This study investigates the directions and methods Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder take in developing their understandings and interpretations of Buddhism. It intends to show how the writers have developed from various Buddhist concepts different visions of Buddhist enlightenment that reflect their own concerns in the tumultuous years known as the Beat generation. The Buddhist concepts this study looks at in relation to the writers include the notion of emptiness, consciousness and universal Buddha-nature. Jack Kerouac employs particular narrative strategies to interrogate the condition of the phenomenal world with the notion of emptiness; Allen Ginsberg's changing understanding of the Buddhist notion of consciousness continues to affect his expressions of the relation between self, mind and consciousness; Gary Snyder's adaption of the concept of Buddha-nature reconstructs nature's fundamental relation to man. This study proposes that a common expression found in the three writers is that the condition of the phenomenal world and the perception of ultimate reality depend on the condition of the mind, or in Ginsberg's terminology, on the consciousness. This study also looks at the complications and constraints in the writers' Buddhist pursuit in the 50s and 60s America. It discusses how the representation of Buddhism to which they were exposed affects their responses, adaptations and interpretations of the Buddhist concepts they came to know. Finally, this study intends to show how the writers have constructed different visions of Buddhist enlightenment through their works.
