeginning;"It made Omar
nervous,but he agreed in the end" (31). And so they
wroteabouttheplanes.Theywroteaboutwheretheywerewhenit hap-
pened.Theywroteaboutpeople theyknewwho werein thetowers,or
and theywroteaboutGod.
nearby,
How couldGod letthishappen?Wherewas God whenthishappened?
BennyT. wasgladhe wasnota manoffaithbecausehe wouldloseit after
this.
I am closerto God thanever,Rosellenwrote.(DeLillo 2007, 60,61)
Each personhad somethingto write,and it was mostlyabout God. "No one
wrote a word about the terrorists. And in the exchangesthatfollowedthe
readings,no one spoke about the terrorists" (63, 64).
Lianne "promptedthem.There has to be somethingyou want to say,
some feelingto express,nineteenmen come here to kill us. She waited,not
certainwhat it was she wantedto hear.Then Anna C. mentioneda man she
knew,a fireman, lost in one of the towers"(DeLillo 2007, 63, 64). And so it
had to be DeLillo who writesabout the terrorists. Near the end of Falling
Man, a paragraphbegins with the hijacker,Amir Haddad, fasteninghis seat
belt forthe crash,watchinga waterbottlethat
acrosstheflooran instant
felloffthecounterin thegalley. . . skitter before
struckthe tower,heat,thenfuel,thenfire,and a blastwave
the aircraft
passedthrough thestructurethatsentKeithNeudeckeroutofhischairand
intoa wall The floorbeganto slidebeneathhimandhe losthisbalance
and easedalongthewallto thefloor.(DeLillo 2007, 239)
E.Kohn 173
Robert
The firsthalfof thisparagraphis about Haddad and the second half,about

Neudecker;DeLillo treatsboth of theirplightswith compassion.4
Conclusion
"Books are never finished,"insistsBill Gray,the writer-protagonist of
Mao II: "As many books as a writerhas published,those are the books he
keeps on writingplus the one in his typewriter"(DeLillo 1991, 72, 73). If
the characterwho declaresin End Zone that"I rejectthewrathfulGod of the
Hebrews.I rejectthe ChristianGod of love and money.... I rejectheritage,
background,traditionand birthright. These things. . . resultin war and insan-
ity" was speaking forDeLillo, thisview would changethroughDeLillo 's sub-
sequent writing career (1972, 77). Equally,if the eponymous Nobel Prize
Laureatein Ratner'sStarwho remembered"those benighteddays"in which
therewas "no waitingfora theisticdeityto do what we ourselvescould do
as enlightenedmen and women joined in our humanisticconvictions,"was
speakingforDeLillo, thisview too would eventuallychange (DeLillo 1976,
215). DeLillo told LeClair that throughhis language the writer"not only
sees himselfbut begins to remakehimself"(1982, 23). This essaytracesthe
remarkabledevelopmentof DeLillo 's spirituality throughthe threestagesof
hisjourney- the"street,"the"word,"and the "soul"- thatDewey postulat-
ed, and that parallel the Tibetan Buddhist Tri-Kaya : the Priesthood,the
Scriptures, and the Buddha . DeLillo 's postmodernist reaction againstmoder-
nity'selitistdisregard for mass culture and against its intellectualsecularism
brought him into the "street,"looking for changes that were takingplace
therein the late 1960s and 1970s.But he was fascinatedfromthe beginning
by the priestlyaura ofTibetan Buddhism,to which he alludes in everyone
of his fourteennovels.
In the "word" stage of his journey,DeLillo became comfortablewith
Tibetan scripturesand with spirituality in general.His "statusas a nonprac-
ticingAmerican Catholic," to
according Hungerford, put "him withina sig-
nificantdemographicin the late twentiethcentury"(2006, 345). This was
possiblebecause "Catholics thoughtof themselvesas havinga Catholic iden-
titythatwent beyond the question of whethertheyagreed with the church
hierarchy,an identitythatfunctionedmore like an ethnicitythana beliefsys-
tem" (348). When Paul Lakeland arguedthat"Most Catholics ... no longer
feel compelled to insist that the faith convictions of Protestants, Jews,
Muslims,and Buddhistsare in some profoundway deficient," we conclude
fromDeLillo 's novelsthathe would have agreed (2007, 2).
The divinitythat frightenedDeLillo in his own religion- in Falling
Man, Lianne acknowledgedthat"thinkingabout God . . . frightens" her- is
finallyaccessedthroughthelong interfacewithBuddhismthatlastedinto his
174 College
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38.4[Fall 1]
"soul" stage(2007, 90). In thatthirdstagehe battledthe personaldoubt that

enabled him, afterthe crisisof 9/11, to rethinkhis earlyrejectionof "the
wrathfulGod of the Hebrews" and "the ChristianGod of love,"and to have
second thoughtsabout not needing"a theisticdeityto do what we ourselves
could do as enlightenedmen and women joined in our humanisticconvic-
tions" (DeLillo 1976, 215). In the absence of believingin a personal God,
DeLillo "skirtsdoctrine while maintaininga Catholic understandingof
immanenttranscendence"(Hungerford2006, 343). Whetherby overcoming
modernity's ruthless disdain for counter-scientificbeliefs, as Crystal
Downing did,or by being spirituallyattractedto exotic easternreligions,as
Alan Lew was,or by a combinationof both,as in the case of DeLillo, many
Americanshave foundthemselveson pathsback to theiroriginalfaiths.5
Epilogue
Soon afterI completed the finalrevisionof thisessay,a fifteenth novel
by DeLillo, entitledPointOmega(2010), was released.It appearsthatDeLillo
had read and reactedto Dewey's three-stagecategorizationof his previous
fourteennovels with the typical"resistanceof modern writersto having
theirarchetypesspotted'" (Frye 1957, 102). Out of "a naturalanxietyto
keep [them] as versatileas possible,not pinned down exclusivelyto one
interpretation," DeLillo proceeded to disarrangethe systemthatDewey had
constructed(1957, 102). He reduces the "street"to burlesque by repeating
it no less thanthirteentimesin a singleparagraph(DeLillo 2010, 67, 68). As
to "words,"the "true life,"saysJim Finley in the firstsentence of chapter
one,"is not reducibleto wordsspoken or written,not by anyone,ever"(17).
The novel's protagonist,Richard Elster,is a fictionalcombinationof "the
tightmindsthatmade the [Iraq] war" (18), thoughPaul Wolfowitz,itslead-
ing architect,is actuallymentionedin passing.From Elster'smouth comes
thisindictmentof words:
We triedto createnewrealities overnight,carefulsetsofwordsthatresem-
ble advertising in and
slogans memorability repeatability. Thesewerewords
thatwouldyieldpictureseventually and thenbecomethree-dimensional.
The reality it walks,it squats.Evenwhenit doesn't.(DeLillo 2010,
stands,
28, 29)
In PointOmega, the"soul" connotesdystopiaratherthantranscendence: "On
filmthe face is the soul.The man is a soul in ... a flawedcharacter
distress,
in a chamberdrama,justifyinghis war and condemningthe men who made
it" (99). With the obfuscationof the street,the word and the soul, the Tri-
Kaya and all allusionsto BuddhismvanishfromDeLillo 's writing.The only
connection to Catholicismis throughFatherTeilhard,the "outlaw priest,"
and his dystopianvision of "the omega point,"at which "[consciousness is
E.Kohn 175
Robert
exhausted"and mankindreturns"to inorganicmatter"(52, 53). In the con-

textof the"blur of technology," which is where DeLillo places it,the omega
point foreshadowshypermodernism (52).
If DeLillo has clouded his archetypes, he has at the same timetightened
his narrativeformatting. PointOmegais the most cohesive of his novels.Its
form is suggestiveof the arch form in music (see Goldford et al. 2011),
althoughcloserto what mightbe called a "capital-omegaform."Two-thirds
of the novel,which correspondto the centralloop of the Greek letter,take
place in Elster'sdesertretreat.The main charactersare Finley,who narrates
thisportion of the novel,Elsterhimself,and his unmarrieddaughterJessie,
whom his ex-wife,terrifiedfortheirdaughter'ssafetyin New York City,has
sent to the desertto be with her father.The denouement of the novel is
excruciating.In the protractedordeal,the relationshipof the youngerFinley
to the devastatedElster,who is poignantlythe same age, seventy-three, as
DeLillo when he wrote the novel,changesfromadversarialto filial.
The remainingtwo scenes,symbolizedby the two flatextremities of the
in
capital omega, are a different style,flatlymatter-of-fact, from the central
loop, which readslike a play.The charactersand the narratorare anonymous
and the latter,omniscientas well.The settingis the actual exhibitionat the
Museum of Modern Artin the late summerand earlyfallof 2006 of Douglas
Gordon's videowork,24 Hour Pyscho, the "old Hitchcock filmprojectedso
slowlyit takestwenty-four hoursto screenthe whole thing"(DeLillo 2010,
47). 6 The scenes in the two flatedges take place on two consecutivedays,
both precedingthose in the centralsection.Aftera carefulreadingof the
entirenovel,one realizesthattwo of the anonymouscharactersin the fore-
word, appropriatelyentitled"Anonymity," are Finleyand Eister,and one of
the anonymouscharactersin the epilogue,entided"Anonymity2: is Jessie.
The main focus in both however,is Jessie'spsychopathicnemesis.It is too
earlyto predictwhere DeLillo is headingin the fourthstage of his writing,
but thereappearsto be a shiftingfromfigurative to literalstages,on which
plays,films, videos and politicalspeeches are presented.
Notes
I am gratefulto PeterWolfeforcarefully
editingan earlierdraftofthispaper;to
threeanonymousreaders,firstforalertingme to the broader
CollegeLiterature's
potentialof myantepenultimate draftand thenforrigorously editingthepenulti-
matedraft;andto HelenAbbottoftheRubinMuseumofArtforpermission to use
thetwoillustrations fromtheMuseum'sstellarcollectionofAsianart.Finally,I take
thisopportunity to thankKostasMyrsiades forgivingme mystarttenyearsago
(Kohn2000) in a new careerthathasenrichedmylife,ifnotextendedit.
1 DeLillo'sassociation
ofAmericanZen,whichhaditsrootsinJapan, with"peo-
ple playingat Easternreligion"may have been derisive.
Postmodern writerslike
Literature
176 College 201
38.4[Fall 1]
DeLillo, Pynchon,Gaddis,Hawkes and Kotzwinklewere attractedto Tibetan

BuddhismratherthanZen. ElsewhereI explainthisbyarguingthatZen, is com-
withthenarrowcodifications of modernity - rationalism,intellectual-
plementary
ism, optimization, -
secularismand utopianismthatpostmodernism repudiated,
whereas TibetanBuddhismtendsto be anti-rational, anti-intellectual,
anti-optimiza-
tional,anti-secular and anti-utopian. This interpretation ofpostmodernism is based
on writingby Huyssenand Jameson(See Kohn 2011a). It appearsthatonlyin
Americahave Zen and TibetanBuddhismbeen confrontational; VirginiaWoolf's
allusionsto Buddhismin Between theActs,perhaps the earliestand most elusivein a
modernnovel,had to do withtheirclassicalantecedents (See Kohn 2010c).
2 TheNameswaspublished soonafter JohnBrademas, formerlyan eleven-term
congressman fromIndianaand housemajority whip,had been appointedpresident
ofNewYorkUniversity.
3 Fora similar tangka withChakrasamvara actually holding buttocks
Vajravarahi's
in hishands,as in DeLillo's text,see Plate69 in MarylinRhie andRobertThurman
(2000,216).AmongthemanyimagesofChakrasamvra andVajravarahiin Rhie and
Thurman, none shows thefemale deitydrawing back the upwardlookingfaceofthe
maledeity as Elise does in the novel, but their intense tonguingis faithful to the
originaltangkas.
4 On 9, 2001,mywifeand I checkedin fora six-dayElderhostel
September
hostedby"Land of MedicineBuddha,"a Tibetan"healingcenter"southof Santa
Cruz,California. Therewereno televisionsetson the forested premises,but we
learnedaboutthe9/11 attackshortly afterit happened from thecook, who had a
smallradioin thekitchen. Everyoneincludingthesurrounding community inwas
needofhealing, and a publicprayer servicewasannouncedforThursday night.The
templewas crowdedwithBuddhistnuns,monksand townspeople waitingto hear
fromthe chieflama,especiallyreveredbecauseof the yearshe had suffered in a
Chineseprison.He talkedaboutthegreattragedy in New YorkCityand askedus
notto forget theterrorists,who withthevictims werenow undergoing thefright-
fultrialsof thebardo.Thatbotheredme andprobably explainswhy,at thefarewell
meetingon the14th, I madecomments thatoffended almosteveryone. I stillcannot
forgivethosehijackers, whichmakesme all themorehumbledthatDeLillo wasable
to do so in FallingMan.
5 As in the case of DeLillo,myinterest in TibetanBuddhismstimulated the
renewalofmyidentification, likewiseon myown terms, withthereligionin which
I wasraised(See Kohn2005b,2009b,2011b).
6 The videowork, LiquidCrystal, byVan McElwee,is associatedwithhyper-
modernism in myrecentessay(Kohn2010b).Whereas24 HourPsycho forcesreality
intostretched-out blocksoftime,LiquidCrystal crushesit intoblocksoftinyrepet-
itiveshards.
E.Kohn 177
Robert
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38.4[Fall
Figure1: BuddhaShakyamuni, Tibet

BuddhistLineage,Bronze,7.75 in.high.
CollectionofRubinArtMuseum(Item
# 700092),NewYork,NY.
Figure2: Chakrasamvara,
Eastern
Tibet,
17thCentury. Karma(Kagyu)Lineage,
12.75 x 8.75 in.GroundMixed
Pigment, FineGold Lineon Cotton.
CollectionofRubinArtMuseum
(ItemNo. 69), NewYork,NY.

Don Lelillo's Novels and Tibetan Buddhism

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Tibetan Buddhism in Don DeLillo's Novels: The Street, The Word and The Soul

Author(s): Robert E. Kohn

Novels: The Street, The Word and

With the exception of Underworld , which is moved fromthe second to the

disciplineupon discipline.There were profits

with begging bowls" are honoring the traditionenshrinedin the begging

and goods,thelamaexaminesthecrownof thehead of thecorpseat the

devoid of their capitals,which appear to have marked the course of the

startledand dismayed"that"they are the targetsof a doctrinalinquisition"

its web" (7)- thismay be a case of DeLillo 's "writingwithoutfullyintend-

centerstage and conquer the whole field of the artisticimagination,thus

evokesan icon ofTibetan

woundshimselfby firinghis lastbulletinto his own hand.Benno,the assassin,

Meditativemethods are intimatedin this description.The palm down and

turnedsouth forfiveblocks,""came to a buildingmarkedGreaterHighway

The firsthalfof thisparagraphis about Haddad and the second half,about

"soul" stage(2007, 90). In thatthirdstagehe battledthe personaldoubt that

exhausted"and mankindreturns"to inorganicmatter"(52, 53). In the con-

DeLillo, Pynchon,Gaddis,Hawkes and Kotzwinklewere attractedto Tibetan

Grant, J.Kerry.1994.A Companion toThe CryingofLot 49."Athens:University of

Lew,Alan,withSherrilJaffe. 1999. One God Clapping: The Spiritual

Figure1: BuddhaShakyamuni, Tibet

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