Abstract: “The Beat Generation” occupies a pivotal position in the history of world literature. The great significance of this movement lies in the spiritual exploration of human nature. The eastern Buddhist ideology and western Christian ideology have great influence on “The Beat Generation”. Kerouac， “King of the Beat Generation”， wrote two novels On the Road and The Dharma Bums， which are the representatives of the “Beat” spirit. The two novels are different in the spiritual core in that the former expresses responsibility and extroverted transcendence by comparing the destiny differences of two protagonists while the latter tells the story of how Japhy and Raymond follow the intuition of life to witness the beauty and tranquility of the world， which is internal reflection. The former is about responsibility of the western style and the latter is about peace of the eastern style. The contradiction between the eastern and western thoughts is also embodied in Kerouac's ideological experience， which makes the pursuit of his thought “on the road” forever.

Key words: Jack Kerouac, “The Beat Generation”, Zen, On the Road, The Dharma Bum