Tao Te Ching
Siddhartha
One of the early and most powerful, popularizing influences on merging east and west, on bringing an awareness and understanding of Buddhism to western culture, and promoting the benefits of meditation and contemplation; Hesse wrote this in an attempt to help cure the "sickness with life.” He wrote the first half of the book quickly but the second half took a long time because he felt a need to personally experience more of what the Buddha had gone through. For this purpose, he lived as a recluse immersing himself in the Hindu and Buddhist teachings. This personal experience led to emphasizing how Siddhartha’s realization came not from any teacher but from listening to a river and “a kindly old fool who always smiles and is secretly a saint." A testament to the theme of understanding the sense and not just the words, this book continues to be one of help create a more sane, happy, meaningful, and enlightened world.
Themes
Quotes from Siddhartha
“"When someone seeks," said Siddhartha, "then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because he always thinks only about the thing he is seeking, because he has one goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal."”
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26. The Still Rule the Restless
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“after a celebration of love the lovers should not part without admiring each other, without being conquered or having conquered, so that neither is bleak or glutted or has the bad feeling of being used or misused.”
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“he has the secret of those people to whom success comes by itself... he never fears failure, he is never worried about a loss.”
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“I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.”
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“It is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.”
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“Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”
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“My real self wanders elsewhere, far away, wanders on and on invisibly and has nothing to do with my life.”
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“No one will ever attain redemption through doctrine!”
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“One can beg, buy, be presented with and find love in the streets, but it can never be stolen.”
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“one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure. Every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it.”
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“Opinions mean nothing; they may be beautiful or ugly, clever or foolish, anyone can embrace or reject them.”
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“Siddhartha determined to no longer be instructed by any doctrine whatsoever and said, ‘I shall learn from myself, be a pupil of myself; I shall get to know myself, the mystery of Siddhartha.’ He then looked around as if he were seeing the world for the first time.”
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“We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps.”
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“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else”
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41. Distilled Life
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