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An Exploration of Jack
Kerouac's Buddhism: Text
and Life
Sarah Hay nes
Contemporary Buddhism, v ol.6, No. 2, 2005

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.

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 C ity
Blues revealed how important Buddhism had become to the C atholic 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. 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.

When one reads Some of the Dharma and then Scripture, the influence of the one on
the other becomes clear, that writing Dharma led to the formation of the sutra. With
the publication of Scripture Kerouac’s fascination with Buddhism became known to the
world. Subsequently published in 1997, Dharma has allowed readers and scholars
alike to delve into the realm of Kerouac’s American Buddhism, a world constructed in
a formless void of prose, poetry, drawings and one-liners. 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.

Some of the Dha rma

The first of Kerouac’s Buddhist texts, Some of the Dharma, exemplified what came to
be recognized as his unique style of writing. Big Sky Mind: Buddhism and the Beat
Generation notes that, ‘by 1951 ... Kerouac was pioneering a stylistic revolution,
forever changing the nature and content of his writing ...Abandoning conventional
techniques of editing and revision, Kerouac committed himself to a new method, the
practice of spontaneous prose’ (Tonkinson 1995, 23 – 4). The ‘spontaneous prose’
that became Kerouac’s hallmark was simply one of the unconventional techniques he
employed in the writing of Dharma. As already noted, the construction of this book
began as correspondence with Ginsberg about the excitement Kerouac was feeling
about the discoveries he was making. In a way Kerouac wanted to ‘turn on’ Ginsberg
to the teachings of the Buddha. The volume of the text continued to swell in
accordance with the deepening of Kerouac’s interest in Buddhism. Eventually Dharma
included many forms and literary devices. The so-called stylistic revolution of Jack
Kerouac unfolded with the few years it took to write this book.

Unlike other Kerouac books, Some of the Dharma involved more than his typical
usage of prose. Before the organization of material is discussed it is important to note
and to keep in mind that this text was published posthumously and Kerouac was in no
way part of the publication process. While the publishers remained true to every
aspect of Kerouac’s laborious and specific effort in presentation, it will never be
known if the manuscript is how Kerouac would have intended. It took him years of
hard work to type the manuscript as it is presently seen. Kerouac implemented many
different techniques and inventions in the form and presentation of Dharma. For
example, many of his poems and sketches can be seen to take different shapes, often
in diagonal slants or outlined in lines and rows of hyphens and asterisks (Kerouac
1997, 287, 299, 328). The presentation of this text was unconventional for its time, as
well as an innovation for the author. In response to an editor about his different
stylistic techniques, Kerouac wrote that

‘the reason for the dashes is to give the reader advance visual warning of
the impending end of a sentence which after all is a rhetorical expostulation
based on breathing and has to end, and I make it end with vigorous release
sign, i.e., the dash ...’ (Brinkley 1998, 68 – 9).

Even though the presentation of Dharma was aesthetically different, the form,
organization of materials and ideas were also a departure from most of the works of
the post-war era. Kerouac’s main focus or argument in Some of the Dharma is
presented to the reader in an original and rarely seen way. Although in most texts
organization of argument and presentation are different from one another, in Dharma
the medium is the message, for reasons soon to be explained. The visual presentation
of the text engages the reader just as much as the content does. On page 342
Kerouac provided an explanation of the various techniques of the Duluoz Legend. The
publishers felt it was highly important that the readers be acutely aware of these
techniques, and so they were printed on the front and back of the book. It is
necessary to outline these techniques as Kerouac used them in almost every instance
of Dharma. The first stylistic method that was utilized in the organization of Kerouac’s
material is ‘TIC ’. As stated in the book, a ‘Tic is a vision suddenly of memory. The
ideal, formal Tic ... is one short and one long sentence, generally about 50 words in
all, the intro sentence and the explaining sentence ...’ (Kerouac 1997, 342).

Here Kerouac merely shapes the descriptive paragraph in a simple manner, which
includes the use of dashes as markers of breath. His use of TIC S in Dharma was far
less common than the other techniques. In all Kerouac lists twelve techniques that can
be found in Dharma; in addition to TIC there are also Dream, Pop, Blues, Ecstasy,
Movie, Vision, Flash, Daydream, Routine, Sketch and Dharma. Those most often used
are POP, which is ‘American (non-Japanese) Haikus, short 3-line poems or “pomes”
rhyming or non-rhyming delineating “little Samadhis” if possible, usually of a Buddhist
connotation, aimed towards enlightenment’ (Kerouac 1997, 342); and FLASH,
‘Dreamflashes, short sleepdreams or drowse daydreams of an enlightened nature
describable in a few words’ (Kerouac 1997. 342). Kerouac used all of these techniques
in the organization of the material in Dharma and in the structure of the text’s focus.

These techniques are all a part of the most extensive and encompassing technique
called DHARMA—notes in any form about the dharma. Of course this is the technique
in which the entire text of Dharma was written. The key aspect is that with DHARMA
all text takes place in the present. The implementation of this technique allowed
Kerouac to engage the reader while still using other stylistic forms. The effect of these
various techniques is a visual format that stimulates the eye as well as allowing the
reader to make a quick identification of the state of mind that Kerouac was in while
writing that particular section of the text. For example, if the reader is well aware of
the characteristics of each technique then one can discern whether Kerouac was
daydreaming or having a sudden memory. He demands of the reader an involvement
in Dharma that is more than a simple reading, he creates a flow in the text that
requires knowledge of his techniques.

As previously stated, the organization of Kerouac’s ‘argument’ or main focus and the
presentation of the text are the exact same thing because of what Dharma is about. A
central preoccupation is the Buddhist notion of impermanence and how everything is
formless. Even though this text was constructed into various techniques and divided
into 10 books, Kerouac stated how the text has no form. He writes:

Bear with me, wise readers, in that I’ve chosen no form for the Book of
Mind Because everything has no form, and when you’ve finished reading
this book you will have had a glimpse of everything, presented in the way
that everything comes: in piecemeal bombardments, continuously, rat tat
tatting the pure pictureless liquid of Mind essence. (Kerouac 1997, 147)

Technically and literally this text has form and a definite structure; however, in light of
the teachings expounded by Kerouac’s Buddha-nature and written while engaged in
daily dhyana, it indeed does not have a clear form, only existing as an arbitrary
relative condition. Robert A. Hipkiss writes: ‘Kerouac’s venture into Buddhism enabled
him to dissolve the complex forms of day-to-day living into nothingness’ (Hipkiss
1976, 72). This dissolution of complex forms included, for Kerouac, his daily task of
writing structured novels. With the support of Buddhist philosophy, Kerouac declared
that the ‘consciousness of the Mind is the source of all’ (Kerouac 1997, 204).
Therefore, the form of Dharma is a mere attribute of our awareness or an arbitrary
conception of the mind.

The division of Dharma into 10 separate books appears to have been done with no
particular motive, as there are no distinct topics for any of the 10 books. The different
subdivisions appear to be a matter of convenience for Kerouac. While there are no
uniform or single distinguishable topics in each book, Kerouac did make sure to
highlight each area of importance on every page. For example, Kerouac would
capitalize the main focus of his discussion, whether in the middle of a paragraph or at
the beginning sentence. ‘NATURE, and the absence of NATURE, or the WORLD, and
the absence of the WORLD, Are two sides/of the same Mind’ (Kerouac 1997, 337).
Along with this little stylistic device Kerouac also included such things as doodlings to
illustrate the way of proper Western meditation (Kerouac 1997, 279), hand-written
arrows that direct the reader’s eye to the flow of the page (Kerouac 1997, 354), and
the implementation of both French and Patois to illustrate points of interest (Kerouac
1997, 38, 301).

The various techniques and stylistic devices Kerouac used in Some of the Dharma
were influenced by the reason for writing it. His enthusiastic interest in Buddhism led
to the writing, but in the content of the material one can also see that many other
factors were influential in its completion. While the main focus of Dharma was the
teachings of the Buddha, it was through this content that Kerouac revealed much
about his own life. Perhaps a reason why Dharma contains so much personal
information is that his primary intention was for the content to be privately used
between himself and friends, and the idea of publication came later as the text
evolved. Originally it was somewhat of a Buddhism for Beginners book—with Kerouac
as the beginner—starting with The Four Noble Truths and other basic concepts. Ann
C harters writes that he ‘was profoundly in agreement with the First Noble Truth of the
Buddha’s teaching, that all life is suffering’ (C harters 1995, 581). Kerouac begins
Book One with basics, definitions of fundamental concepts such as nirvana, karma,
dharma and kama, and a bibliography for beginning Buddhists. He must have realized
that Dharma was more than an elementary text and correspondence with friends,
since it appears that the succeeding Books became more evolved and delve deeper
into Buddhist philosophy. Kerouac moved from simple definitions in Book One to
analogies between him and a tiger in Book Three, to in-depth reflection about rebirth
and individuality in Book Four, and in Book Eight he placed emphasis on
Avalokitesvara and the Womb of Exuberant Fertility. On 7 – 8 December Kerouac
writes of Avalokitesvara:

The universe is a Womb of Exuberant

Fertility (Asvhaghosha) at base an incon-
ceivable silence and purity and emptiness—
Existence is a frown on Avalokitesvara’s
pure brow—a cloud in the clear mind of
God—
Avalokitesvara has made himself into
all things, he made himself into
blades of grass, cars speeding down the road,
toy lambs, the sun, old trees once young,
me—
Why did he make himself into a Womb of
Exuberant Fertility? He made himself into
someone asking that question—
He is exuberant (as you can see) when
a man is stomping another to death with
his shoes, — when a Bodhisattva Awakened
Hero listens to the Inconceivable Silence. (Kerouac 1997, 353)

In this poem Kerouac’s spiritual questing can be seen as he erupts onto paper asking
the great questions of existence. Kerouac saw this Buddhist text as more than a
documentation of an intense interest in Buddhism; for him, it was an act of release.
Kerouac’s spiritual journey was a shouting out and release of the bothersome things
in his life while in opposition to the quiet introspective inward journey. He attempted
to embody the realizations he was having, and in doing so Dharma became an act of
meditation. This meditative act included the composition of the material and creation
of the visual aspects, helping him come to terms with his lifestyle and beliefs. One
should keep in mind that Kerouac was attempting to reconcile his lifestyle with his
newfound interest in Buddhism when he began to write this text in 1953.

As a Buddhist text Some of the Dharma details the essentials of Mahayana

Philosophy. Without previous knowledge in the higher forms of Buddhism, Kerouac’s
formless text will appear to be the ramblings of a fool. However, once the reader
works through Kerouac’s maze of thoughts, diary entries, meditations, poetry and
prose they see that Kerouac was great at providing the reader with a combination of
personal narrative and reflections and retellings of Buddhist doctrine.

Kerouac’s main focus in Dharma came to rest mostly on the notion of suffering and its
causes. The notion of suffering, besides being the cornerstone of Buddhist philosophy,
was especially appropriate for Kerouac as his life appears to have revolved around
the anguish that his own lifestyle created. He struggled to define what was real, and
what really mattered to him. On the one hand he outlined a strenuous regime or
‘Modified Ascetic Life’, while on the other he could not resist the temptations of
friends, drugs, alcohol and women, all of which brought him tremendous suffering.
Kerouac resolved to lead a monastic life; however, this resolution, written relatively
early in the text, was broken short eight days later (Kerouac 1997, 138), a sign that
his bhikkuhood and potential enlightenment were at the far end of a path fraught with
the temptations of the world. Kerouac could not seem to take refuge in these four
precepts for more than a matter of days.

The frustration that Kerouac felt in his daily dhyanas and in attempting to lead a pure
life is evident in Dharma. When he starts drinking again his mood shifts, and changes
in the text are apparent. While he is drunk in a cornfield, Kerouac’s poetry takes on a
different tone and style. He states:

‘The earth is one,

not Two’
I said
In the moonlit
cornfield at
the Woods Edge
But a huge bug
landed on my arm
to mock me
And the tree
Waved at me
With its million eyes
Va-v-a-vh-as-hh
All is same. (Kerouac 1997, 71)

The rhyming nature of this poem is unlike the rest of the text, as is the discussion of
such a topic—cornfields—both influenced by his intoxication. It was at moments like
this that Kerouac’s practice of Buddhism became his second priority, as his first was
the bliss he felt while drunk.

Although such instances occur throughout the writing of Dharma, the text remains
Buddhist in nature and such occurrences only add to the honesty and personal quality
that help readers relate to Kerouac. For Kerouac, Dharma became a living manuscript
of his daily thoughts and prayers that came to reflect every aspect of his life, from
squabbles with his mother about his Buddhist practice, to his friends’ and colleagues’
lack of acceptance of his teaching of the Dharma, and the inner turmoil he felt as a
result of these personal conflicts. At times Kerouac saw himself as a great teacher of
Buddhism, and indeed as a Bodhisattva. At the end of 1954 he wrote of his conflicts in
light of his role as a Buddhist:

As it’s now Dec. 19, 1954, the end of this pivotal year is near—and I am at
the lowest beatest ebb of my life, trapped by the police, ‘retained in dismal
places,’ scorned and ‘cheated’ by my friends (plagiarists), misunderstood
by my family, meanwhile mutilating myself (burning hands, benzedrine,
smoking, goofballs), also full of alcoholic sorrow and dragged down by the
obligations of others, considered a criminal and insane and a sinner and an
imbecile, myself self-disappointed & endlessly sad because I’m not doing
what I knew should be done a whole year ago when the Buddha’s printed
words showed me the path ... a year’s delay, a deepening of the sea of
troubles, sickness, old age creeping around my tired eyes, decrepitude and
dismay, loss of solitude & purity—I must exert my intelligence now to
 secure the release of this Bodhisattva from the chains of the C ity. (Kerouac
1997, 185)

Kerouac’s Catholicism

The pressure of an ever-devout C atholic family often caused Kerouac much stress
and confusion as to whether his Buddhahood was meant to be. He seems to have
found solace in reading the Diamond Sutra, his favourite Buddhist text. The Buddhist
texts that originally influenced Kerouac came to be those that he looked to alleviate
confusion and pain.

Even though Kerouac was enamoured of the Buddhist literature that he found in
Dwight Goddard’s A Buddhist Bible, what becomes visible when reading Dharma is
that his C atholic background could not be ignored. Kerouac’s family was too important
for him to ignore their stress on the benefits of the C atholic tradition. Thus, Kerouac’s
C atholic voice, both positive and negative, carries throughout the text. The presence
of this voice is seen in such instances as when he refers to the ‘Virgin Mary & Buddha
are UNO’ (Kerouac 1997, 70), or when he relates the C atholic religion to an ‘early
expression of a primitive culture’ (Kerouac 1997, 99). At times Kerouac seems to
have found a peaceful balance between his newfound Buddhist practice and his strict
C atholic upbringing. In a January dhyana, Kerouac writes:

In my Dhyana today Jan. 11 I had ‘Adoration to No-C ontact’ and other

rhythmic tantrisms. If anything bothers you, cease contacting it, that’s
all.—If anything pleases you, beware of contacting it (during meditation &
even all day.) I had a vision of the Virgin Mary and C hild in a little round
clasp; it magnified and got dimmer. I thought ‘S’pensage ici est arrestez’.
(Kerouac 1997, 222)

The final sentence can be translated as ‘this thinking is stopping here’. Here Kerouac
has an experience that reflects his C hristian background while engaged in his daily
Buddhist practice. The result of both religious influences was, as stated in Big Sky
Mind, that Kerouac ‘happily conflated Jesus C hrist with Avalokitesvara, the
bodhisattva of compassion. After all, he explained, a lot of people say he is Maitreya
[which] means Love in Sanskrit and that all C hrist talked about was love’ (Tonkinson
1995. 17). The outcome of this notion became apparent in the writing of Dharma.
Although a text of Buddhist nature, Kerouac tended to tie all religions into one
Universal belief, particularly Taoism, Buddhism and C hristianity. Kerouac was
continually concerned with arbitrary relative conditions and ignorance; ideas that
became major concerns throughout the entire text.

He applies the notion of arbitrary relative conditions to what appears to be the

C hristian idea of original sin, or as he writes ‘my original ignorance’. Therefore, while
Kerouac’s ultimate considerations stayed within the realm of Buddhism, especially
Mahayana philosophy, he instituted much of his C atholic childhood teachings into
areas concerned with Buddhism. The question can be raised of whether Kerouac used
Buddhist doctrines to justify his feelings about what he had learned as a child and the
things he was trying to come to terms with in his personal life—how closely are
Kerouac’s personal life and religious identity as a C atholic linked to his appropriation
of Buddhism?

The Scripture of the Golden Eternity

The view that Kerouac used veiled aspects of C hristianity can be seen in Some of the
Dharma and continues to appear in the sutra that he wrote in spring 1956. The
Scripture of the Golden Eternity is a remarkable Buddhist Sutra that reveals aspects
of different traditions, as may be seen even in its title. Anne Waldman writes in the
Introduction that:

Traditionally ‘sutra’ comes from the Sanskrit root ‘siv,’ meaning a thread or
yarn. It also carries the implication of meeting point or junction, referring to
the interstice of Buddha’s enlightenment with the student’s understanding. A
sutra is historically a dialogue between the Gotama & one or more of his
disciples, and carries the orally delivered, exact words of the Buddha.
Scripture, on the other hand, suggests the C hristian canon—the Holy
Scriptures or sacred writings of the Bible. (Kerouac 1994, 1 –2)

What we already see in the title is the C hristian influence that remained with Kerouac
even when he was in the process of writing a ‘traditional’ Buddhist text. His C hristian
background in fact is revealed throughout. Near the beginning Kerouac equates
himself with the C hosen One or the Messiah (Kerouac 1994, 24), and later he seems
happy in reflecting the Buddhist with the C hristian. In scripture #37 Kerouac writes:

... Had the Buddha, the Awakened One,cherished any of these imaginary
judgementsof and about things he would have falleninto impatience and
hatred in his suffering.Instead, like Jesus on the C ross he saw the light and
died kind, loving all living things. (Kerouac 1994, 41)

Kerouac provides a refraction of the C hristianity that was often problematic in life.
Instead of criticizing the tradition of his childhood, Kerouac changes its direction or
path by conflating C atholic with Buddhist ideas. This merging of traditions elucidates
the previously mentioned fact that Scripture was written after the completion of
Dharma, so that a number of themes are concurrent. The format of Scripture,
however, does not directly parallel that of Dharma; in certain parts of the first text
there are instances where Kerouac made attempts to write condensed versions of
sutras (e.g., on page 338 of Dharma, Kerouac has included the Envelope Sutra,
originally written on an envelope).

People think of self as a private possession because they are cogs on a

wheel that keeps turning out self after self in rebirth after rebirth of
selfhood. I will have to preach the only possible truth: The abolishing of
death by extermination of birth. Life control. Put an end to human rebirth,
by abstaining from sexual intercourse. Everybody stop breeding, or by
method of-birth-control stop birth. At the same time, stop killing for sport or
for eating living beings; they tremble at punishment and death too.
Everybody live off vegetables and synthetic foods, causing no pain
anywhere. Everybody abstain from panic and wait for death finally. For
human beings, the rest will be ecstasy. For all other living, sentient beings
the hint will be taken. A chain reaction throughout existence in all ten
directions of space exterminating existence by quiet will, in tranquility and
purity. This is the word from everlasting eternity, it is the First Teaching.
The Second Teaching is, that there was no First Teaching from the
everlasting eternity. (Kerouac 1997, 338)

This sutra from Dharma reflects the purpose of such a text as may be seen in
traditional Buddhist sutras and in Kerouac’s own Scripture of the Golden Eternity. The
function of the sutra rests in it being a collection of discourses or teachings of the
Buddha, or, in this case, Kerouac.
The content of Scripture is similar to Dharma in many ways, yet differs in others.
Kerouac presents his ‘case’ much more formally, thus limiting himself in ways that he
did not have to in Dharma. In the scriptures of the sutra Kerouac did not use the
unconventional asterisks, doodles and hyphens seen in Dharma. Scripture’s small
38-page text is divided into 66 scriptures, which Kerouac managed to fill with
doublespeak logic that seems to have come quite naturally to him. Anne Waldman
states:

Because the thinking’s heady enough to make you crazy, there’s a tendency in
Buddhist matters to generate a magical language. To the outsider these illogical
syllogisms sound like gibberish, doublespeak. They’re golden to a poet’s ear. Sanskrit
poetics speaks of Sandhyabasha or twilight speech, which is an ‘upsidedown’ language
harbouring contradictions and paradoxes. The Buddhist sutras, of which Kerouac’s
Scripture is so redolent, are filled with these contraries. (Kerouac 1994, 2)

Kerouac loaded the short scriptures with haikus, Zen koans, poetry, prose and
meditations that, like Dharma, reflected his inner search for enlightenment and
outward quest for the meaning of the universe. The conflicted Kerouac of the first text
appears to be absent from Scripture. Kerouac emerges in this latter as a man who
was at peace with the realizations that he had made. In the second paragraph of his
sutra, describing the Golden Eternity, Kerouac appears to be in a much more blissful
state. He states:

The awakened Buddha to show the way, the

chosen Messiah to die in the degradation
of sentience, is the golden eternity. One that
is what is, the golden eternity, or God, or,
Tathagata—the name. The Named One.
The human God. Sentient Godhood.
Animate Divine. The Deified One.
The Verified One. The Free One.
The Liberator. The Still One.
The Settled One. The Established One.
Golden Eternity. All is Well.
The Empty One. The Ready One.
The Quitter. The Sitter.
The Justified One. The Happy One. (Kerouac 1994, 23 – 4)

Here Kerouac shows an upbeat mood that was often shadowed in Dharma by his
bouts with drinking, drugs and his family. Two stanzas later, Kerouac declared:

I was awakened to show the way, chosen to

die in the degradation of life, because I am
Mortal Golden Eternity. (Kerouac 1994, 24)

And two paragraphs following, Kerouac discussed further his place:

Strictly speaking, there is no me, because all is

emptiness. I am empty, I am non-existent.
All is bliss. (Kerouac 1994, 25)

Kerouac focused the material of his sutra around the Buddhist notion of emptiness
and the nature of form as being consistent with concepts of emptiness. Waldman
writes in the introduction that ‘Kerouac’s Scripture is accurately onto the profound
dharma teaching of form is emptiness, emptiness is form, emptiness is no other than
form, form is no other than emptiness ...’ (Kerouac 1994, 4). Scripture has been
praised for its accuracy and brilliance, including by Eric Mottram who writes:

‘Kerouac’s sutra is a controlled praise for the overwhelming sense of

release afforded by contemplation of the Dharma Law which says: All
things is made of the same thing which is nothing, the same thing which is
essence, pure nature, the silence you hear inside the emptiness, the movie
in your mind’ (Kerouac 1994, 14).

While Kerouac offered a meditation of emptiness and form, it is important to note that
Kerouac’s emphasis was on the golden eternity. This aspect of time differs from the
text of Dharma, where time was always in the present, while often looking towards
the tragic future, but in his sutra time and eternity is golden and things have already
been attained. The manner in which Kerouac presented his golden eternity used the
form of Buddhist sutras; however, he also employed the Zen practice of koans. This
was a departure for Kerouac since at this point in his life he was not as interested in
Zen Buddhism as he was with other Mahayana schools. In Dharma Kerouac tended to
shy away from Zen, and indeed there are moments in the text where he provided
criticisms of this branch of Buddhism. In Scripture Kerouac has provided the reader
with a few enigmatic scriptures that could be considered reflections of Zen koans.

The Zen aspect of Kerouac’s sutra is quite interesting when compared with his attitude
towards Zen in Some of the Dharma.In Dharma Kerouac regarded Zen in a lesser
light than Mahayana. He saw Mahayana as the purer form of Buddhism, writing that
‘Mahayana is the essence of Reality’ (Kerouac 1997, 251). In Book Seven he related
his feelings about Zen Buddhism. His explanation:

The trouble with Zen idea of Sudden Attainment is because it depends on

an arbitrary conception of time ...since there is no real substantiality to the
reality of objects, then time is likewise unreal, and so the moment when
‘sudden realization’ takes place also is unreal ... Zen is a modern shallow
naive almost ‘popular’ innocent idea ...the Truth is already in the Mind.
(Kerouac 1997, 301)

Kerouac obviously felt that he had real reasons to disapprove of Zen. A few pages
later he wrote:

True Buddhism is Sincerity & Aryan Forgiveness

(has nothing to do with Zen Wise Ego)
(& Zen socking one another—socking, sucking,
what’s the difference?). (Kerouac 1997, 308)

Kerouac’s original influence was that of the Indian Mahayana Buddhism, and, as is
evident in these passages, his interest in Zen was limited, but at the same time
Kerouac had respect for D.T. Suzuki, for he read him intently and quoted him in
Dharma. From this respect and interest in Suzuki, Kerouac came to be influenced by
the Zen tradition of haiku poetry. Tonkinson suggests that he ‘resisted Zen because of
his conviction that it emphasized attaining mystical insight rather than cultivating
compassion’ (Tonkinson 1995. 17). Perhaps Kerouac felt that Zen Buddhism would
lead him deeper into the world of temptations and peer pressure because it was
becoming such a socially attractive and popular tradition. Whatever Kerouac’s true
reasons for not identifying himself with Zen, the fact is that he was intrigued by its
literary aspect, and this led to the compositions of the koans and haikus in both Some
of the Dharma and The Scripture of the Golden Eternity.

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:

... 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 ... (Kerouac 1994, 59 – 60)

This experience of enlightenment or awakening that originated with a fainting spell

appears to have affected Kerouac in such a way as to change his outlook on time and
the here and now, similarly to the outcome of a near death experience. This moment
of realization appears to reflect the accounts of the Buddha’s experience under the
Bodhi tree. Hence, the result of this experience was a collapsing of time, a realization
that the present was the golden age for Kerouac, one that influenced his daily practice
and took shape in his sutra. The knowledge that Kerouac reaped from his
enlightenment experience was that which he wrote in Scripture as the first teaching of
the golden eternity.

This first teaching is the knowledge Kerouac gained from his experience of
awakening, a Buddha-nature type realization. Kerouac did not have the answers to
life’s big questions yet his golden eternity became his response to what became
unbearable in his life. Kerouac’s teaching or reasoning may seem like a childlike
cop-out of the conflicts in one’s life, but his vision of the golden eternity is in line with
Buddhist philosophy as his second teaching confirms. The final scripture of Kerouac’s
sutra reveals his second and final teaching:

The second teaching from the golden eternity

is that there never was a first teaching
 from the golden eternity. So be sure. (Kerouac 1994, 61)

‘This second teaching is directly related to the concepts that can be found in
Dharma.In Scripture Kerouac continued to focus on the Buddhist views regarding
emptiness, nothingness and arbitrary conceptions. Nothing exists but as an arbitrary
conception of the mind and senses. Kerouac’s emphasis on the notion of arbitrary
relative conceptions is less obscure in Dharma as he writes:

—FORM IN THE NORM—

Instead of bothering with either one side of the coin
or the other, throw it away—in the same way,
instead of bothering with either arbitrary conception
of manifested phenomena or non-manifested non-phenomena,
the coin of existence,
throw it away—
Rest beyond conception. (Kerouac 1997, 248)

A few pages earlier, Kerouac writes ADORATION TO THE MIND OF BUDDHA:

It only happens when you make it happen—if you touch the wall with your
fingertip, perception of touch responds from emptiness where it abides in a
pure enlightened state, obeys, suffers the restraint placed upon its wisdom
nature, and appears as perception of touch of a wall in your fingertip. After
the act, it vanished back to Origin Mind. (Kerouac 1997, 235)

It is concepts such as these Kerouac conveyed in Dharma that correspond to his

knowledge of ‘the golden eternity’. During a Monday meditation practice in the North
C arolina woods, Kerouac writes:

—the great huge drowsy Golden Age sensation

that opened in my brain at this worded realization, as if the knowledge was
older than the world—With the eyes closed only is it truly eerie, eerily
true—
and True—This is the Voice of the Tathagata speaking from the Brightness
Beyond Existence, the True Mind, the One Mind,— (Kerouac 1997, 258)

A few lines later Kerouac continues:

Rediscover the ancient dream of man, the sensation of the Golden Age of
Existence, in the details of this man’s life ... mine ... as I cease stimulants
and narcotics, my mind yearns to recreate the Mighty Legend of Duluoz—In
every instant of the drowsy dream so long finished & done—The Paean of a
New American Song—. (Kerouac 1997, 258)

Kerouac’s Buddhist texts

Kerouac’s vision of ‘the golden eternity’ and his two Buddhist writings were influenced
by many factors, including Mahayana Buddhism; in particular, texts such as the
Surangama Sutra, Lankavatara Scripture and the Diamond Sutra. Even though
Dharma appears to be a reworking of primary sources, and reinterpretations of
theories, its importance goes beyond what is actually written. Together the two texts
reveal a lot about the author, his practice, personal struggles and, more significantly,
the influence and relation that Kerouac had and continues to have on Western
Buddhism and to practitioners.
To look at the role that Jack Kerouac has played and continues to play in the rise and
changes within Buddhism in the West, one must first look at what was instrumental in
bringing about the rise of Buddhism in his life. In Dharma Kerouac provided a list of
texts that were pivotal in peaking his interest in Eastern philosophies. The
bibliography that is given in Book One allows the reader to get an idea of where
Kerouac’s interests originated. The most significant of these books for Kerouac was A
Buddhist Bible by Dwight Goddard. Kerouac’s connection with the texts condensed in
Goddard’s book is obvious when reading Dharma.As an anthology of Buddhist texts,
Goddard supplied Kerouac, as well as many Westerners, with the opportunity to
become familiar with various Buddhist sources and to study the dharma more
comprehensively. Kerouac was so taken with Goddard’s book that he memorized
pages of text and a couple of times in Dharma one can find Goddard’s C alifornia
address. On pages 213 and 329 Kerouac exhibits his fascination with Dwight Goddard
and his surprise that they lived so close to each other:

Dwight Goddard is at 60 Las Encinas Lane, Santa Barbara, C alif.—wow.

(Kerouac
1997, 213)

Just over 100 pages later, Kerouac tosses in the address without labeling it as
Goddard’s:

60
Las Encinas
Lane
Monastery of
Santa Barbara, C alif. (Kerouac 1997, 329)

The three sections of Goddard’s collection that most influenced Kerouac are the
Diamond Sutra, the Surangama Sutra and the Lankavatara Scripture. Each had
tremendous influence on Kerouac’s writing as their main themes flow through both of
the texts being discussed. The theme of the Diamond Sutra is that all things, ideas
and phenomena are subjective and non-existent. ‘... all definitive things, phenomena
and ideas are subjective and unreal, being merely manifestations of one’s mind; that
even the highest conceptions of the Dharma and of Tathagata are mind-made and
empty’ (Goddard 1994, 661). These characteristics of the Diamond Sutra are
conveyed in Kerouac’s books, as shown in the excerpts already cited.

The second influential piece from Goddard’s text was the Surangama Sutra, whose
focus is on the steps for attaining Supreme Enlightenment and Highest Samadhi. The
aspect of the text that seemed to impress Kerouac was the details regarding the
mental preparations for dhyana practice in achieving enlightenment. ‘The successive
steps are given in such detail and are so intelligently interpreted that if faithfully
followed from their beginning in counting breaths to their goal, one will surely attain
Enlightenment and Samadhi’ (Goddard 1994, 665). Kerouac must have read the
Surangama Sutra and have felt that enlightenment was possible for himself, as may
have been the case with the experience of awakening in Scripture. However, it was
not until Kerouac read the Lankavatara Scripture that he realized suffering could
cease (Hipkiss 1976, 65), although one finds plenty of examples of both the
Surangama Sutra and the Lankavatara Scripture in Dharma. On pages 201 – 4
Kerouac provides his lengthy version of the Surangama Sutra with the ‘wording
rearranged for the understanding of Western minds’ (Kerouac 1997, 201). This
rewording shows that Kerouac was aware of the problems that Westerners sometimes
encounter in Buddhist practice. By using repetitive motifs and less ‘heady’ wording,
Kerouac has provided a translation of Surangama that is understandable for the
average Westerner. For example:

Neither location is true. There’s no reality in the statement that distance

separates your eyeballs and the springs and pools they see due to some
mysterious consciousness that applies all over, which is Mysterious Mind
Essence. So when your eyeballs see the springs and pools, no True C ause
can be pointed out to explain for the seer (the eyeballs), the seen (the
springs and pools), and the seeing (consciousness) except the True Mind.
(Kerouac 1997, 202)

Here we see Kerouac employing simple language to explain the material in the
Surangama Sutra followed by parentheses that correspond to the idea being
articulated.

The influence of the Lankavatara Scripture is evident in Kerouac’s discussion of the

origins and developments of cognition, and the progressions of false imagination and
knowledge as stemming from ignorance. These concepts are present in both Scripture
and Dharma, along with ideas about transcendental intelligence and the realization
and intuition of Noble Wisdom as outlined in the Lankavatara Scripture. ‘The theme of
it is to elucidate the profoundest experience that comes to the human spirit. It
everywhere deprecated dependence upon words and doctrines and urges upon all the
wisdom of making a determined effort to attain this highest experience’ (Goddard
1994, 668). In relation to Dharma Kerouac included direct quotes from the Suzuki and
Goddard translation of Lankavatara with corresponding page numbers, as well as
writing his own interpretation of the text and the Nirvana of the Tathagata. Kerouac
writes:

LANKAVATARA—THE FINAL STAGE

—Being a Tathagata transformation oneself, you yield yourself up to all
beings for the sake of their eventual emancipation—You have no more
desires, passions, make no more discriminations, and patiently accept that
you have no more ego than the moon reflected in the water. ‘—The life that
you live thereafter is the Tathagata’s Universalized life as manifested in its
transformations’— ...(Kerouac 1997, 321)

Goddard’s A Buddhist Bible provided Kerouac with the basics for his Buddhist practice.

Kerouac’s impact

From the influence of Goddard on Kerouac comes the influence and impact of Kerouac
on generations of people in the West. The question remains whether Kerouac’s
deciphering of Buddhism spawned a ‘new’ Buddhism in North America. There was
most definitely an Americanization of certain aspects of Buddhism happening, but
were there enough changes occurring within the tradition to declare the emergence of
a new branch of Buddhism? Was it enough that alterations were being made to
traditional practices to claim the development of a new form of Buddhism? In the
foreword to Goddard’s text, Atkin concedes that Kerouac was instrumental in
Americanizing Buddhism and establishing a culture that flourished around the Zen
centres in North America (Goddard 1994, viii). Would this culture have existed without
Kerouac’s influence and Buddhist texts?

What helped in establishing Buddhism in North America was the manner in which
Kerouac related Buddhism to his readers. As mentioned earlier, Kerouac’s approach
was honest and personal, relating his struggles and frustrations with his daily practice.
It became possible for budding Buddhists to identify with someone in the same
situation. Kerouac suffered through sitting meditation with the pain of phlebitis, ‘a
battle with pain of legs’ (Kerouac 1997, 188). Because of the pain he experienced and
the realization that most Westerners cannot sit in the full lotus position, Kerouac
explained his method of Western Buddhist Meditation in Some of the Dharma with
instructions and a drawing that illustrates the proper positioning of the body. His
method states:

The main thing is to forget completely about your body without falling
asleep. Since most Westerners cant cross their legs in Oriental fashion, in
the Lotus Posture, it’s best to arrange the legs straight out, at times, with
soft mats, and forget them; but to lean only the small of the back against
your support, so keeping the whole back, neck & head erect and alert for
the coming of Samadhi ecstasy. (Kerouac 1997, 279)

Kerouac’s practical descriptions and effort in realizing the needs of Westerners was of
assistance in his Americanizing of Buddhism. Kerouac was aware of the difficulty of
practicing traditional Buddhism in North America, as he began to draw attention to
himself. Whether this attention was positive or negative, the fact of the matter is that
Kerouac was in the public eye. In a sense Kerouac relished the attention he received
but he also wanted to be happy and his fame seemed to cause turmoil in his life.
Realizing this, Kerouac was in search of a loner lifestyle with monastic undercurrents.
Big Sky Mind quotes Kerouac as saying, ‘all I want as far as life-plans are concerned
from here on out, is compassionate, contented solitude-Bhikkuhood is so hard to
make in the West-it would have to be some American streamlined Bhikkuhood,
because so far all I’ve done is attract attention’ (Tonkinson 1995, 25). Kerouac was
cognizant of the impact he was having on the young people of the 1950s and 1960s
generations—but what he really wanted was to teach Buddhism, not simply to garner
attention.

Both of Kerouac’s texts relate his vision for America and Buddhism. In Scripture
Kerouac dreams of the golden eternity, while in Dharma he planned ways in which he
would teach the concepts of Buddhism to Americans. Kerouac went so far as to
explain the approach he would take in teaching Southerners, for he must have
thought them to be more pious to their C hristian faith than other American citizens.
Kerouac explained:

TO EXPLAIN THE DHARMA to ordinary Americans, like say, Southerners, I

will substitute the expression Mind Essence for The Mind of God, using
upaya skill thereby to help their understanding; then should a perceptive
listener ask me ‘Who made God?’ I can say ‘Mind-only’. (Kerouac 1997,
198)

The Southerners must have affected Kerouac on his travels across the country, as
Dharma includes not only ways of conveying Buddhist concepts specifically to these
C hristians, but also a two-page sermon called ‘Preaching to A Southerner’. In this
sermon Kerouac strikes his Buddhist message on a chord of the suffering Southern
evangelist worker.

It was smart of Kerouac to relate his Buddhist message to the pious southerners in
terms of C hristian ethics and problems. This trickery employed in Kerouac’s teaching
of Buddhism attests to his awareness of the state of mind of North Americans who in
 the 1950s were steeped in the idea that hard work is the way to achieve the American
Dream.

Kerouac as teacher of Buddhism was aware of the alterations needed and the ways in
which his students, as C hristian Americans, would understand the dharma. Does the
approach that Kerouac took and the substitutions of Buddhist expressions allow us to
classify his teachings as a new American form of Buddhism? Some people would
believe this to be true, for Kerouac claimed he wanted to pursue the life of a Bhikku
and recommended others to follow the same lifestyle; however, Kerouac could not
endure the strict monastic way of living. The formation of meditation and dharma
centres in North America are far from the monastic institutions of the East, so are
these Western Buddhist centres indirectly part of Kerouac’s doing and influence?
Although his sudden death preceded the formation of the majority of dharma centres,
it is without doubt that Kerouac helped bring Buddhism into the consciousness of
many North Americans. With the help of people like Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and
Philip Whalen, Buddhism began to flourish in America, particularly in C alifornia.
Kerouac’s influence was felt after his death and continues to be discussed in Buddhist
circles. One only has to pick up a copy of Tricycle to read Kerouac’s life-story of the
Buddha (Issues 8 and 15) or head to the Naropa Institute to engage in Kerouac’s
poetics and American Buddhism. Jack Kerouac’s vision of the golden eternity endures
in the minds of many all over North America.

Perhaps Kerouac’s friends took it upon themselves to carry on Kerouac’s teachings

and vision of the golden eternity after he was no longer able to do so. The flip side to
this view is that by 1959 Kerouac had become disillusioned with Buddhism, just as his
good friend Ginsberg’s interest began to peak in the teachings that Kerouac once tried
to force upon him.

REF ERENCES

BRINKLEY, DOUGLAS. 1998. In the Kerouac Archive. The Atlantic Monthly, November,
49–76.
C HARTERS, ANN. 1995. The Portable Jack Kerouac. Toronto: Viking.
GODDARD, DWIGHT. 1994. First published 1938. A Buddhist Bible. Boston: Beacon.
HIPKISS, ROBERTA. 1976. Jack Kerouac: A Prophet of the New Romanticism.
Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas.
KEROUAC , JAC K. 1960. first published 1960. The Scripture of the Golden Eternity. San
Francisco: C ity Lights Books.
1997. Some of the Dharma. Toronto: Viking.
TONKINSON, C AROLE. 1995. Big Sky Mind: Buddhism and the Beat Generation. New
York: Riverhead Books.

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