Big Sky Mind

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In the early '50s, Allen Ginsberg began to dabble in Buddhism on one coast while Jack Kerouac (with the help of Gary Snyder, the model for Kerouac's hero in The Dharma Bums) expanded on his Transcendentalist-based interest in Eastern religion on the other. In 1955, with Ginsberg's famous reading of ``Howl'' at Six Gallery in San Francisco, East and West came together. The poetry and prose of this anthology shows the beat movement as a direct link between Emerson and Thoreau and the ``new consciousness'' of Eastern philosophy, which places the power of the individual at the spiritual center of life. Though some have criticized the beats as armchair Buddhists with Western values, most of them took their study of Eastern religion seriously: meditating, reading scriptures and, in some cases, traveling to Japan and becoming disciples of monks. Through poetry, letters, journal entries, interviews and lectures, Tonkinson, former managing editor of Tricycle, traces not only the relationships between these seminal figures and their influence on other writers, but also their shared beliefs. (Sept.)

Library Journal

The degree to which the Buddhist explorations of the Beat writers have pervaded American society and shaped the acceptance and development of that religion here has often been given a rather timid nod. This anthology, edited by Tonkinson, formerly of Tricycle magazine, serves to place the Beats and their influence in perspective. The volume takes from each writer only work that has a clear connection to Buddhist thought, hence a picture emerges of a well-developed, if occasionally nave, grasp of the central concepts of Buddhism in its various forms. Familiar names like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Gary Snyder are well represented as are writers less well known; special sections are devoted to those who, while not considered part of the Beat movement, either influenced the Beats or were influenced by them. The result is a nicely organized collection that makes a convincing case for placing the Beats in the mainstream of any discussion of the coming of the dharma to the West. Highly recommended.-Mark Woodhouse, Elmira Coll. Lib., N.Y.

Richard Hughes Seager

What distinguishes [this book] from other popular anthologies covering similar ground is the editor's decision to highlight the Beats as religious thinkers and to give attention to the how, why, and to what end they became interested in Buddhism....[A]n important addition to the growing literature on American Buddhism because it gathers in one place a good deal of dharma-related material drawn from the lives and work of people who were often all over the map...emotionally, spiritually, or geographically.
— Journal of Buddhist Ethics