Wake Up by Jack Kerouac

Author:Jack Kerouac
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

“Well-makers lead the water wherever they like; fletchers bend the arrow; carpenters bend a log of wood, good people fashion themselves.”

—DHAMMAPADA

One day Ananda asked the Blessed One for advice about how to comport oneself in the presence of women.

“Avoid them altogether, Ananda.”

“But supposing they approach us, Blessed Lord?”

“Speak not to them, Ananda.”

“But supposing they ask us a question, Blessed Lord?”

“Then keep wide awake, Ananda.”

And the Holy One said: “When, however, you must speak to women, consider them, if they are aged, as mothers, and if they are young, treat them as sisters.”

It came to pass that a certain Lady Amra, a beautiful courtesan who had received great sums of money from wealthy merchants of Vaisali, conceived in her mind the idea of offering her stately mansion and mango grove to the Master and the Brotherhood. She was graceful, pleasant, gifted with the complexion of a young rose, well-versed in dancing, singing and lute-playing; now, despite her possession of these highest feminine prizes, she wished to offer her life to the religious law. She sent a message to the Blessed One offering the mansion and the gardens for the convenience of his followers, and he accepted graciously.

Seated in the mango grove one day, he received another message from the Lady Amra requesting an audience, to which he acceded.

“This woman,” he told the assembled followers as she was seen coming down the garden with her servants, “is indeed exceedingly beautiful, able to fascinate the minds of the religious; now then, keep your recollection straight! Let wisdom keep your mind in subjection!

“Better to fall into the fierce tiger’s mouth, or under the sharp knife of the executioner, than to dwell with a woman and excite in yourselves lustful thoughts, and thus become entangled in her net of plans, which is birth, the trap for death.

“A woman is anxious to exhibit her form and shape, whether walking, standing, sitting, or sleeping.

“Men being men are not free from their offices of lust, action bestowed by the Karma of previous cupidities and concupiscent thoughts; women being women are the innocent vessels of human rebirth incarnadined and personified, man’s own flesh-handful of lust; mutually attracted, mutually victimized by their Karmas, mutually made and then removed by their Karmas, with no ‘I’ to say Nay in the matter, men and women roll the wheel of death along for the sake of frottings, pride, and happiness.

“But what kind of happiness is this, straining in the emptiness to gratify the ungratifyable senses! There is no gratifying, no appeasing the wild heart! Your loins be rent and there is no gratifying it.

“The cup of life is a bottomless horror, like drinking and drinking in a dream to slake a thirst beyond reason and unreal.

“Look at the empty sky!—how may he grab greedy fistfuls of it, cupiditous man? How may he hack and kill the unkillable, that benumbed and haunted dreamer?

“All is empty everywhere forever, wake up! The mind is fool and limited, to take these senses, petty thwartings in a dream, as reality; as if the deeps of the ocean were moved by the wind that ripples the waves.

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