I got into Buddhism through books on my dad's bookshelf. My dad became curious about Buddhism and Taoism through the writings of Alan Watts, Gary Snyder, and ot

I got into Buddhism through books on my dad's bookshelf. My dad became curious about Buddhism and Taoism through the writings of Alan Watts, Gary Snyder, and other people in that crowd, and he became fascinated with those people through the novels of Jack Kerouac. I always knew about this causal chain, but I never knew that Jack Kerouac himself wanted to be a popularizer of Buddhism! In my admittedly skewed perception, the glimpse he gave America into the Beat Generation was far more influential in promoting Buddhism indirectly than his own embrace of it.