The Body as Sacred: Snyder’s Celebration of the Female Spirit

Abstract

Gary Snyder’s life shows a radical trajectory of faith and practice. In search of Zen, he left for Japan in 1956, returned to the USA in 1967-68 after a decade, where the second wave of feminism was spreading. His conception of the female body is radical but reverential, which philosophically permeated through his poetry.  To him, the body male or female is the gateway to the higher consciousness, a path to the nirvana, as the Zen Buddhist would believe. Snyder, an American Beat, has drifted off the fleshy hook of the body, and learnt the knowledge the Zen way, which is a hard way. The study of Zen empowers him with the radical knowledge of esoteric ideas. His conviction is that the study of books and intellectual labors are a minimal part of the knowledge of true reality, while faithful practice of the Zen Way enables one to reach the unattainable.