buddhist wisdom

At a time when people are so conscious of maintaining their physical health by controlling their diets, exercising and so forth, it makes sense to try to cultivate the corresponding positive mental attitudes too.-His Holiness the Dalai Lama, 1963.

In looking at buddhism one wonders why did the west have to go and try to put their influence in it as well. everything is a fad...if you want to be buddhist you have to dress a certain way, shave your head you know look like one of those dudes in one of the many stupid fad forming cheap hollywood flicks.

I am buddhist, I am hindu, I am christian, I can be anything I want, I do not know why it is necessary or why there must be an initation to follow a particular belief. then again why do I even need a religious demonination, what I will say are the teachings that I do not accept:D.

Man is always trying to group things look at linneus he created a system of kingdom, familly, order, genus, species, family, and we find ourselves grouped into the homo sapiens, if that isn't enough now we must group ourselves based on sex, then how about race, add some spice differentiate with respect to culture , even more with respect to position in society, how about we seperate ourselves based on religion now...

okay now going back to buddhism and maybe here I will continue my post on siddhartha, what the reader notices about this character is that they do not really feel for him as a seperate person, because he is every man not a single person. hesse portrayed man and his basal qualities and his ablitty to enlighten himself and find peace. siddharta often said that he only had three skills, he knew how to fast, how to wait and how to think.

Now how many of us lack all three???

looking at man today, even those who call themselves buddhists etc are a far cry from ever finding peace. why? Because we are too concerned with this material life and peering into the windows of our neighbours. we decide that first one must shave their head an give up all worldy posessions, which is not a bad idea, since we feel so much grief from loss and we experience loss only when we thought that we owned something:D

Lets refer to bhagavad gita, 2:56 "...a person whose mind is unperturbed by sorrow, who does not crave pleasures,and who is free from attachment, fear, and anger;such a person is called a sage of steady prana..." Now my fellow buddhists doesn't this sound familiar? Why is there even a seperation between the two? Just exactly what is the difference between buddhism and hinduism and why do we even have to bother with names ?

Now to our own basal qualities, we are supposed to be trying to make ourselves better for ourselves, not so that someone can like us or say look at her she is a good girl. Honestly I could care less and I do not need the compliments of anyone ( except maybe in my resume:D).

How many of you stop and listen attentively to the newest and hottest piece of gossip and will not take the time to examine yourself. It is so much easier to judge another and very carefully pinpoint his/her faults than to look at onelself and see the myraid of flaws in character , at least then we can try to determine how character may be made better and go about life without getting on anyone elses nerves. Then again when we think that character is flawless we just go ahead and ruin it by thinking that we are above others or righteous. now I can say that I am neither good nor bad.


My sister and I had an argument over the symbolism of the river in the novel. ( I know it is pointless to argue since each reader will get his own opinion anyways but still its my sis so it was fun to pick on her).

Now the river spoke to siddhartha and vasudev and even laughed at them sometimes. the thing about the river is that we can look at it as being every symbolic in that it is water which represents life and time etc as it flows or we can simply see it as the river. yes vasudev and siddhartha learned a lot from the river but at the end of the novel we see the truly enlightened vasudev as he goes off into the forest and realises that if he listens carefully he will learn from everything.

Now striking part of the novel, the ferryman Vasudev, without running off to follow the Buddha he had actually found peace and self realization.
It seems as if hesse wrote this book with deep roots taken from the Bhagavad Gita.
I know that my thoughts aren't all coherent but eventually they will merge.

The description of the Buddha in this novel is excellent, he did not ask for followers nor demand that those who follow him dress and behave like him. Siddhartha chose his own path without adhering to a particular faith or ritual and the novel ends with him finding peace.

In sharp contrast to siddharta is his friend Govinda the follower who adopts many differnt paths and eventually follows buddha but is unable to find peace. maybe this is because he did not chose his own path but decided to follow others.

I know that right now this commentary is a bit whack , it is because I was deeply affected by this novel and it has set my mind spiralling with thoughts which maybe I will be better able to clarify someother time. Right now lets call this blog RAW THOUGHTS, and hopefully soon I will be able to refine them and put them in a more readable format:D I hope that I did not confuse you too much.