Buddhism in the Poetry of Gary Snyder

Buddhism in the Poetry of Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder's interest in Zen Buddhism is well-known: he is the poet who spent years in Japan studying it. In this paper, I investigate the Buddhist context on Snyder's work, such as Regarding Wave and Turtle Island. According to the Mahayana Buddhism, the world is a state of being beyond all conflicts and oppositions. the universe is conceived of as a dynamic realm of interdependent and transient phenomena. In Snyder's work, the concept of interdependence is translated into ecological terms. The dynamism of wave-form in Regarding Wave is traced in static objects, Mahayana Buddhism agree that there are no stable objects, the illusion of stability. Even though Snyder's Buddhist training has been in the Zen school, his philosophical view is influenced by the Vajrayana Buddhism. Its important attitude is the emotion. In Snyder's work, anger and desire are made instruments of enlightenment.