The Dharma Bums

by

Jack Kerouac

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Buddha Term Analysis

In Buddhism, a Buddha is anyone who has reached nirvana (enlightenment, or liberation from the cycle of reincarnation). There are several Buddhas, but the best-known is the Gautama Buddha (often just called “the Buddha”), who formally founded Buddhism as an organized religion.

Buddha Quotes in The Dharma Bums

The The Dharma Bums quotes below are all either spoken by Buddha or refer to Buddha. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Enlightenment and Nature Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

I really believed in the reality of charity and kindness and humility and zeal and neutral tranquillity and wisdom and ecstasy, and I believed that I was an oldtime bhikku in modern clothes wandering the world (usually the immense triangular arc of New York to Mexico City to San Francisco) in order to turn the wheel of the True Meaning, or Dharma, and gain merit for myself as a future Buddha (Awakener) and as a future Hero in Paradise. I had not met Japhy Ryder yet, I was about to the next week, or heard anything about “Dharma Bums” although at this time I was a perfect Dharma Bum myself and considered myself a religious wanderer.

Related Characters: Ray Smith (speaker), Japhy Ryder
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

“I sit down and say, and I run all my friends and relatives and enemies one by one in this, without entertaining any an­gers or gratitudes or anything, and I say, like ‘Japhy Ryder, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha,’ then I run on, say, to ‘David O. Selznick, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha’ though I don’t use names like David O. Selznick, just people I know because when I say the words ‘equally a coming Buddha’ I want to be thinking of their eyes, like you take Morley, his blue eyes be­hind those glasses, when you think ‘equally a coming Buddha’ you think of those eyes and you really do suddenly see the true secret serenity and the truth of his coming Buddhahood. Then you think of your enemy’s eyes.”

Related Characters: Ray Smith (speaker), Japhy Ryder, Henry Morley
Page Number: 68-69
Explanation and Analysis:

Once I opened my eyes and saw Japhy sitting there rigid as a rock and I felt like laughing he looked so funny. But the mountains were mighty solemn, and so was Japhy, and for that matter so was I, and in fact laughter is solemn.
It was beautiful. The pinkness vanished and then it was all purple dusk and the roar of the silence was like a wash of diamond waves going through the liquid porches of our ears, enough to soothe a man a thousand years. I prayed for Japhy, for his future safety and happiness and eventual Buddhahood. It was all completely serious, all completely hallucinated, all completely happy.

Related Characters: Ray Smith (speaker), Japhy Ryder
Related Symbols: Mountains
Page Number: 71
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

Then suddenly one night after supper as I was pacing in the cold windy darkness of the yard I felt tremendously depressed and threw myself right on the ground and cried “I'm gonna die!” because there was nothing else to do in the cold loneliness of this harsh inhospitable earth, and instantly the tender bliss of enlightenment was like milk in my eyelids and I was warm. And I realized that this was the truth Rosie knew now, and all the dead, my dead father and dead brother 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 as well as the Cross of Jesus. Believe that the world is an ethereal flower, and ye live. I knew this!

Related Characters: Ray Smith (speaker), Rosie Buchanan, Ray’s mother
Page Number: 136-137
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

“Your mind makes out the orange by seeing it, hearing it, touching it, smelling it, tasting it and thinking about it but without this mind, you call it, the orange would not be seen or heard or smelled or tasted or even mentally noticed, it's actually, that orange, depending on your mind to exist! Don't you see that? By itself it's a no-thing, it's really men­tal, it's seen only of your mind. In other words it's empty and awake.”

[…]

I went back to the woods that night and thought, “What does it mean that I am in this endless universe, thinking that I'm a man sitting under the stars on the terrace of the earth, but actually empty and awake throughout the emptiness and awakedness of every­thing? It means that I'm empty and awake, that I know I'm empty, awake, and that there's no difference between me and anything else. In other words it means that I've become the same as everything else. It means I've become a Buddha.”

Related Characters: Ray Smith (speaker)
Page Number: 145
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

“It goes on and on, the disciples and the Masters go through the same thing, first they have to find and tame the ox of their mind essence, and then abandon that, then finally they attain to nothing, as represented by this empty panel, then having attained nothing they attain everything which is springtime blossoms in the trees so they end up com­ing down to the city to get drunk with the butchers like Li Po.” That was a very wise cartoon, it reminded me of my own experience, trying to tame my mind in the woods, then real­izing it was all empty and awake and I didn't have to do any­thing, and now I was getting drunk with the butcher Japhy. We played records and lounged around smoking then went out and cut more wood.

Related Characters: Ray Smith (speaker), Japhy Ryder (speaker)
Related Symbols: Mountains, Alcohol
Page Number: 175
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Dharma Bums PDF

Buddha Term Timeline in The Dharma Bums

The timeline below shows where the term Buddha appears in The Dharma Bums. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 9
Enlightenment and Nature Theme Icon
Friendship Theme Icon
...about the silence and beauty of the mountains, which Japhy says are like patient, meditating Buddhas. They make tea and debate where the giant rock they’re sleeping under could have come... (full context)
Chapter 17
Enlightenment and Nature Theme Icon
Counterculture and Freedom Theme Icon
...for himself, realizing that he’s just another homeless man. He eats, prays to become a Buddha, and then quickly prays to God, too, because it’s almost Christmas. He realizes that he’s... (full context)
Chapter 21
Enlightenment and Nature Theme Icon
...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... (full context)
Chapter 25
Enlightenment and Nature Theme Icon
...enjoys. Japhy tells Buddhist stories about disciples reaching enlightenment when their masters told them that Buddha is dried-up excrement or pushed them into a puddle. He throws a flower at Ray... (full context)
Enlightenment and Nature Theme Icon
Literature and Authenticity Theme Icon
...trouble meditating and obsesses over the idea all day. Later, he decides that he’s a “Buddhafish,” with wisdom as the fin that guides him. During the parties, Ray always naps under... (full context)
Chapter 29
Enlightenment and Nature Theme Icon
...worldview is still basically Christian. Ray agrees and suggests that Christ was one of the Buddhas. (full context)
Chapter 30
Enlightenment and Nature Theme Icon
Friendship Theme Icon
Literature and Authenticity Theme Icon
Inclusion, Exclusion, and Community Theme Icon
...and Christine visit to say goodbye to Japhy, and Ray compares Japhy to the Gautama Buddha leaving his palace to find enlightenment in the forest. The next day, as a going-away... (full context)