Who does love and admire Kerouac?
Its a great feeling to read his work. He really opens my eyes and my mind. Really enjoyable. Grounded me.

Oh, Jack, five stars for old time's sake. I came of age delighting in your irreverence and iconoclasm. Hint to readers: instead of reading the Scripture, just listen to the shortened version by the Beatles, Strawberry Fields Forever. "Nothing is real, nothing to get hung about."

I am hesitant to give a star rating to spiritual writings, but this Beat Buddhist poetry meditation definitely deserves a high rating and regular re-reading.

That was a a whole lot of nothing ;)

Working through these koans by Kerouac

The world: oneness. The Golden Eternity: nothingness. Simpatico. Man at ease.

As someone who's been in awe for a long time at Jack Kerouac's Some of the Dharma, I was really disappointed with The Scripture of the Golden Eternity. Both are Buddhist-themed collections of meditations, but whereas Some of the Dharma is an enormous and heterogeneous juxtaposition of all kinds of writing, the The Scripture of the Golden Eternity was practically a pamphlet. It stays on message throughout — that message being that everything is the golden eternity, simple radiance — and, there almost isn't even enough to say about that to fill a pamphlet.

I imagine that those who think Buddhism is world-negating would have a field day with Jack Kerouac. Did Kerouac understand Buddhism? If The Dharma Bums is any evidence, then no: The Dharma Bums' charm, for me at least, was all about how its characters, especially its author-stand-in narrator Ray Smith, keep getting it wrong. But The Scripture of the Golden Eternity is one of Smith's disastrous (and, in The Dharma Bums' context, temporary) oversimplifications made authoritative. It's also quite boring. The golden eternity is the real "common mind of which we are all parts, a pool of generalised spirituality to which we can all flow" that C.S. Lewis mocks in Miracles in contrast to a living God. And although I'm not a Christian, I'm on Lewis's side here. The golden eternity makes no demands of us. There's no possibility of a dialogue with the golden eternity, even in one's mind. It in itself isn't interesting in the least.

After that, though, why did I give The Scripture of the Golden Eternity even two stars, instead of one? Well, I think it's because there is something, at bottom, comforting about it:

53. Everything's alright, form is emptiness and emptiness is form, and we're here forever, in one form or another, which is empty. Everything's alright, we're not here, there or anywhere. Everything's alright, cats sleep.

I'm not even saying I don't agree with The Scripture of the Golden Eternity at bottom. All the stuff we need about being moral and just (and kind, which actually shows up in The Scripture and which seems like a weird tangent there) can ultimately stack on top of Kerouac's metaphysical foundation. But: what about just rewriting the whole thing as The Aphorism of the Golden Eternity?

So brief, but so delicious.

what an asshole i'm in love

Kerouac always sets things right for me

Laughably bad

There are certain pieces of art or just thoughts that are simply beyond logical truth. This absolutly beautiful collection of poem is just like that. It contains so much honesty, so much poetic truth. How could you not adore it? Even I wouldt at least partly agree with what he says i think no one can deny that this was beautifully written, but in a very humble way. Kerouac has his own special way of writing, a mixture between abstract poetic verses and a simple way of telling a story, an experience.
This is my second time of reading the scripture and I surely dont regret it