Beat Generation
The Beat Generation was a literary movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized throughout the 1950s. The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration.
Jazz meditation
Since the mid-20th Century, there has been an evolving relationship between jazz musicians and Buddhist meditative practices. From the emergence of the Beat Generation artists in the post World War II era United States, through the counter-culture 1960s and New Age and experimental aesthetics of the late 20th Century, musicians have found rich inspiration as well as discipline in many of the same concepts that are fundamental to Buddhist practices.