Kerouac's Wake Up; Review, Part II

->->-> What I value about this account more than any other is how Kerouac succeeds in removing himself utterly from daubing on any muddying patina of authoritative interpretation even while at the same time, in between the accurate tracking of the approved versions, he animates the scenes with poetic vitality, and at times he scripts arch maxims from his Buddha’s mouth. The introduction is however rendered by a preeminent authority on Tibetan Buddhism, Robert Thurman, and well-known Kerouac admirer (and, incidentally, actress Uma’s father). Thurman tests the text for accuracy, and it is not found wanting. He applauds Kerouac’s authenticity of style, with its tendency to characteristic stream-of-consciousness writing and imaginative literary flares. Sadly, Kerouac died prematurely from alcoholism in 1969.
Kerouac included without judgement a couple of exchanges which show how the Buddha, despite declarations of equal regard for all sentient beings, remained a product of his society and era. For example, once, when a monk of the older traditions questioned the Buddha’s claims to enlightenment due to his youth, the answer was given:
“There are four young creatures who are not to be disregarded or despised because they are youthful…a noble prince; a snake; a fire; a monk”

It was no doubt of major benefit to him, a sort of springboard and safety net in one, that his options were infinitely more numerous than his peers, such as that of knowing that his place back at the palace with his beautiful wife, children, harem, every luxury imaginable, was still available to him if he changed his mind. Could anything be better for self-confidence than ruling a kingdom? He was never mendicant of necessity, whereas congenital poverty, sorrow, cruelty were common elsewhere.

Today there is an agreement in principle that all should have equal opportunity, even if background still dictates success for most people. At least Buddhism offers consolation for all, regardless of station.

Another noticeably dated attitude is discerned in the Buddha’s response to a request for a woman to be ordained as a monk:

“Better far with red-hot iron pins bore out both your eyes, than encourage in yourselves lustful thoughts, or look upon a woman’s form with such desires.

Lust beclouding a man’s heart, confused and woman’s beauty because of the maleness in his Karma, his mind is dazed; and at the end of his life, having demeaned himself with women for a few sexual feelings, evilly involved in the snare of mutual agreement which is her chief delight, that man must fall into an evil way. His life spent in house and home, a hole-and-corner life at best, he comes to senility jabbering multitudes of runes, religious in regret…Thus everyone should consider well and loathe and put away the form of women”.

Yet he admitted Lady Amra to the Sisterhood of Bhikshunis, and did so at the risk of criticism, as earlier orders refused female admissions. In these instances, an evolution of social values is not an unreasonable hypothesis. Buddha helped to reform the rigidly oppressive caste system of Hinduism, making a simple method of personal redemption universally practical. 500 years later, Jesus Christ set out to challenge and humanise the Jewish power structures. Gandhi and Martin Luther King are more recent liberators, and even Kerouac was part of a movement, the Beat Generation, that put poetic street rhythm back into prose. To Wake Up, then, and pass it on…
- goinghome