He served in the United States Army Signal Corps in Korea at the end of the Korean War and was honorably discharged in 1954.

from Indiana University, Bloomington, then studied at Pembroke College, Cambridge, England, as a Fulbright scholar from 1956 to 1957.

Starting in 1991, he and his second wife, the author Kimberley Snow, spent six years living in a Tibetan Buddhist community in Northern California where they studied Dzogchen with Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, working in the kitchen, setting up a website for the community, and editing dharma books.

[4] Spacks was the advisor for Into the Teeth of the Wind, an annual poetry magazine sponsored by UCSB's College of Creative Studies.

"[6] Author Tobias Wolff wrote that he kept Spacks' poem "Like a Prism" hanging above his typewriter.