In Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, the main characters, the American young men of the 1950's Ray and Japhy，are deeply inspired by the contribution to society of Chinese Buddhist poets, monks and hermits. Kerouac dedicated the book to the Chinese Buddhist poet Han Shan. Deeply repelled by the slavery of the American middle class to jobs and consumer goods, and resistant to the mental conformity brought about by mindless consumption of TV programming，Japhy and Ray seek a life of simplicity，solitude，poetry，and wandering in the mountains, which to them are places of great purity and refreshment. They dedicate themselves to a life of prayer for the sake to create a new language of spontaneous poetry and prose. They consciously imitate the poets and wise sages of the Chinese tradition，hoping to reach the freedom that comes from penetrating the "true emptiness and marvelous suchness" of all things. They imagine themselves forming an order of homeless, non-materialistic bhiksus, "Dharma Bums, " who will live a wandering life in America and recall their country to its true spirit of freedom，its true potential greatness. With great optimism they imagine their America, as capable of seeing the true emptiness of things and becoming a land of poetry and spirit，true compassion and contentment：a Pure Land in which Buddhas dwell，the novel's characters Ray and Japhy stood for the real-life writer Jack Kerouac and his friend and fellow poet Gary Snyder. Their vision of monkhood，of Buddhahood，of the North American and Chinese landscapes as Pure Lands as reported in this book not only inspired idealistic artists and ports of their own generation，it may provide clues for the appropriation of Buddhist and Chinese insights into a socially realized freedom and compassion for our own generation as well.
