Writing as Enlightenment: Buddhist American Literature into the Twenty-first Century (SUNY series in Buddhism and American Culture)

Explores the prevalence of Buddhist ideas in American literature since the 1970s. This timely book explores how Buddhist-inflected thought has enriched contemporary American literature. Continuing the work begun in The Emergence of Buddhist American Literature, editors John Whalen-Bridge and Gary Storhoff and the volume's contributors turn to the most recent developments, revealing how mid-1970s through early twenty-first-century literature has employed Buddhist texts, principles, and genres. Just as Buddhism underwent indigenization when it moved from India to Tibet, to China, and to Japan, it is now undergoing that process in the United States. While some will find literary creativity in this process, others lament a loss of authenticity. The book begins with a look at the American reception of Zen and at the approaches to Dharma developed by African Americans. The work of consciously Buddhist and Buddhist-influenced writers such as Don DeLillo, Gary Snyder, and Jackson Mac Low is analyzed, and a final section of the volume contains interviews and discussions with contemporary Buddhist writers. These include an interview with Gary Snyder; a discussion with Maxine Hong Kingston and Charles Johnson; and discussions of competing American and Asian values at the Beat- and Buddhist-inspired writing program at Naropa University with poets Joanne Kyger, Reed Bye, Keith Abbott, Andrew Schelling, and Elizabeth Robinson. Writing as Enlightenment......Page 5 Contents......Page 9 Acknowledgments......Page 11 Foreword......Page 13 Introduction......Page 17 Part I. Widening the Stream: Literature as Transmission......Page 33 1. The Transmission of Zen as Dual Discourse: Shaku Soen and Okakura Kakuzo......Page 35 2. Black American Buddhism: History and Representation......Page 53 Part II. The New Lamp: Buddhism and Contemporary Writers......Page 85 3. Some of the Dharma: The Human, the Heavenly, and the “Real Work”in the Writings of Gary Snyder......Page 87 4. “Listen and Relate”: Buddhism, Daoism, and Chance in the Poetry and Poetics of Jackson Mac Low......Page 105 5. A Deeper Kind of Truth: Buddhist Themes in Don DeLillo’s Libra......Page 125 Part III. Speaking as Enlightenment: Interviews with Buddhist Writers......Page 147 6. “The Present Moment Happening”: A Conversation with Gary SnyderAbout Danger on Peaks......Page 149 7. Embodied Mindfulness: Charles Johnson and Maxine Hong Kingstonon Buddhism, Race, and Beauty......Page 157 8. Poetry and Practice at Naropa University......Page 173 Contributors......Page 201 C......Page 205 H......Page 206 M......Page 207 S......Page 208 Z......Page 209 John Whalen-Bridge is Associate Professor of English at the National University of Singapore. His books include Norman Mailer's Later Ancient Evenings through Castle in the Forest . Gary Storhoff is Associate Professor of English at the University of Connecticut, Stamford. He is the author of Understanding Charles Johnson . Together they are coeditors of The Emergence of Buddhist American Literature and American Buddhism as a Way of Life , both also published by SUNY Press. Edited By John Whalen-bridge And Gary Storhoff ; Foreword By Jan Willis. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. __Explores the prevalence of Buddhist ideas in American literature since the 1970s.__