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
When Ray emerges from his cabin in the morning, he sees the endless landscape that Japhy promised him: stunning snow-capped mountains tower above forested, lake-filled valleys, which are covered with a layer of clouds far down below. After breakfast, Ray identifies all the mountains he sees and starts to feel like they’re his, because there’s nobody else in sight. All summer, it feels like he’s dreaming, especially when he stands on his head and sees everything upside down. Blissfully alone, he dances, sings, and yells. He melts snow for drinking water and marvels at the incredible sunset, which gives him profound hope.
This stunning view is like a reward for all of Ray’s hard work. Because he’s so high up, his perspective seems impossibly vast—it’s as though he left his own individual perspective and is instead seeing the natural world on its own terms. This helps him both perceive the truths about nature that Buddhism teaches and to feel like his own ego is shrinking into the void of the vast Cascade Range. So, when Ray starts to identify with the mountains, he’s not thinking about possessing them—rather, he’s seeing the unity in the universe and feeling like he’s part of the natural world (and like the natural world is part of him).
Themes
Every day on Desolation Peak is a little bit different. Ray often sees fog, thunderstorms, and endless clouds, while he’s swarmed by insects on the surprisingly hot and stuffy mountaintop. Every night, he meditates and marvels at the moon. Afterward, deer often visit in search of leftover food, and the Northern Lights are occasionally visible. Ray contemplates the “primordial essence” that unites all things in the universe, living or otherwise; he recognizes that any setbacks he faces are minor at worst. His job is just to look out for smoke, but he never sees any.
Ray sees both how constant changes occur in nature and how the system of nature as a whole is permanent, which comprises a key Buddhist teaching: the “primordial essence” of all things is always the same, because everything is constantly changing. Change and constancy are really two sides of the same coin. By focusing on the universe’s primordial essence, which is particularly visible to him from his special vantage point, Ray again successfully moves out of his own individual perspective (or ego). This helps him cope with any struggles he faces in life by showing him that they’re temporary and insignificant. And this whole process illustrates how Buddhist meditation allows people to perceive the truths of the universe, which in turn helps them improve themselves and overcome their suffering.
Themes
While meditating one night, Ray has a vision of the compassionate Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, who asks him to remind others of their freedom. Ray yells out into the wilderness and then immediately sees a shooting star. From his vantage point, the world looks vast and unreal, but most humans forget about this endless natural beauty. Ray wonders if people’s suffering is only a way of learning that everything is fundamentally just nothingness.
Like his epiphanies about Buddhist proverbs on Mount Matterhorn and his vision of his mother’s medicine in North Carolina, Ray’s vision of Avalokitesvara and the shooting star above him are signs that he is approaching enlightenment. Through his reflections on the beauty of nature, he combines his thinking about Buddhism with his countercultural rejection of mainstream North American culture. Now, he sees that most people aren’t just blinded because of the way they live and work, but also because they haven’t seen this kind of spectacular natural scenery.
Themes
