Kerouac and Snyder explored the loneliness of the mountains and the joyful stillness that landscape brought. In the book, Snyder studied Oriental culture at Berkeley and existed as a ‘bhikkhu’ to the rest of them, teaching them how to lead lives devoid of materialism, a pillar of Buddhism.
Snyder enthralled Kerouac and his friends with his steady Buddhist attitude and his love of the sexual practice yab-yum. In The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac chronicles his experiences with Zen fanatic, Gary Snyder (Japhy Ryder).
The Dharma Bums is often overshadowed by its behemoth predecessor, On the Road, Kerouac’s magnum opus, but it serves as a redolent exploration of Buddhism and its effect on the Beats. It serves as a kind of 20 th century rift on Zen koans and was a primer to Buddhism in America. The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac is the most explicit exploration of this need. Their congested thoughts found sanctuary in the Dharma, which nourished their need to be in the “here and now.” They often translated as being with “it” and searching for “it.” The Beats viewed mindful meditation as a wonderful coping mechanism for the fast-paced, capitalistic society of which they no longer wished to be a part. They stumbled upon Buddhism and in it they found an exciting and sympathetic way to understand humanity. They needed a respite and found it in Eastern Philosophy. Their encumbered, restive souls clashed with the reactionary Eisenhower administration and the ever-looming fear of the bomb. The Beats were a restless breed of young Americans who matured in the wake of World War II. At least for Kerouac and Ginsberg, Beat had a quasi-religious connotation. The world saw them as obscene hipsters (or dharma bums) who eschewed responsibility, but they viewed themselves as roamers of America and characters of a special spirituality. Sometime in the early 1950s, the Beat Generation helped bring Buddhism to the West, or at least they popularized it and expanded its influence.
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