In 1961, Ram Dass famously collaborated with Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, Aldous Huxley, and Allen Ginsberg, to carry out pioneering research on research psilocybin, LSD-25, and other psychedelic chemicals. This experience led Ram Dass, who was then an academic called Dr Richard Alpert, into a lifelong inquiry into the human condition and its mysterious psyche.… Continue reading Ram Dass on the Anxiety of Extinction
Lawrence Ferlinghetti was a poet and an activist and one of the central figures of the Beat movement in the 1950s. From his City Lights Bookstore and publishing house, he published writers like Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Jack Kerouac who were breaking with the norms and traditions of not just poetry and literature, but… Continue reading A Buddha in the Woodpile
Our favorite rogue Zen philosopher, Alan Watts had a gift for contextualizing the principles of Zen and translating them in a way that non-Buddhist people would be able to comprehend. In this excerpt from his short book, 'Beat Zen Square Zen and Zen', he talks about the importance of understanding our own culture thoroughly so… Continue reading Alan Watts on Beat Zen and Square Zen
