Kerouac’s 1956 writing goes great with the equinox
From Kerouac.com, photos of Steuben County by Jeralyn Musser
Jack Kerouac wrote The Scripture of the Golden Eternity in 1956, a year before the publication of On The Road. He was was deeply immersed in his study of Buddhism, which is evidenced in the sixty-six stanzas of this book. The Scripture was originally published by Corinth Books in 1960. The 1970 edition included an introduction by Eric Mottram. The current City Lights edition includes a second introduction by Anne Waldman who worked with Allen Ginsberg at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
Quoting Waldman from her introduction: Kerouac’s “satori” or flash of enlightenment comes, as he tells it, from a fainting spell (“I had apparently fainted, or died, for about sixty seconds”) in his back yard. The “golden” is the sun on his eyelids. The “eternity” is everything and nothing, the everlasting “So.” The Scripture of the Golden Eternity is fueled by Kerouac’s discerning meditation on the nature of impermanence & consciousness, subtle like the dharma it invokes. We’re here to disappear, therefore let’s be as vivid & generous as we can. The intelligence & compassion behind this text is still alive.
Some selections from The Scripture of the Golden Eternity
2
The awakened Buddha to show the way, the chosen Messiah to die in the degradation of sentience, is the golden eternity. One that is what is, the golden eternity, or, God, or, Tathagata-the name. The Named One. The human God. Sentient Godhood. Animate Divine. The Deified One. The Verified One. The Free One. The Liberator. The Still One. The Settled One. The Established One. Golden Eternity. All is Well. The Empty One. The Ready One. The Quitter. The Sitter. The Justified One. The Happy One.
6
Strictly speaking, there is no me, because all is emptiness. I am empty, I am non-existent. All is bliss.
10
This world is the movie of what everything is, it is one movie, made of the same stuff throughout, belonging to nobody, which is what everything is.
16
The point is we’re waiting, not how comfortable we are while waiting. Paleolithic man waited by caves for the realization of why he was there, and hunted; modern men wait in beautified homes and try to forget death and birth. We’re waiting for the realization that this is the golden eternity.
26
All these selfnesses have already vanished. Einstein measured that this present universe is an expanding bubble, and you know what that means.
40
Meditate outdoors. The dark trees at night are not really the dark trees at night, it’s only the golden eternity.
45
When you’ve understood this scripture, throw it away. If you cant understand this scripture, throw it away. I insist on your freedom.
56
Imaginary judgments about things, in the Nothing-Ever-Happened wonderful void, you dont even have to reject them, let alone accept them. “That looks like a tree, let’s call it a tree,” said Coyote to Earthmaker at the beginning, and they walked around the rootdrinker patting their bellies.
58
Look at your little finger, the emptiness of it is no different that the emptiness of infinity.
65
This is the first teaching from the golden eternity.
66
The second teaching from the golden eternity is that there never was a first teaching from the golden eternity. So be sure.
Jack Kerouac, 1956
Read more about “The Scripture of the Golden Eternity” by adding this book to your shopping cart.
