Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Dharma Bums, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Enlightenment and Nature
Counterculture and Freedom
Friendship
Literature and Authenticity
Inclusion, Exclusion, and Community
Summary
Analysis
In the spring, Ray brings his nephew Lou to his new meditation spot in the woods. Examining a pinecone, Ray remembers from the Sūtras that “emptiness is discrimination.” Lou has an epiphany and, to commemorate it, writes a poem honoring the trees and wind. Ray decides to call his spot “Twin Tree Grove,” and he compares the path leading to it to the path of dharma. He spends his mornings joyfully contemplating nature and his evenings reminding himself that Heaven is really the world itself, which is all that there is. Sometimes, he falls asleep on his straw mat and has short, symbolic dreams.
Just as Japhy taught Ray about how meditation in nature could help him become more self-aware and enlightened, Ray tries to do the same by mentoring his young nephew. With his days organized around meditation, Ray seems to have finally achieved the Dharma Bum lifestyle that he’s wanted since meeting Japhy. Crucially, his meditation all centers on nature, which allows him to more clearly see the world’s sacred beauty and his own place in it.
Themes
Ray feels like a child again as he spends all his time with animals out in nature. He’ll stay here until March; he’ll work as a fire lookout in Washington in the summer, but he’ll visit Japhy in California first. His family spends Sundays together, going for drives nearby, but Ray prefers to stay at home and meditate.
In taking the job as a fire lookout, Ray is both literally and figuratively following in Japhy’s footsteps. As he realizes that solitary meditation in nature is helping him understand Buddhist scriptures and put them into practice, it’s increasingly clear that the best way to live in line with his values is to go on a long retreat (like a summer alone on a mountaintop to work as a fire lookout).
Themes
Unfortunately, Ray’s family opposes his Buddhism. One Sunday Ray’s brother-in-law decides the family dog, Bob, can’t follow Ray to the woods anymore. Furious, Ray spends all day in the woods and refuses to go home until little Lou begs him, and an unusually silent frog croaks just once, which he sees as a signal from the universe. He reminds himself that everything is emptiness, including his pride. Then, he realizes that things are awake despite their emptiness. Thrilled, he tries to explain everything to his family: not only does everything eventually fade out of existence, but the atoms that make everything up are also mostly empty space. So, objects don’t really exist: the human mind just forms them by putting together a bunch of sensory information. Ray’s family doesn’t care or understand, but Ray is thrilled.
Ray’s furious response to his brother-in-law’s decision proves that he still has plenty to learn about regulating his own emotions and shedding his attachments (which Buddhists see as an important way to overcome suffering). However, his realization about his pride and the emptiness of the universe shows how Buddhism is also becoming a powerful tool for him: it’s a coping mechanism and a source of inspiration. Even if his family doesn’t understand him, what matters to Ray is that he is fully understanding important Buddhist teachings for the first time. This shows that he makes a clear distinction between the kind of knowledge people get from reading books (including Buddhist scriptures) and the kind of firsthand knowledge that people can only get through firsthand experience. While Ray thinks that books can shape our worldview and help us decide what to do, he also clearly believes that the most valuable knowledge comes through experience.
Themes
Contemplating his new epiphany in the woods, Ray wonders if he might be reaching enlightenment. He can’t wait to tell Japhy. Over the following weeks, his dreams remind him that all human beings, including himself, are tiny and ephemeral. He starts getting sampatti, or visions of Buddha and “pure egolessness.” He wants to return to Mexico and celebrate the emptiness and freedom of life. When his mother develops a severe cough, he has a vision of the medicine that ends up curing her, but he decides that it’s too risky work miracles—righteousness is the greatest sin. The night before leaving for California, he realizes that Buddhism’s goal is to awaken conscious beings to their inner nothingness. His mom buys him new thick boot soles, and he sets off for California. He’ll return home for Christmas.
Ray’s long period of dedicated meditation starts to yield even greater rewards. He can feel himself internalizing certain Buddhist teachings and moving on to more advanced ones, and he learns to approach life with a sense of joy and equanimity (mental stability even under negative or stressful conditions). When his visions help him cure his mother’s cough, he seems to be gaining some kind of divine or supernatural insight, which suggests that he might truly be on the verge of the enlightenment he’s been seeking. Nevertheless, he understands the enormous responsibilities that would come with this kind of power, and he is hesitant to fall back into the pride that led him to bicker with his brother-in-law. Instead, he determines that his mission as a Buddhist must be to change minds, not try to work miracles. Beyond showing how his thinking has evolved, this demonstrates his debt to Japhy—who helped change Ray’s mind—and Kerouac’s reasons for writing this book (one of which was to help spread Buddhism in the United States).
Themes
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