Lion's Roar

  • Meditation
  • Buddhist Wisdom
  • Life & Culture
  • The Magazine
  • Buddhadharma
  • Store

Lion's Roar

DONATE SUBSCRIBE
  • Meditation
  • Buddhist Wisdom
  • Life & Culture
  • The Magazine
  • Buddhadharma
  • Store

9 surprising facts about Henry Miller’s affinity for Buddhism

by Rod Meade Sperry| March 18, 2016

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Henry miller Buddhist Lion's Roar hummingbirdAs someone who spent far too much time hiding in my college’s library, devouring the stories, plays, and letters of Henry Miller, I am flabbergasted now to learn of the depth of Miller’s appreciation of and preoccupation with Buddhism. (Perhaps, given my age, I was focused more then with the more prurient aspects of his work. As Erica Jong once put it, using somewhat faint praise, Miller was “more mystic than pornographer.”) It somehow passed right by me.

But now, thanks to David Stephen Calonne’s excellent biography, Henry Miller (part of Reaktion Books’ Critical Lives series), one really can’t miss it. Miller, an iconoclast for sure, wasn’t much of a joiner — so it doesn’t appear that he ever joined a sangha. But that didn’t stop him from integrating Buddhist thought into his life and work. That is, in his typically individualistic, proto-Beat way:

  1. Miller was reading about Buddhism as early as age 18, and often posited that he might have had Mongolian or Tibetan ancestors.
  2. Among his many pen pals, which included (for instance) lover Anais Nin and Lawrence Durrell, was Vietnamese monk Phong Cong Thien.
  3. Miller was fond of custom stationery emblazoned with quotations. Among them, as attributed to the historical Buddha, “I obtained not the least thing from complete unexcelled awakening, and for that reason it is called complete, unexcelled awakening.”
  4. The title of his famous book of essays, Stand Still Like the Hummingbird, was a reference to Zen-styled silent absorption.
  5. Of Zen, he once wrote in a letter to an author friend: “As the Zen masters say: ‘Think only and entirely and completely of what you are doing at the moment and you are free as a bird. No Westerner wants to accept such a statement, naturally — it seems so simple to be true. We prefer to complicate things, with our prejudices, or principles, our beliefs, our judgments. And so we continue to feed the machine which grinds us to nothingness.”
  6. The Tibetan Book of the Dead and D.T. Suzuki’s Introduction to Zen Buddhism were among a 1938 list of twelve books that Miller believed should not be missed.
  7. It was Miller’s excitement upon reading Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha in the original German that led to its English publication.
  8. By 1969 he had developed “a habit of banging on a large, laquered drum and chanting the mantra central to Nichiren Buddhism, Nam Myo Ho Renge Kyo,” crediting the practice for a “string of unrelenting luck.”
  9. Writing to Lawrence Durrell, Miller once praised the Tibetan saint Milarepa and added, “I am a Zen addict through and through… No intelligent person, no sensitive person, can help but be a Buddhist. It’s clear as a bell to me.”

For more on the book, visit its page on the University of Chicago Press website.

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Can you help us at a critical time?

COVID-19 has brought tremendous suffering, uncertainty, fear, and strain to the world.

Our sincere wish is that these Buddhist teachings, guided practices, and stories can be a balm in these difficult times. Over the past month, over 400,000 readers like you have visited our site, reading almost a million pages and streaming over 120,000 hours of video teachings. We want to provide even more Buddhist wisdom but our resources are strained. Can you help us?

No one is free from the pandemic’s impact, including Lion’s Roar. We rely significantly on advertising and newsstand sales to support our work — both of which have dropped precipitously this year. Can you lend your support to Lion’s Roar at this critical time?

SUPPORT LION’S ROAR

Rod Meade Sperry

About Rod Meade Sperry

Rod Meade Sperry is digital editorial director for Lion's Roar. He is, with Miguel Chen, co-author of I Wanna Be Well: How a Punk Found Peace and You Can Too and The Death of You: A Book for Anyone Who Might Not Live Forever. Rod also edited the Lion's Roar book, A Beginner’s Guide to Meditation: Practical Advice and Inspiration from Contemporary Buddhist Teachers.

Topics: Books, Henry Miller, Milarepa, Nichiren Buddhism, Rod Meade Sperry, Siddhartha Gautama, Tibetan Book of the Dead, Zen

Related Posts...

Beyond Self & Other
by Mu Soeng
Does a Dog Have Buddhanature?
by Koun Franz
Beach.This Life, Which is Wonderful and Evanescent
by Blanche Hartman

Welcome to LionsRoar.com

By Lion's Roar Staff

We’re glad to have you here. But first: who are “we”? You may very well know us as the publishers of two Buddhist magazines, the Shambhala Sun and Buddhadharma. Then again, you may not know us at all. Either way, please allow us to re-introduce ourselves: We’re the Shambhala Sun Foundation. We [...]

  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Advertise
  • Subscriber Services
  • Privacy
  • BUDDHIST DIRECTORY
  • About Us
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
TEACHINGS
  • Chan & Zen
  • Nichiren
  • Pure Land
  • Shin
  • Theravada & Insight
  • Vajrayana & Tibetan
  • More…
LIFE
  • Death & Dying
  • Difficult Times
  • Everyday Life
  • Food & Eating
  • Love & Relationships
  • Wellness & Psychology
  • More…
EXPLORE BUDDHISM
  • By the Numbers
  • FAQs
  • For Beginners
  • Glossary
  • How to Meditate
  • The Buddha
  • More…
NEWS
  • Breaking News
  • Climate Change
  • Contemporary Art
  • Current Events
  • Politics & Society
  • Teachers & Centers
  • More…

© 2021 Lion's Roar | Email: [email protected] | Tel: 902.422.8404 | Published by Lion's Roar Foundation