The Beats and Mysticism

Though I should have made this post earlier, and it may have missed its opportune time, I still think it's a worthwhile post nonetheless; and, regardless of its timing, it's a sort of defense of the Beats; and it's really never too late to defend some old friends!

One of the most beautiful elements of Kerouac and Ginsberg's prose and poetry is it's vein of Mysticism. What exactly is Mysticism though? Mysticism can be generally characterized as that realm of Spiritual and Religious inquiry that turns within to find God/The Sacred/Truth/Buddha/Dao/Allah; and thus, it is the seeing of God/X/Y/Z in all facets of life: in the trees, in the wind, in everyday people; even in a steaming heap of dog shit. Christianity has a branch of Mysticism, with thinkers the likes of Thomas Merton; Islam's mystical branch is Sufism; The Jewish Mystical branch is Kabbalah; and Buddhism's Mystical Branch is Zen. The word Zen is the Japanese Pronunciation ( I think! [ I could be really wrong here] ) of the Chinese character for Meditation: Chan, which is the Chinese word for the Sanskrit term Dhyana, which means, generally, Meditation. The Branch of Buddhism which flourished in China, and subsequently made it's way to Japan, was the Meditation Branch. One must understand though, meditation is not merely, and only, sitting down in Lotus Posture on a cushion: meditation is direct recognition of ones own mind (Sitting is merely one of the many practices we assume to help us come to such a self awareness); and as such, it's not uncommon in the Zen Branch of Buddhism to hear statements such as Meditation is Enlightenment; Meditation is Chopping Wood and Carrying Water; Meditation is Eating, Sleeping, and Shitting. Meditation, and enlightenment is everyday existence. This seeing of the sacred in the mundane is the heart of Mysticism.

Having said this, American Literature has had its own branches of Mysticism: the Transcendentalist of Concord, Massachusetts in the 1800's were very clearly an expression of Mysticism: one has only to flip through the essays or journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson to see this: "He who knows the most, he who knows what sweets and virtues are in the ground, the waters, the plants, the heavens, and how to come at these enchantments, is the rich and royal man." 

Another branch of American Mysticism in Literature, the one which we are all familiar with, is that of the Beats. It is no mystery to a lover of their prosaic wisdom that both Kerouac and Ginsberg were of the Mystical nature: the totality of their Mystic Vision can be captured in but a single stanza from Ginsberg's Howl:

"The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy!

     The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand

     and asshole is holy!"

The essence of this stanza is indeed the Heart of all Mysticism, and very much so the Heart of Zen. Mysticism was well established in American Literature before the arrival of Zen; and Kerouac's own writings were quite Mystical before his taking to a Buddhist lexicon; they differed only superficially on the surface in the words being used: Kerouac had always been, and remained till the end, a romantic Christian Mystic -- which is of the same essential Nature as any branch of Mysticism. Furthermore, his approach to Zen, being an assimilation of both his Buddhism and Christianity, was much in harmony with the history of Zen: where Buddhism, upon meeting the Chinese mind, was a dovetailing of itself and Daoism, among various other schools of Chinese thought. 

Regardless, despite the natural development of the Beats and Zen, and the explicit Mystical nature of their writings, writers such as Kerouac still come under heavy criticism. Emerson provides a perfectly succinct answer as to why this is the case: "To be great is to be misunderstood."; and it is a nothing less than truly great to awaken to the Real Beauty of this Life; and nothing more paradoxical than the sacred mundane Mystic. Kerouac was a Mystic; Kerouac embraced the fullness of life; and for that Kerouac challenged the accepted modes of behavior: If everything is Sacred, if everything is Holy, then sex is holy; eating, sleeping, and shitting are holy; tongue and cock is holy. Where the Beats are reproached, it is only for their total embracing of life; their Love shines and burns too brightly in the eyes of those still in the cave of shadows.