American Dharma

Reinterpreting Buddhism in the 1950s with Jack Kerouac

When traditional ideas are exported, how much gets adapted to fit new contexts? Last week’s podcast discussed Alan Watts and his Zen-based cocktails for Western seekers. We also talked about others who blurred lots of boundaries with similar hybrids.

I’m attaching a flashback to some of those themes – in the form of an essay I wrote about Watts and other promoters of Buddhist ideas to the Beat Generation. It was addressing this question (as part of an M.A. in yoga studies a decade ago):

“Explore the revival and re-invention of East Asian traditions of meditation in the modern world, focusing on one example.”

The essay covered lots of examples, but focused in particular on Jack Kerouac, whose “notes on Buddhist study and practice” were eventually compiled – alongside poems, journal entries, letters and musings on writing – as Some of the Dharma.

Jack Kerouac on the cover of Some of the Dharma

On reflection, that title sounds modest – at least compared to more recent claims by Jon Kabat-Zinn, the creator of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, who suggested his method served as “a place-holder for the entire dharma.”

Does it help to acknowledge the distinctions between new approaches and ideas that inspired them? Or is that redundant, given that traditions are always evolving?

Join me to explore these sorts of questions in The Path of Knowledge – a year-long immersion in yogic wisdom that starts next month. You can find out more via the button below, or email me here if you have any questions.

Meanwhile, read on for integrations of Zen with American culture…