Allen Ginsberg on Jack Kerouac’s Mexico City Blues continues from here
6th Chorus
This Thinking is Stopped
Buddha’s Secret Moonlight: – is
the Ancient Virtue of laying up
and thinking happy & comfortable
thoughts – This, which modern
Society has branded “Loafing,” is
made available to people now
apparently only by junk.
Self depends on existence of other
self, and so no Universal Self
exists, no self, no other self,
no innumerable selves, no
Universal Self and no ideas
relating to existence or non-
existence, thereof –
The Greatest, Who Has Undertaken
to Comfort Innumerable Beings
The Kind One
The Art-of-Kindness Master
The Master of Wisdom
The Great Ferryman
The Great Vehicle Being
AG: “This Thinking is Stopped/ Buddha’s Secret Moonlight: – is/ the Ancient Virtue of laying up and thinking happy & comfortable/thoughts – This, which modern/Society has branded “Loafing,” is made available to people now/apparently only by junk./ Self depends on existence of other…”
(That’s sort of prose, almost like prose. It’s prose, sort of. But it’s actually an interesting thought)
The description of Buddhist retirement as “the Ancient Virtue of laying up/ and thinking happy & comfortable/thoughts” – which is like a junkie’s laying in a furnished room getting high and eating a chocolate bar and reading An Outline of History. So he’s thinking of Bill Garver again – “…This, which modern/Society has branded “Loafing,” is/ made available to people now/ apparently only by junk”.
Then he gets back to the Diamond Sutra, that thing I quoted the other day I think. Was it this class?
Student: Yeah.
AG: “Self depends on existence of other self,/and so no Solo Universal Self/exists – no self, no other self,/no innumerable selves, no/Universal self and no ideas/relating to existence or non-/existence thereof -/ The Greatest, Who Has Undertaken/to Comfort Innumberable Beings/The Kind One/The Art-of-Kindness Master/The Master of Wisdom/The Great Ferryman/The Great Vehicle Being..”
These are all somewhat technical references, the way that Buddhists talk about Buddha. That is a ferry across to the shore of enlightenment across the ocean of ignorance. So “The Great Ferryman/The Great Vehicle Being,” or the Being of the Great Vehicle would be the Mahayana Buddhist idea, which is Zen – “Master of Wisdom.” “Art-of-Kindness Master” is Kerouac’s own invention for compassion – “The Art-of-Kindness Master” – Art dash of dash Kindness Master. The kind one, the Art-of-Kindness Master.
to be continued
Audio for the above can be heard here, beginning at approximately seven minutes in and concluding at approximately nine-and-a-half minutes in