“Until recently most people thought of Buddha as a big fat rococo sitting figure with his belly out, laughing, as represented in millions of tourists trinkets and dime store statuettes here in the western world. People didn’t know that the actual Buddha was a handsome young prince who suddenly began brooding in his father’s palace, staring through the dancing girls as though they weren’t there, at the age of 29, till finally and emphatically he threw up his hands and rode out to the forest on his war horse and cut off his long golden hair with his sword and sat down with the holy men of the India of his day and died at he age of 80 a lean venerable wanderer of ancient roads and elephant woods.”
It’s always a cool trick when an author who’s been dead for forty years comes out with a new book, especially when that author is Jack Kerouac, who wrote the above words over half a century ago. In the early ’50, suffering over his inability to find a publisher for his novel On the Road, Kerouac began to study Buddhism, using an anthology of Buddhist and Taoist writings as his starting point. Before long he was following Buddhist principles, meditating, and learning everything he could about Buddha and his teachings, information he soon began to distill into a book of his own. The finished product was Wake Up, which has just been published for the first time, with an introduction by Robert Thurman, a preeminent authority on Tibetan Buddhism, as well as a Kerouac admirer (and, randomly, Uma’s dad).
In his introduction Thurman weighs in on Wake Up’s accuracy as a Buddhist tract. As a work of literature, we can say it’s as lovely as anything by its author, something you can read and enjoy even if your interest in literature is greater than your engagement with Buddhism, though it will appeal to Buddhists as well, especially those in the Dharma Punks tradition.
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HOLY GRAIL |
November 26, 2008The Philosophical Fundamentals for the New World Order: The Holy Grail's DoctrinYou might want to read this: |
The ORIGINAL Cup of Joe |
November 25, 2008NO SHIT!JOHNS BACK HAHAHAHA!!! SWEETNESS |
John |
November 24, 2008DUN DUN DUNLOOKS WHOS BACK CAUSE BOREDOM HAS BROUGHT HIM HERE hello everyone, religion....is failure of the mind to realize the truth and a grasp on to an old falicy of explaining the unknown through stories but anyway...WHO WANTS TO MAKEOUT???? :D |
The Grimm Ripper (PWNING and pa-TROLL-ing) |
November 02, 2008hahahawhat a dumbfuck, hey James kill yourself and save us from your stupididty. |
Orgasmic AhDumb |
November 02, 2008Jameswrong book idiot. |
James |
November 02, 2008Gloom bears for all!!Boo for obama and mcain how about Skye!! that would be way better!! |
R3tnuh 3d1c1us |
November 02, 2008:)If you say so... |
The ORIGINAL Cup of Joe |
November 01, 2008parasite?no he just set it up and i hammered it home like i did with your girls pussy last night. |
R3tnuh 3d1c1us |
October 30, 2008Now Joe is just feeding off of Dumb?What are you a parasite? |
The ORIGINAL Cup of Joe |
October 30, 2008hahaha thats r3tnuhs motto"Incest is best!!" |
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