September 19, 2004
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PEOPLE WHO KNOCK ME OUT
A Sunday series A-Z (see sidebar)Buddha
After sifting through thoughts of Bach, the Beatles, Jeff Bezos, and Alec Baldwin, I looked up at my old battered copy of Siddhartha (by Hermann Hesse) sitting on the shelf above me and made the decision to go with the man of peace. I don’t listen to Bach or the Beatles much anymore (though I once did and still adore them), who doesn’t use Amazon.com in their daily lives? and although he seems to have an anger management problem, I always enjoy A. Baldwin’s wicked sense of humor and political savvy. But nothing has affected me as deeply as discovering there is a particular spiritual mindset that is so clearly about nonviolence and simplicity. Buddha (“the awakened”) was the title given to Siddhartha Guatama, the son of a Nepalese rajah. According to tradition, Guatama left a life of luxury at age 30 and devoted himself to years of contemplation and self-denial, finally reaching enlightenment while sitting beneath a tree. Henceforth known as Buddha, he spent his life teaching disciples about his beliefs (embodied in the Four Noble Truths) and the goal of achieving the enlightened state of Nirvana. The Four Noble Truths are
1. Life includes suffering.
2. The cause of suffering is craving.
3. Suffering stops with the cessation of craving.
4. There is a path to the cessation of craving called the Noble Eightfold Path.
I’ve been checking out this path ever since. I’m a fool for lists and plans. But I have to get a gut feeling about them. I don’t call myself a Buddhist (or anything else for that matter in terms of religion), but the story of Siddhartha is one of the few I’ve kept close at hand all these years.
Deep Thought: As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way.
Today I am grateful for: Replaceable batteries in watches
Guess the Movie: “Sometimes, now and then, couldn’t we just talk?”
“I tell you what. You talk. I’ll listen.” Answer: Oh God, 1977
Polls Today – Kerry 207/Bush 331 Mason-Dixon has surveyed six swing states: Arizona, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, and West Virginia, and Bush is ahead in all of them. And unlike some of the other pollsters who work for one side or the other, Mason-Dixon, at least claims to be neutral. Noteworthy today is that even New Hampshire has switched to Bush, bringing his score in the electoral college to 331, its highest level since May 24. But it is important to note that many states are still very close and could change quickly.
End of Day: 8:09 pm
+ = Saw the movie Garden State. Delightful. Bright new talent in the lead actor who I believe also wrote the very smart script.
- = Front yard starting to look trashy because my mower’s in the shop and it’s been raining besides.
Comments (20)
It’s been many, many years since I read Siddhartha. Seems to me I recall he more or less walked away from life because he found no pleasure in it. Beauty fades, wealth cannot buy happiness, pleasures of the flesh are fleeting, etc… Didn’t he become a ferryman towards the end of the story?
He walked away from the “craving” aspects of life but he found pleasure in the simplicity of the riverbank.
I read that book last year, and it really affected me. I wish I knew more about the author, though. How did he, being Dutch I believe, discover and understand so much? Or is everything in there even accurate? Perhaps it doesn’t matter how accuarate it is; it paints a beautiful story nonetheless, and it’s factual accuracy doesn’t make its message any less true. Still, I would love to hear your ideas on the author, since I really don’t know that much.
Hesse was actually German, though he lived in Switzerland when he was writing Siddhartha. Here is a link to a bio:
http://www.online-literature.com/hesse/
I’ve never read it, I have watched “Little Buddha” many times and love it. I’m fascinated by how eastern religions (some) moved beyond that “big daddy in the sky” concept of God but in the west we’ve remained stuck (the fundamentalist American view of God seems barely beyond Zeus to me, except he’s less funny). That we, as a society, fail to appreciate harmony and balance is so destructive in our politics, in our economics, in our family lives. We have so much to learn.
i don’t put any stock in polls at this point in time. remember, in september and october, the polls had gore winning the electoral college. i remember people talking — and i’m sure it wasn’t just me — that the 2000 would split the popular vote and electoral vote. only i got it backwards, and i think the pollsters did too
I think polls are kind of like weather predictions only maybe even more complex since they often reflect bias. Nevertheless, they’re the closest thing we have to trying to follow what the hell is going on out there, since the media sure isn’t telling us.
The most profound Truth is the least complex.
I am quite astonished by the poll numbers. Then again, we are a nation who drugs 11 million children on Prozac so they will stop craving our attention or baubles at the mall. I fear we are becoming a nation that craves anything but the truth of our own inattentiveness. I could swear there is something clinically wrong with the man, George Bush, and something even more wrong in thinking he has any idea what he is doing beyond the scope of his own psychological pathology.
An interesting read on Hermann Hesse: “C.G. Jung & Hermann Hesse: A Record of Two Friendships” by Miguel Serrano c. 1966.
Peace~
Yes, it’s fascinating about the friendship between Jung and Hesse.
And right LG about everything else!
Interesting concepts! I’m a fool for lists & plans as well. Thanks for expanding our thoughts, as always. : )
Probably I am most Buddhist, if I had to pick a way, but I haven’t read Hesse! Two copies on my shelves, too, I discovered when I moved. Something about hero worship perhaps… When I discovered the poetry of Tibetan Tantric Buddhist women through the centuries (from the 8thc on), I fell in love with ‘a religion’ that deeply honours women, their spirituality, their wisdom, and accords them an equal place with the enlightened males, and I felt welcome. While I’ve read probably 2 dozen books on Tantric Tibetan Buddhism, with as many translations of ancient texts as I could find, and have been initiated by a lama, and practice it in my own eclectic way, I haven’t taken it to the next level by finding an actual teacher. Who knows if that’s for me? It’s a stunningly beautiful cosmology though.
And Kerry and Bush. If Bush is re-elected, I don’t know if I’d even want to live next to the States! It’s that bad, and I feel so, so deeply for you all. Bush has a posturing nationalism; Kerry has the American people in his heart. I sure hope Kerry is voted in.
Bless your heart. I can tell you have a strong spiritual program by how you write and create. I’ve not found a teacher either yet though I keep watching. And then they also suggest finding a community which hasn’t worked for me either so far.
If you want to understand Buddhism, don’t read Hesse. ‘Siddhartha’ isn’t about the Buddha.
Read Thich Nhat Hahn. He’s very easy and approachable for Americans. He wrote a book comparing Jesus to the Buddha which is a good place to start. Also some smaller books, like ‘The Heart Of Understanding,’ and ‘The Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion,’ which are short, easily digestible, and have the advantage of being about primary Buddhist scriptural sources (the Heart and Diamond sutras, respectively).
this is beautiful buddha picture../N *
Per Homer the Brave, he’s right, technically the Siddhartha of the title goes on a similar journey but actually meets the Buddha on his own journey.
I do have Thich Nhat Hahn’s book The Sutra on the Eight Realizations of the Great Beings in my tiny shelf right next to Siddhartha. He is marvelous and I’ve posted on him in the past.
Per Homer the Brave, he’s right, technically the Siddhartha of the title goes on a similar journey but actually meets the Buddha on his own journey.
I do have Thich Nhat Hahn’s book The Sutra on the Eight Realizations of the Great Beings in my tiny shelf right next to Siddhartha. He is marvelous and I’ve posted on him in the past.
I think the world would improve rapidly if only more people in the west would learn a bit about Buddha, I know that from the moment that I read the most simple and minimalist Buddhist teachings I had a great change of spirit. I know I have been deeply affected by the teachings! I haven’t read Siddhartha yet but the book has been prominently displayed in my Borders store that I frequent and it has been calling to me for a couple months, I think it is about time to answer the call! Thanks for sharing! ~peace!
My husband rented me the movie recently, I thought it was quite awful. I love the book and so it was a bitter pill to swallow. I don’t think I have the patience to accept things as a good Buddist would. I rather like to beat my head against walls. But I do like the idea of Buddism and I think as with all learning that I have been exposed to, I have taken bits and pieces and incorporated them into my life.
I went to DePaul University for undergrad, which is a Catholic school, and had a religion requirment. So I took Buddhism because I figured I might as well learn something new, and one of the texts was Siddartha. I had read Steppenwolf prior, and always liked Hesse. Siddartha was by far my favorite reading of the term.
I finished Siddhartha today and it was a fantastic book! I found that the value of the book is not in how it extols the principals of Buddhism which it does do in its own manner but what is of the greatest value is walking along with Siddhartha as he travels the path to enlightenment. How better could you learn of what the path is like then to see someone else take that walk!
When I read my first book on Buddhism, what got me interested in it was not the clear thinking teaching nor the freedom from oppressive dogma but the author who said that Buddhism is about finding your own path amongst the teachings of the Buddha. I think that Siddhartha captures this essence of Buddhism and also affirms my own views. While it never hurts to have guidance you still must travel the path on your own.
Lionne, thanks so much for kick starting me to read this book! I have wanted to for a while but just hadn’t gotten to it. I can see very clearly why you love it so!
One of my favorite quotes:
The sinner, which I am and which
you are, is a sinner, but in times to come he will be Brahma again, he
will reach the Nirvana, will be Buddha–and now see: these “times to
come” are a deception, are only a parable! The sinner is not on his
way to become a Buddha, he is not in the process of developing, though
our capacity for thinking does not know how else to picture these
things. No, within the sinner is now and today already the future
Buddha, his future is already all there, you have to worship in him, in
you, in everyone the Buddha which is coming into being, the possible,
the hidden Buddha.