Syllabus & Podcasts

Listen to all the shows on Spotify here

1. Early Buddhist and Literary Roots of the Beats Part I: Fenollosa & Pound (Ezra Pound is a famous and sometimes notorious figure in the early modernist literary revolution of the late 1800s and early 1900s who had a formative influence on Allen Ginsberg and other Beat poets. Ernest Fenollosa, who spent major parts of his life studying art and Buddhism in Japan, is a much less known figure who had a critical influence on Pound’s new literary vision based in Chinese & Japanese poetry and art. Fenollosa’s own vision was shrouded until very recently in Pound’s sometimes troubled re-editing and re-interpretation of Fenollosa’s key works.)
2. Early Buddhist and Literary Roots of the Beats Part II: Joyce & the Theosophists (James Joyce, like Ezra Pound, was influenced by the burgeoning spiritualism movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Theosophists, under the charismatic leadership of Madama Helena Blavatsky and Col. Henry Olcott, were important leaders in this movement with strong leanings towards Buddhism. Joyce, especially in his landmark Finnegan’s Wake, represents a different and fundamentally more Buddhistic interpretation of Asian spirituality than Pound. Through him and essential insights from the Buddhist tradition, we can understand how in the words of the great Japanese Zen Master Dogen, “words and phrases liberate discriminating thought”.) Read Darrin’s Essay “The Wake of Indra“
3. Mountains Walking Without End: Gary Snyder, Zen, and the Great Subculture (In this podcast, we enter the Beat movement proper through the eyes of Gary Snyder, a locus for the coming together of numerous cultural and spiritual movements, such as the development of Zen in the United States from the turn of the 19th century, the radical art and politics of the Black Mountain poets of the 1930s-50s, and the emergence of the San Francisco Renaissance–sometimes known as the West Coast Beats–in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Like many of the important personalities of this era, Snyder synthesized different strands of thought into a unique new form of visionary literature that combined the insights of ancient Chinese and Japanese Zen masters and his own experiences growing up in the vast nature of the Pacific Northwest for a vision of socio-political and spiritual transformation.)
4. Jack Kerouac and His Three Sutras (Jack Kerouac is hailed as much for his literary genius as his articulation of a whole new cultural vision that would spawn the 1960s counterculture movement and continue to affect Americans and young people around the world today. Much less known is how Buddhism played a pivotal role in this vision. It would seem to be one of the essential keys to Kerouac reconciling his Catholic roots, his personal mystical experiences, and his vision of his work as the Duluoz Legend. It also helped him crystallize his vision for “spontaneous bop prosody” that is the defining aspect of his writing. In this podcast, we take a deep dive into the massive but not well known Some of the Dharma (not fully published until 1997) as well what we have dubbed his 3 Sutras: Wake Up (a history of the Buddha), The Scripture of Golden Eternity (a self-styled American Buddhist sutra), and Old Angel Midnight (a “tantric” text of uninhibited prose).
5. The Dharma Bums and the 1960s Counter Culture Movement with Rev. Hozan Alan Senauke (As influential as Kerouac’s On the Road was, The Dharma Bums was equally as important in bringing numerous Beat themes into the consciousness of a young post-war generation coming of age in the 1960s with themes of spiritual awakening through Asian religion, specifically Buddhism; a new culture which prized freedom of expression including sexual expression; rejection of consumer culture and an embrace of the environment; and the potential of a social revolution bringing East and West together during the great global polarization of the Cold War. These themes are brought to light through the character of Japhy Ryder, Kerouac’s portrait of Gary Snyder and his vision of a Buddhist-based rucksack revolution. The first half of this podcast looks at The Dharma Bums itself and the second half at 1:17:05 features Rev. Hozan Alan Senauke, vice-abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center, born in New York City in 1947, who after graduating Columbia University where the Beats first met has spent his life practicing Zen and Socially Engaged Buddhism in Berkeley, California, the site of many of the scenes of The Dharma Bums. Through his eyes and life experiences as a child of the Beats, we will gain a deeper appreciation of the influence of as well as reservations for The Dharma Bums.)
6. The Howling Dharmic Vortex: Allen Ginsberg and the Politics of Art (Allen Ginsberg was perhaps the most socially engaged of the Beat literary pioneers and throughout the 1960s was the face of the movement appearing at a wide variety of cultural and political events. We take a deep dive into his formation as a poet, his spirituality – especially his deepening commitment to Buddhism, and his translation of these two into a revolutionary movement for social change that influenced so many in the 1960s and beyond. Gary Snyder is also highlighted frequently as Ginsberg’s ongoing Buddhist muse and fellow Dharma revolutionary from the time of their meeting in 1955 through their ongoing correspondences into 1970.)
7. Beat Literary Form as Buddhist Method: William Burroughs’ Cutups (Among the most renowned Beat writers, William Burroughs is considered the least Buddhistic. This stems from his advice to Kerouac to stay away from a religion he saw as rejecting love as well as emotional and sexual entanglements. He also stated that Buddhism is not suited for the West, which must “evolve our own solutions”. Finally, Burroughs also embraced a view that some sort of alien spirit force controlled reality rather than the non-theistic forces of compounded conditionality and karma for Buddhists. Yet, if we examine his method and the form of writing he developed, we see numerous connections with the insights of Buddhism; primarily, his early discovery about the problems of language and the inability of words to represent reality. His later discovery of the cut-up method of writing extends this Buddhistic style of using the mind to deconstruct and reconstruct meaning. Our podcast will examine these issues and many more from the tea room of Ogigaya!)
8. Beat Literary Form: Dylan’s Lyrical and Political Shift
9. Post-Hippie Beat Buddhism: Ginsberg and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
10. Buddhist Perspectives on the Role of Altered Consciousness in Creativity & Enlightenment
11. “Buddhist Tantra”, Homosexuality, and Sexism in the Beat Movement
12. Alternative Reflections: Buddhist Beat Female Poets
13. Snyder and Socially Engaged Buddhism
14. The Beats and Their Buddhist Teachers in Popular Culture

See Course Description here