Dwight Goddard's collection of translations of a cross-section of
Buddhist traditions was a fundamental part of the importation of
Buddhism into the USA and then, through the work of the Beat Poets
that the book influenced, throughout the West as a whole. Goddard
had originally been an engineer but after his wife's death, when he
was twenty-nine years old, he entered the Hartford Theological
Seminary. He was ordained in 1894 and was sent to China as a
Congregational missionary. He was interested in non-Christian
religions and as a result of this curiosity began to study various
denominations of Buddhism. In 1928, at the age of sixty-seven,
Goddard encountered Japanese Zen Buddhism for the first time while
in New York City. He was so impressed with it that he moved to
Japan where he met D. T. Suzuki and studied for eight months with
him at the Yamazaki Taiko Roshi of Shokoku Monastery in Kyoto. His
time spent in China and Japan made him feel that lay religious
practice was not enough and would lead to worldly distractions and
he decided to establish a male-only monastic movement named, 'the
Followers of Buddha'. It was situated on forty acres in southern
California adjacent to the Santa Barbara National Forest and also
on rural land in Thetford, Vermont. The religious 'followers' who
participated in the fellowship commuted between the centers in a
van, spending winters in California and summers in Vermont. The
venture was short lived and closed due to lack of followers. His
book, A Buddhist Bible, was published in 1932. Translated from
writings Goddard found of worth in the traditions of Theravada,
Mahayana, Zen, Tibetan and other Buddhists schools of thought, the
book soon became popular and it contributed to the spread of
Buddhism in the USA in the 1930's and 1940's. But it was in the
1950's that A Buddhist Bible was to make its most lasting impact.
By the end of 1953 the famous writer Jack Kerouac had been living
with fellow 'Beat Poets' Neal and Carolyn Cassady in a menage a
trois situation and the relationship had become untenable for all
of those concerned. It had become obvious that it was time for Jack
to move on and Neal recommended that Jack read A Buddhist Bible as
a way of finding some much-needed spiritual inspiration. Legend has
it that Kerouac headed down to the San Jose library and stole a
copy before heading back 'out on the road'! It was natural that
Kerouac, who had always battled with his Catholic ideologies and
his lifestyle of heavy drinking and womanizing, would find some
peace through the principles of Buddhism and this came out in his
seminal The Dharma Bums which detailed Kerouac and fellow Beat Gary
Snyder's differing takes on the Buddhist way of life. Although at
first dismissive of his fellow Beats new found outlook, Allen
Ginsberg soon followed suit and A Buddhist Bible, together with the
collective writings of the Beat Generation on Buddhism, had a big
influence on the American generations that followed. Dwight Goddard
was unaware of his new-found fame as he died on his seventy-eighth
birthday in 1939.
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