Meditation in the Woods Author(s): Jack Kerouac Source: Chicago Review, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Summer, 1958), pp.

17-22 Published by: Chicago Review Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25293450 . Accessed: 27/05/2011 21:08
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JACKKEROUAC

MEDITATION IN THEWOODS
Excerpt from The Dharma Bums
"Let there be blowing-out at I and bliss forevermore," newer and better came, "Not oft, I prayed

in the woods And snow, more

night. kept making like when the snow poems, the holy bow,"

so soft,

and at one

point

I wrote:

prayers. the holy "THE

FOUR
ture, wrote, wine

INEVITABLES:
3. Dull Existence, on dull afternoons solitude

i. Musty Books, 2.Uninteresting Na

4. Blank when Nirvana, neither would buy Buddhism that nor boy." Or nor I

poetry avail my but earnest lazy to do, Oh blue." One afternoon flesh, "Nothin poo! practically Iwatched the ducks in the field across the road and itwas Sun pig were on the Carolina and the hollerin day preachers screaming nor nor basketball radio and I wrote:

worms all and "Imagine blessing living dying in and the ducks that eat em . . . there's your eternity Sunday cat school sermon." Iwatched and I thought: "Cats my sleep sleep most It would shouldn't men? do away with of the time, why some of their Iwas in the dreary bliss and vanity." abiding pride . . . crash! Sometimes of eternity I though about California and Gary among the drizzly suburban palms was the mys and there? Then I began reading tery being answered Shakespeare lines like "My reformation, all those divine o'er my glittering and whither fault," words would and I saw my reformation completed. ... "Pain, tis but a concubine's puff." In a dream But, in I heard the it Shakespeare sound." Then sud

a say, "Ay, by my faith, that bears frosty as I was one in the cold after supper pacing night windy denly and threw my darkness of the yard I felt tremendously depressed and cried "I'm gonna die!" because there self right on the ground was else to do in the cold loneliness of this harsh nothing inhospita was like the tender bliss of enlightenment ble earth, and instantly inmy Iwas warm. And I realized that this was the milk eyelids and

17

truth Natalie
dead brother

knew now, and all the dead, my dead father and

and dead uncles and cousins and aunts, the truth that

is realizable in a dead man's bones and is beyond the Tree of Buddha aswell as the Cross of Jesus. BELIEVE that theworld is an ethereal flower, and ye live. I knew this! I also knew that Iwas
the worst My bum in the world. The diamond anxious cat meowed at the icebox, was light to see what eyes. all the good in my

dear delight was. I fed him. I suddenly felt the desire to write to Philip Whalen, who was strong inmy thoughts now as I recalled his modesty and general
silence among the vain screams "Yes, Whalen, it's a shining and of myself and Allen Gary: now-ness done it, carried and we've

America

like a shining blanket into that brighter nowhere Al

the answer from the But I knew that that was silly words: ready." as Dickinson stars is indeed "withheld says, that lone invincibly,"

ly woman
"Maybe and I shook

of New
from

England a hundred years ago who had said

as Ne*w the cold to read used to be . .." England it. "What are you trying to do, stuff, . . . "Poor de jerk?" . . . call Self. yourself that all this I realized

Eden

aim so lonesome

Kerouac?"

I'd askmyself
incarnate

inmy sleepingbag at night, "trying to

ya fool, and you And

with deny reality tailed immaculate Take off your was

all this Buddha

coat

and crash wits."

Buddhism was a STRAIN

that nothing Gary Snyder

at telling the untellable emptiness yet

to hear what Iwanted truer, a perfect paradox... he himself was that winter had to say now. During

a inMarin County on top of a living a cold life in small shack

the sutras, like and hill, by a woodstove, studying reading windy like me, but chopping wood, me, writing getting water, poems and invited me to come stay there He wrote his oil lamp. trimming Iwanted. whenever my meditations and studies to bear fruit. began woods in night in the said: "Every

Meanwhile It really started the dead silence

one late in January, frosty it seemed I almost heard the words

forever and forever." I let out a big thing is all right forever and 18

"Hoo!",

one

o'clock

in the

morning,

the

dogs

leaped

up

and

exulted. I felt like yelling it to the stars. I clasped my hands and

"O wise and serene prayed: all and forever right forever thank you Amen." What'd to get warmer began little and the nights porch bigger, Moab?" more under of Awakenerhood, spirit everything's and forever and thank you thank you I care about the tower of and ghouls,

I sperm and bones and dust, I felt free and therefore WAS
in February in the woods The and the ground were began

free. It
to melt a on the

enjoyable. the stars I'd be there

milder, my sleeps wet to stars seemed in the get dozing in my crosslegged hand,

sky, under my

tree and in my half asleep mind I'd be saying "Moab? who

and I'd wake up with a burr a cotton

is

burr

off one of the dogs. So, awake, I'dmake thoughts like "It's all dif
ferent Moab, of the same appearances thing, my all one dream. All belongs ephemeral drowsiness, to the same the burr, emptiness,

glory be!" Then

myself: ther is "I am

I'd run these words

I am not from me,

through my mind to train

from indeed, nei emptiness, is me." emptiness

emptiness, different emptiness star would

different

There'd be a puddle of water with a star shining in it, I'd spit in

the puddle, the real?" I wasnt warm kindly famous fire be obliterated, unconscious exactly to return to after these midnight who for me by my brother-in-law, about how star is I'd say "That a of the fact that I had good meditations, was getting provided a little sick

and tired of my hanging around not working. Once I told him the
saying, you grow through suffering, he said:

"If you grow through suffering by this time I oughta be as big

as the side of the house." There were now early spring mornings not with the happy dogs,

me forgetting the Path of Buddhism and just being glad; looking

around at new little birds yet summerfat; the and almost swallowing my Dharma; the grass waving, dogs yawning hens chuck

moon I'd think: "O Lord Lord, ling. And at night under a big fat Lord without end, great reality of emptiness, all iswell without end, all isEcstasy, all is brightly perfect," which itwas for me but not for somebody else. One night I really had a strange vision in 19

thewoods,
membered mortal Vast mind"

just as I sat down I instantly began radiating and I re

the words "matter and great universe is an illusion of and I saw the shifting drapes, visions, against, big gray in my mind Sea-Shroud spectral scenery like shrouds, hazes, Curtains of the One smoke, and

clouds,

Emptiness dream

rearranging, chillicosms, of it the one

great in the form or within,

Gloop of cities, men, backdrop that cannot

rising

a clear truth

empty perfect is the One Great Flower which into a system, everywhere ranged was on in my overalls, not a flower. didn't tumbled days, I Days consorted with didn't shave much, comb my hair, only dogs and

turtles, planets, of pure mind, all cut ar be up and

cats, Iwas living the happy life of childhood again. Now I felt I to tellGary and Iwas looking forward tomy really had something
ocean. I even shining to in Sanskrit is called which what "Samapatti," experience began a little in the mind I'd get means Transcendental Visits. drowsy wide but somehow awake, sitting erect under my tree, physically of whole walls of salmon be dreaming would and suddenly or the sud or a sudden in the woods, colored flowers, light purple there just pine, or find and no flowers of flowers den fragrance some on the truth to a discourse ghostly by listening myself in some other part of the universe. preacher store to and milk the old I'd go to the country When buy bread trip back west. I felt I had made it into the there sitting boys barrels'd say "What "Aint around you bamboo among " poles do in those woods? and molasses

"Oh I justgo in there to study"

old to be a college you kinda in there sometimes I "Well just go around the fields them rambling watch thing working wanted to do so their wives men werent would think me student?" and all just sleep." But I'd

they secretly fooling they in to go in the woods too, or just sit and do nothing sleep never bothered to do. too ashamed like Iwasnt the woods, They was the knowing me. How could I tell them that my knowing that the substance 20 of my bones and their bones and the bones of

they either.

day looking were real I knew

for some busy hard

dead men

in the earth

or rain at

night

is the common

individual

substance that is everlastingly tranquil and blissful?Whether

believed cape the it or not makes no difference, too. One in my I sat in a

they
rain

night and I had a little song to go with regular downpour are rain on my rubber hood: ecstasy, "Raindrops pattering are not different from ecstasy, neither is ecstasy different raindrops ... Rain On O Qoud!" is from raindrops, yea, ecstasy raindrops, did I care what the old tobacco-chewing stickwhittlers So what at the crossroads store had to say about my mortal

we

eccentricity, I even all get to be gum in graves anyway. enough, Strangely men one time and we went one of the old a little drunk with got told him how I roads and I the country around actually driving was out in those woods and he really rather sitting meditating or to like and said he would understood try that if he had time, and had a little rueful envy in his if he could get enough nerve, knows voice. Everybody everything. Spring brown warm came after were heavy rains that washed

puddles winds whipped with air. Golden days where

everything, sere fields. in moist, Strong everywhere snow white clouds across the sun and dry one em moon at beauteous warm, night, new straw

boldened frog picking up a croak song at eleven P.M. in "Buddha

under sitting place a a twisted twin tree in the and dry stretch pines by opening one Little Paul of grass and a tiny brook. There, day, my nephew and raised came with me and I took an from the ground object under the tree, and Lil Paul facing me asked it silently, sitting a motion and made that?" and I said "That" "What's leveling . . . it's that" "That with my hand, saying "Tathata," repeating Creek" I had established a little my

and then only when I told him itwas a pine cone did he make the
imaginary judgment of the word "pine cone," for, indeed, as it

says in the Sutra: "Emptiness is discrimination" and he said: "My head jumped out, and my brain went crooked and then my eyes started lookin like cucumbers andmy hair'd cowlick on it and the cowlick licked my chin." Then he said "Why dont ah make up 21

poem," "Okay...

he wanted

to commemorate

the moment.

as it up you go along." right away, just trees are wavin, 'The the wind is tryin to "Okay... pine whisper the birds are are and the hawks something, sayin drit-drit-drit, hark-hark-hark?' in for Oho, we're goin danger." but make

"Why!"
"Hawk... "Then hark hark hark!" what?"

"Hark! Hark!?Nothin."
quiet because each in my heart. of the two

I puffed on my silent pipe, peace and

I called my new grove "Twin Tree Grove," I leaned treetrunks around against, that wound spruce shining white in the night and showing

other, white

me from hundreds of feet away where Iwas heading, although old Bob the bird dog whitely showed me theway down the dark one night I lost my path. On that path juju prayerbeads Gary'd me, but the next day I found them right in the path, figuring, given
"The path." tired Dharma Spring of cant nights, be lost, nothing can be under lost on the a well cloudy worn moon. practicing Dhyana and

next day, just sitting in the straw until Iwas Long afternoons the
"thinking nothing" just going to sleep and having

little flash dreams like the strange one I had once of being up in some kind of gray ghostly attic hauling up suitcases of gray meat
my was mother is handing called up and I'm petulantly to complaining: "1

wont come down again!" (to do thiswork of theworld).

a blank being upon enjoy the ecstasy

I felt I

of the endless

at the truebody. I had frogs in the little brook that kept croaking as if by design, once oddest times, interrupting my meditations
at high noon the frog croaked three times and was silent the rest

of the day, as though expounding me the Triple Vehicle. Under

the moon is Nirvana, I'd see the truth: I'm looking "Here, this, is It... the world there as it is, for aHeaven outside what is, it's only

this poor pitiful world

could forget myself and

that's Heaven. Ah,

my

if I could realize, if I
to the creatures freeing, every

and devote

meditations

of all living the blessedness the awakening is ecstasy." there is, Fd realize what where 22