In Earth House Hold, Gary Snyder serves as a guru for the spiritually experimental. His writing reflects an immersion in Buddhist spirituality, love, and neo-tribalism. These concepts are all interrelated and necessary for his new vision of the world.
Earth House Hold is a journal of self-discovery, as Snyder explores the perception and worldview of Buddhism. In “Spring Sesshin at Shokoku-Ji” he describes a temple in Kyoto, in a season where the participants focus their efforts solely into concentrating the mind. Snyder illustrates the discipline of Buddhism by detailing the simple meals, almost total silence, meditation, and strict schedule. The freedom from desire, to not simply repress it, but extinguish it altogether, is discussed by a Master in response to a question of liberation: “Don’t seek Buddha or understanding; exhaust feelings of pure and impure. Also don’t hold onto this non-seeking as right. Don’t dwell where you exhaust feelings, either… Don’t cling to any dharma whatsoever.” (76) One must make his or her mind like wood or stone. He also shows the long process of metaphysical analysis in the self: “Almost had it last night: no identity. One thinks, ‘I emerged from some general, non-differentiated thing, I return to it.’ One has in reality never left it; there is no return.” (10) Snyder is trying to grasp the idea of nothingness in the universe, and man’s place (or lack of a place) in it. Humans misperceive reality and objects and themselves as having an essential nature, when in fact they are all emptiness. However, this concept is not as cold and lonely as it sounds, because Buddhism connects to love on a very fundamental level.
Snyder’s description of love, particularly spiritual love, in Earth House Hold, paves the way for his rebirth of mankind. His explanation of romantic love, and its translation in terms of the self, is fascinating in its implications for the self. He writes: “The giving of a love relationship is a Boddhisatva relaxation of personal fearful defenses and self-interest strivings- which communicates unverbal to “the other” and leaves them to do the same” (34). He describes it as a letting go of the ego, to allow for full intimacy to both the partner and “the other”; this opening up to otherness allows for an integration of the self, and through that, liberation. Snyder explains that, “the ‘other’ becomes the lover, through whom the various links in the net can be perceived” (34). Humans, while generally selfish and distracted by their own suffering and ego, can seek mutual survival in empathy. But instead of limiting love to partners, he expands the idea to include the universe.
Snyder brings these concepts of spiritual love and the acceptance of otherness into his theory for social and economic reform. He first discusses the positive traits that current social paradigms hold: “The mercy of the West has been social revolution; the mercy of the East has been individual insight into the basic self/void. We need both. They are both contained in the traditional three aspects of the Dharma path: wisdom (prajna), meditation (dhyana), and morality (sila.) Wisdom is intuitive knowledge of the mind of love and clarity that lies beneath one’s ego-driven anxieties and aggressions. Meditation is going into the mind to see it for yourself- over and over again, until it becomes the mind you live in. Morality is bringing it back out in the way you live” (92). He then proceeds to take apart our idea of civilization, and replace it with a morally and economically sustainable one: primitivism. He explains that, “if evolution has any meaning at all we must hope to slowly move away from such biological limitations, just as it is within our power to move away from the self-imposed limitations of small-minded social systems” (127). He realizes that humanity must transcend its humble beginnings if it is to survive. He writes that, “the primitive world view, far-out scientific knowledge and the poetic imagination are related forces which may help if not to save the world or humanity, at least to save the Redwoods” (128). While Snyder recognizes the limitations of archaic knowledge, he also argues that its application would still make a tremendous impact. He explains “poetry and Bushmen [will] lead the way in a great hop forward” (129). In this way, love and understanding will free the world.
– Andrea
Beat Literature and the World 