Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg (44 page)

Anyway, it concerns Eugene [Brooks] and me. We went to court together this morning and were sitting at the back looking anxiously through his briefcase for an affidavit of my sickness
¹⁰⁵
Doctor Perrone (your Perrone) had written last night testifying saying, “I order this man to bed until his acute condition subsides.” But I didn't get mad at Gene and he said don't worry. Enuf that he is kind enuf to get up early-in-morning and come help this helpless hunk soon returning to emptiness from which it came. But Joan Haverty was there, but hadn't been notified of my demand for a paternity test so did not have the girl daughter. But they told her right away about it, and how sick I was (from V.A. records). Sweetly she came and said may I sit with you? Sure. And guess what? She has been converted to Catholicism and talks of the Virgin Mary sadly and of Jesus etc. And how she has found peace. Hasn't changed in looks, thinner. Showed me pixes of the dotter who I think looks like me, especially frowning square-browed photo, so may be mine. But loves her so much doesn't want me ever to see her or ever have my Ma send involving presents etc. Said “I'm sorry I didn't know you were so sick.” The V.A. must have given a report to the police about my condition that is worse than I realize. But joy floods by my being as I think I may die soon, or young, such emancipation, such universal sweetness. Joan was so sweet, paid attention to me, scoffed a little at my Buddha (I had big manila envelope ready for Tomb Incarceration, including
Buddhist Bible
of Goddard, my own typed-up PRAJNA selections from Public Library sources, and my new novel the long night of life and notebooks with Chinese inscriptions which I showed her but didn't look.) She said she didn't want money from me if I didn't have it; had reformed (as helpless woman) and decided to take bull by the horns and move to NY with dotter and work and eventually run day nursery etc. Love of children. Girl's name is Janet Michele Kerouac, born Feb. 1952. Blue eyes. Said my Buddhism, was my “little game” fitting in with my personality. “You play your little game and I'll play mine”—real hip coming on. Sweet glances. In fact Eugene said she was nice to me and seemed to like me. Gene interested. Gene cutting out to talk to lawyer, setting up case, calling my doctor, etc., at one point standing surveying entire hall of Negro beat misfathers and wives and kiddies with big glasses digging life. So at noon we all go into judge chambers and judge so weary from case before ours, which is long, he just says “If this man is disabled, then we'll set the case aside.” So now nothing will happen unless Joan gets mad or I get rich and famous, etc. and I smoothed waters by telling her if I am left alone I will not demand paternity test but give her money instead (for test). So case is suspended (Gene says for a year I guess) and Joan and my woman probation officer real buddy buddy shaking hands and woman saying “I told you, it's better to do things yourself ” and big women philosophies but Gene leaning in listening to them digging women. So instead of going to jail I come home, memorize the heart of the Great Dharani of the Lord Buddha's Crown Samadhi, on knees recite it, drink wine and take benny and read your letter, and tape up legs. So now I see Gene Friday for shot of movies we took and maybe bring him a little money my mother says he deserves. My mother not home yet to hear great news. And Joan told me write and I will. Now I'm all set for desert, soon as I go down to south and clear the country lot my folks bought for house, cutting trees and burning stumps and cutting grass and sowing garden when able. Have nicotine habit, dammit, must break it again.

SECOND REGRETFUL PART. Your long letter about the sad love. If like me you renounce love and the world, you will suffer the sorrows of renunciation, which come in the form of ennui and “what to do, what to dream?” dig. But if you grasp at sadlove, ergo, you suffer from sadlove. I dug whole letter and loved the Dostoevsky and bare Neal bumping in[to] Hinkle in hall (like the time the three of us bumped in Watsonville and had big poker game with brakemen)—Peter O. sounds very great and I know that whatever happens, you will know how to reassure the sad heart therein. Be sure to do that, before too late, before disappears. Reassure Canuck painter too. Cut out. Or if not cut, out, for how can I know any more than Burroughs deal . . . at least never recriminate, never sadden others, always be kind and forgive and suffer. I suffer from loneliness, long afternoons after dhyana, or rather really before, what's there to do? The letter beautiful, I read it line by line in morning, savoring every bit of it, how I love letters from you my fine sweet Allen. And don't ever worry about me getting mad at you again—I swear off of that for the last last time, every time I get mad at you it later turns out imaginary reasons of dust. bah. Never again will you get a scowl, or a bad word, from me, and I dig you as a saint already and a real saint. I understand your concerns taking the form of big discussions of “X” as being solely due to long rational philosophical scholastic hip-poet grounding. Faith you need. What do I mean by faith? Supposing Buddha says that when you become enwrapped in highest
samadhis
all the innumerable invisible bodhisattvas come from all quarters of universe and lay their hand in a radiant wheel on your brow?—and my answerin in faith, is, WHY NOT? (since they're invisible, inscrutable, inconceivable.) So as to sadlove, sadlove equals sadlove and as to the Tao surface of reality, I see several mistakes in your phrasing concerning “reality.” . . . your words: “ABSOLUTE ILLUSION OF ABSOLUTE REALITY” and this is the crux of your misunderstanding due to lack of learning which now you begin to get. (Incidentally by abandoning Catullus and meter for study of the
basis
of poetry you certainly don't shirk scholastic-self-study requirements, there can be no poetry with any basis other than Buddhist that will have no holes. Later on I criticize Dylan Thomas for you on this ground, to show you childish innocence of his thought.) Phenomena is the illusion, reality is the reality. Phenomena is your Chinese surface, that you also mention saying “when visions are real it's like haven—heaven”—in other words, say, the body—the body isn't real, the vision is—
so the vision of nothingness is at least as real as the vision of body
—but the vision of nothingness is, right?, the vision of vision, mind essence. Now let me give you this: on the subway yesterday, as I read the Diamond Sutra, not that, the Surangama Sutra, I realize that everybody in the subway and all their thoughts and interests and the subway itself and their poor shoes and gloves etc. and the cellophane paper on the floor and the poor dust in the corners was all of one suchness and essence. I thought. “Mind essence is like a little child, it makes no discriminations at all.” And I thought, “Mind essence loves everything, because it knows why everything is.” And I saw that these people, and myself to lesser extent, all were buried in selfhood which we took to be real . . . but the only real is the One, the One Essence that all's made of, and so we also took our limited and perturbed and contaminated minds (hanking after appointments, worries, sorrows, love) to be our own True Mind, but I saw True Mind itself, Universal and One, entertains no arbitrary ideas about these different seeming self-divisions and suchness, is unlimited, unperturbed, uncontaminated by suffering self-hangs on form, mind is IT itself, the IT . . . The cellophane, when I looked at it, was like my little brother, I really loved it . . . so saw that if I sat with the True Mind and forgot myself and its limited mind and imagined and set-up sufferings (that as you know vanish at death) (like Melville's loomings on street 100 years ago in dark America with ice and snow on sidewalk that if he didn't have Body he'd a fallen through endless space) (no sidewalk even) (all empty, hallucination of forms) if I sit with True Mind and like Chinese sit with Tao and not with self but by no-self submission with arms hanging to let the karma work itself out, I will gain enlightenment by seeing the world as a poor dream.

This is not bullshit I really believe this and not only that I will prove it to you at some time or other. As to your going to desert, it ain't necessary (scorpions in your pockets), it is for me, if it turns out to be the way of really Samboghakaya staying-with-it all the time then I'll tell you and then it will be time to say you should do it. But nothing I can do to change your own vision of sad love which is after all Sebastian's [Sampas] and the other night I realize that when Sebastian died on Anzio he probably did so by rushing through bullets to aid wounded comrade (he was medic) and died a Tathagata in his sad Charles Boyer Algiers hospital. Who knows? Yet there is no other way but sitting. The trick is dhyana, twice a day. That's the trick. I'll hip you, as you ask, on “specific bodily and mental inside signposts.”

THIRD SERIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL PART—As prelude, I showed your “X” letter to Eugene because he wanted to see your letters and dint show him Peter O. letter but made up for it with “X” and what his comment: “Don't show it to my father.” Urp. The talk about “breaks” etc. I guess.

Right this minute, because of silly elation, wine and benny, I cannot sit down and practice true dhyana. But here's the trick:

Drink a small cup of tea, lock door first, then place pillow on bed, pillow against wall, fold feet, lean, erect posture, let all breath out of lungs and take in new lungful, close eyes gently and begin not only breathing gently like little child but listening to intrinsic sound of silence which as you know is the sea-sound shh under noises which are accidental. (It's the sound of the imaginariness of the scene—the mind-sound of mind-stuff everywhere). This is the Tathagatas singing to me. To you too. This is the only teaching. Babes hear it. It never began, never will end. Tathagata means “He who has thus come and thus gone.” That is, the essence of Buddhahood. The first signpost is, that after five, ten minutes you feel a sudden bliss at gentle exhalation and your muscles have long relaxed and your stomach stopped and breathing is slow, this bliss of out-breathing means you are entering Samadhi. But don't grasp at it. The bliss is physical and mental. Now you're no longer interested in sounds, sights, eyes closed, ears receptive but non-discriminatory. Itches may rise to make you scratch; don't scratch them; they are imaginary, like the world; they are “the work of Mara the tempter” (in yourself) trying to delude you and make you break up your Samadhi. As the breathing is blissful, now listen to diamond sound of “eternity,” now gaze at the Milky Way in your eyelids (which is neither bright nor dark, entertains neither arbitrary conception of sight). Body forgotten, restful, peaceful. I mention the tea, it was invented by Buddhists in 300 B.C. for this very purpose, for dyana. As bliss comes realize by INTUITION (this is where we leave the X) the various understandings you have concerning the day's activities and the long night of life in general, their unreality, eeriness, dream-ness, like Harlem Vision again. Then if you wish, use a lil tantrism to stop thought; to stop thought you may say “This Thinking is Stopped” at each out-breath or “It's all Imaginary” or “Mind Essence loves Everything” or “It's only a Dream” or “(Adoration to) the Tathagata of No-Contact” (meaning no contact with thoughts.) But cutting off contacts with thoughts, their clinging ceases; they come and go, certes, like dreams in sleep, but you no longer honor their forms, because you're honoring Essence. By a half hour of this a further bliss seeps in. But then there are leg-pains. Try often to stand the leg-pain as long as possible to dig that when it seems unbearable, at that instant, you can take it just one minute more, and suddenly during a few seconds of that minute, you forget cold about the pain, proving their imaginariness in Mind! But hung with body you have to come out. Try continuing with legs out, or better, rest, rub them, and start again . . . Practice ONE long
dhyana
a day, because it takes twenty minutes to quiet the machine motor of the mind. It's simply by
dhyana
that you'll come to what you seek to find because that in itself is, like in my vision of the subway, abiding “in self-less oneness with the suchness that is Tathagatahood.” (emptiness, rest, eternal peace)

Now as to the word. What you need at once is the DIAMOND SUTRA. If you haven't got it in your Philo Collection (which I hanker to see) then tell me as swiftly I'll type it for you and mail it. It is the first and highest and final teaching. I think you're ready for the Diamond Sutra. All your “X's” are or is answered, therein. The “X” is simply essence underlying forms . . . as essence, it is the quintessence of emptiness, . . . it is Nirvana, Highest Perfect Wisdom. The crystal reality. Form is a dream, essence is reality. Creation is illusion with a real origin.

(Two days later) I know these letters have the sound of bullshit because of the same level of enthusiasm all the time for thoughts that are sometimes powerfully exploding and sometimes weakly imploding, but this is like
breathing
and enthusiasm is like the life the breathing makes possible.

I been thinking all day, there's just no point my trying to teach you via these letters. I'll just have to tell you in person; conduct sorta lectures off my Some of Dharma notebooks, because writing-of-it there's no beginning and no end to the work and the monotony. I don't make light of your X or of your Harlem Vision; it's only that you haven't described it sharp enuf to make it look any different from 1000 samadhi sensations I've had. Sending it to you, incidentally, so you'll be able to remember and judge.

Nothing “inhuman” about Buddhism, it's simply a religion for “sentient” beings meaning all beings possessed of sense and therefore liable and under punishment of suffering and death. Ah, I'm sick of talking. talking.

I think the best thing to do next out is just send you my personal dharma notes with no comments because these letters are getting too much. A million things in my notes, why re-word them for you?