Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
Pg. 206

“Japhy began to shriek and hoot and whistle and sing, full of pure gladness. Nobody around to hear him. This is the way you’ll be on top of Mount Desolation, this summer, Ray. Ill sing at the top of my voice for the first time in my life.”

Japhy and Ray have just climbed mount Desolation. Once they are at the top Ray notices the peacefulness and the isolation of society. When Japhy is up there he feels free with no worries and is able to act anyway he pleases and feels with no one judging him. Japhy has come to spots like this where he can feel completely free, not that Ray has had some of these experiences with Japhy he will be able to go out on his own and feel total freedom.

Pg. 209

“Try the meditation of the trial, just walk along looking at the trial at your feet and don’t look about and just fall into a trance as the ground zips by.”

Ray and Japhy are walking while so Japhy yelled back to Ray this to show him that you can find meditation anywhere around you and with in you. You don’t have to be sitting in a quite place but that even watching the trail’s twists and turns has a way to clear the mind and give you total peace.

Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
Pg. 206

“Japhy began to shriek and hoot and whistle and sing, full of pure gladness. Nobody around to hear him. This is the way you’ll be on top of Mount Desolation, this summer, Ray. Ill sing at the top of my voice for the first time in my life.”

Japhy and Ray have just climbed mount Desolation. Once they are at the top Ray notices the peacefulness and the isolation of society. When Japhy is up there he feels free with no worries and is able to act anyway he pleases and feels with no one judging him. Japhy has come to spots like this where he can feel completely free, not that Ray has had some of these experiences with Japhy he will be able to go out on his own and feel total freedom.

Pg. 209

“Try the meditation of the trial, just walk along looking at the trial at your feet and don’t look about and just fall into a trance as the ground zips by.”

Ray and Japhy are walking while so Japhy yelled back to Ray this to show him that you can find meditation anywhere around you and with in you. You don’t have to be sitting in a quite place but that even watching the trail’s twists and turns has a way to clear the mind and give you total peace.

Jack Kerouac, “The Dharma Bums”
Pg. 189

“I got the overwhelming urge to get drunk and feel good. I bought a poorboy of ruby port and uncapped it and dragged Japhy into an alley and we drank. “You better not drink too much” he said. “You know we gotta go to Berkeley after this and attend a lecture and discussion at the Buddhist Center.” “Aw I don’t wanta go to such a thing, I just wanta drink in alleys.” “But they’re expecting you, I read all your poems there last year.” “I don’t care. Look at the fog flying over the alley and look at this warm ruby red port, don’t it make ya feel like singing in the wind?” “No it doesn’t. You know, Ray, Cacoethes says you dinks too much.”

Ray still has a drinking problem but unlike before he is now in denial about his addiction. Japhy being a good friend he is trying to look out for Ray, but ray doesn’t accept. Although Ray trusts Japhy with his life drinking makes him feel good and happy and that is an addiction that is much harder to break then by telling him to stop. Ray seems to have it all together but the drinking is a big issue that stems from personal problems in which he turned to drinking and now he is stuck.

Pg. 199

“Boy I am drunk!” I said. “Wake up! Wake up!” I yelled. “The goat of day is butting dawn! No ifs or buts! Bang! Come on, you girls! Gimps! Punks! Thieves! Pimps! Hangmen! Run!” Than I suddenly had the most tremendous feeling of the pitiful ness of human beings, whatever they were their faces, pained mouths, personalities, attempts to be gay, little petulance, feelings of loss, their dull and empty witticism so soon forgotten: Ah, for what? I knew that the sound of silence was everywhere and therefore everything everywhere was silence. Suppose we suddenly wake up and see that what we thought to be this and that aren’t this and that at all?

Ray is at the going away party and he is drunk, once again, while he is drunk and stumbles back into the cabin to have a snack, ray sits down to eat and recognizes that he is drunk again but this time was different he came to figure out there are so many people with the same sadness and uncertainty, but some of them instead of turning to drinking and numbing them selves out they find other outlets to make them feel happy. And that getting drunk to be happy isn’t really being happy at all it’s a false sense of happiness, and maybe one day he’ll wake up and everything that he thought was to be would then be not.

Jack Kerouac, “The Dharma Bums”
Pg. 154

“Stay away from that yard son, I thought. I went up a dry arroyo and in the starlight and sand ad rocks were white, I climbed and climbed. Suddenly I was exhilarated to realize I was completely alone and safe and nobody was going to wake me up all night long. What an amazing revelation! And I had everything that I needed right on my back.”

After a long trip from Carolina Ray was exhausted and needed a place to sleep, instead of a hotel he finds a wonderful mountain. When he gets to the to he looks around and the view is beautiful, its all Mexico. Ray has been home for a while and has forgotten the feeling of silence and being alone. When he gets out here he finds himself again and realizes how wonderful it feels to be more connected to his surroundings and be back on the road.

Pg. 154
“All I had for companionship was that moon of Chihuahua sinking lower and lover as I looked, loosing its white light and getting more yellow butter, yet when I turned to sleep it was bright as a lamp in my face and I had to turn my face away to sleep. In keeping with my naming of the spots with personal names I called this spot Apache Gulch, I slept well indeed.”

I fell like before his experiences he would have never noticed something like this before or appreciated it as much as he does in this passage. Ray gets both sides of the coin he knows what its like to live in regular society, when he goes home he see what it could be like for him is he didn’t choose this life of solitude and Buddhism. By getting both side of the coin helps him appreciate what he enjoys more so then if he was living one path not knowing the other side and becoming curious about it.

Jack Kerouac, “The Dharma Bums”
Pg. 129

“And you know I say funny but there’s just sumpthin so darn sensible about ‘em. Here I am killing myself drivin this rig back and forth from Ohio to L.A and I make more money then you ever had in your whole life as a hobo, but you’re the one who enjoys life and not only that but you do it without workin or a while lot of money. Now who’s smart you or me?”

Ray’s new friend, Beaudry, the truck driver is a great kind man. As he was on his way to Ohio he was going to drop Ray off in Tucson, where Ray cooked him a steak and they sat and chatted. Beaudry decided to take Ray all the way back to Ohio because he was so interested about Ray’s life style, he practically was a hobo but yet he seemed to be one of the happiest person he has met. There was Beaudry who had a house, wife, and children, made a good amount of money but he wasn’t happy because he had no freedom. There he was with this great family and house but he wasn’t able to see them because he was spending so much time working.

Pg. 132

“And I thought of Japhy as I stood there in the cold yard looking at her: Why is he so mad about white tiled sinks and “kitchen machinery” he calls it. People have good hearts whether or not they live like Dharma Bums. Compassion is the heart of Buddhism.”

Ray is on his way home from his long travels; he stops in his yard and takes a hard look at his surroundings. He notices his mother working in the kitchen with a worry looked upon her face wondering where her son was and why he had to hitchhike. Ray is excited to be coming home for Christmas, but doesn’t understand why Japhy doesn’t like the “kitchen machinery” or the facade of the house life Ray realizes that you don’t have to practice meditation or be a Dharma Bums to be a compassionate person who has a great heart, but that only matters on the type of person you are.

Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
Pg. 94

“I put my arm around her waist but way around with my fingers digging into her belly and she said, “Oooh, I can’t stand that!” and almost fell down on the sidewalk and but my shirt just as an old lady was coming our way ogling us angrily and after she passed us we clinched in a big mad passionate kiss under the trees of the evening.”

Ray’s feelings towards Princess have changed. Earlier on he was more satisfied that there were no attachments between them and they were able to have sex, but still have to feelings. Now he is in puppy love and so is she, they have been doing less then sex but the feelings toward each other are more satisfying then before. They feel more connected have they both have true passion for one another.

Pg.97

“Cheer up slaves, and horrify foreign despots, he means that’s the attitude for the Bard, the Zen Lunacy bard of the old desert paths, see the whole thing is a world fill of rucksack wanderers, Dharma bums refusing to subscribe to the general demand that they consume production and therefore have to work for the privilege of consuming, all that crap they didn’t really want anyway such as refrigerators, TV sets, cars, at least new fancy cars, certain hair oils and deodorants and general junk you finally always see a week later in the garbage can.”

Japhy is reading Walt Whitman and comes across the quote “Cheer up slaves, and horrify foreign despots” from this Japhy realizes that those who are not on their own path have to work hard to achieve things that are unnecessary and are to be thrown away sooner or later to make way for the next big thing or upgrade. But people like them, or the Bard they notice this cycles and are aware enough to make their own paths and achieve the things that are most important in like such as moral success and any great accomplishment.

Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
Pg. 73

“Up out of the orange glow of our fire you cold see immense systems of uncountable stars, either as individual blazers, or in low Venus droppers, or vast Milky Ways incommensurate with human understanding, all cold, blue, silver, but our food and our fire was pink with goodies. And true to what Japhy had predicted, I had absolutely not a jot of appetite for alcohol, I’d forgotten all about it, the altitude was too high, the exercise too heavy, the air too brisk, the air itself was enough to get your drunk ass drunk.”

Ray has filled the void. Finally Ray doesn’t feel the need to drink, but instead he is doing something that he enjoys which not only fills the void but it also positive and healthy.

Pg. 83

“ I nudged myself closer into the ledge and closed my eyes and thought, “Oh what a life this is, why do we have to be born in the first place, and only so we can have our poor gentle flesh laid out to such impossible horrors as huge mountains and rock and empty space.” And with horror I remembered the famous Zen saying, “When you get to the top of a mountain, keep climbing.”

Ray is climbing the higher mountain with Japhy, as Ray gets closer to the top the path becomes smaller and steeper. He then decides to stop and just let Japhy continue. Ray stops at a spot where there was a place to sit a little further back from the edge, as he is sitting in the crack of the mountain wall he thinks about his accomplishment for the day. Ray knows that throughout life you are meant to have challenges that are going to be hard and some you might not think you will make it, but those challenges are what shape your character and give you strength for later. In life even though the obstacles are hard you need to push through them and even when you reach your highest point and feel secure where you are at if you push further the next accomplishment will feel even better then the one before.

Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
Pg. 54

“Grass grows out between crowded rocks and boulders; distant sweeps of scree can he seen making gashes down the sides of the morning, his eyes shine with joy, he’s on his way.”

Japhy as soon as he sees the mountains his expression is as if he is a little child coming home form a long trip. Japhy feels at home when he’s near the mountains he is the most comfortable. Japhy uses the mountain as an out let from civilization, a place where he had no pressure to do anything but what he pleases. Also while his out there on the mountain he has no need to create voids and drink but to be there in the moment with himself. Ray sees this is tells Japhy that he is grateful that they met because now Japhy can teach Ray to be more inspired by life.

Pg. 62

“This is the way I like it, when you get going there’s just no need to talk, as if we were animals and just communicated by silent telepathy. So huddled in our own thoughts we tromped on, Japhy using that step, which was short steps slowly patiently going up the mountain at one mile an hour, so I was always thirty yards behind him and when we had any haikus now we’d yell then fore and aft.”

Japhy and Ray were hiking the mountain to find a campsite before it got dark. While they were hiking Morley forgot something and walked back down the trail to fix the car so it didn’t freeze, this gave Ray and Japhy to get to know each other better. Ray was thrilled to learn more about Japhy and how he works. They were both making haikus while they were hiking but soon they stopped talking but not for awkward reasons but they were really taking in the scenery and living in the moment. They both realized how beautiful this mountain was and appreciated it more. This moment of silence was their time to be able to connect with what was around them and go to their own pace.

Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
Pg. 5

“He ate the cheese and bread and drank the wine with gusto and gratitude. I was pleased. I reminded myself of the line in the Diamond Sutra that says, “Practice charity without holding in mind any conceptions about charity, for charity after all is just a word.”

While Ray Smith was traveling on a train to Santa Barbara he met this bum in the box. When they stopped Ray went and got some food when he came back he noticed that not only did the bum look cold but he also looked hungry out of compassion Ray offered to share his food and drink. By helping this person in need it was like charity but instead of doing it for the feeling of he helped someone out for later satisfaction towards God, Ray did it out of the goodness of his heart, no where in his mind was he thinking of what satisfaction it would bring to him later but that the bum was in need and he had the supplies to help him out. From the beginning of the book there is already characteristics about Ray that are pleasant and friendly.

Pg. 24

“Nobody knows, some monk, or monks, long ago. But there is a definite mysterious form in the arrangement of the rocks. It’s only through form that we can realize emptiness.”

When Ray went to visit Japhy, he found him trying to translate Han Shan’s poem called Cold Mountain, which was written one thousand years ago while they were there Ray saw arrangements of rocks that were in shapes of stories or poems. From the form of which the rocks were aligned you can figure out a story that is personal to the one who made it.

Raymond Carver, Are These Actual Miles?
Pg. 585

“He goes for another drink. He adds ice and sees that his hand trembles. He holds the hand over the sink. He looks at the hand for a while sets down the glass and holds out the other hand. Then he picks up the glass and goes back outside to sit on the steps.”

Leo is not getting his first drink of the day in this quote he is probably on around his third and it is late afternoon. Leo instead of doing some thing productive he chooses to drink and wait for Toni to make money from selling a car. Leo while getting a drink notices that his hand is shaking it is from either too much to drink or he is nervous and stressed about his kids being gone. What ever the problem is he still chooses to continually drink to hide his problems and not have to address them.



Pg. 588

“Near dawn he hears footsteps on the porch. He gets up from the couch. The sat hums, the screen glows. He opens the door. She bumps the wall coming in. she grins. Her face is puffy, as though she’s been sleeping under sedation. She works her lips, ducks heavily and sways as he cocks his fist.”

Late that night, after Toni had been out to dinner with the guy who was buying the car, she arrived at home very drunk and tired. Leo did not have a warm welcome for her. As she came in the door he goes to hit her, but some how even though she is very drunk she manages to get out of the way. Toni and Leo’s relationship has seemed to have gone downhill from what the story tells they have kids and more then one so, they must of had some love for each other in the past, but as of lately they have not been too friendly to each other.