Here's a good article by Ginsberg about Kerouac's understanding of Buddhism. I liked this quote, which reveals its relation - in his mind - to both Catholicism and writing:
Kerouac wrote an essay, "Last Words," in January 1967 (published in Escapade) quoting the Surangama Sutra:
If you are now desirous of more perfectly understanding Supreme Enlightenment, you must learn to answer spontaneously and with no recourse to discriminate thinking. For the Tathagatas (the passers-through) in the ten quarters of the universes, because of the straight-forwardness of their minds and the spontaneity of their mentations, have ever remained, from beginningless time to endless time, of one pure Suchness with the enlightening nature of pure Mind Essence.
Then Kerouac continues:
... which is pretty strange old news. You can also find pretty much the same thing in Mark 13:11. "Take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do you premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given to you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak but the Holy Ghost!"
