This
week, I explored The Life of Buddha by Andre Ferdinand Herold translated by
Paul C. Blum. The original text was written in French but the translation by
Blum was seamless. The story flowed very well, and gave enough background
information within the story itself to keep confusion at bay. Each chapter was relatively
short, but incredibly descriptive and entertaining. It is obvious that this
book was well thought out, and each word was placed with intention.
The Life
of Buddha was my favorite Un-Textbook story I have read. The simple, modern English
made the reading so much easier than a couple others I have come across. The
only issue with the available text was a lack of PDF. I often close everything
out, without thinking and found myself having to re- find the website and
re-find my place in the book. Not a huge deal, but enough of an ordeal for me
to think of it as a hassle.
I have always
been somewhat acquainted with the story of Buddha, but told from the Asian
point of view which, believe it or not, is different. Every piece of
information I gathered from Buddha throughout my life focused almost exclusively on him after his revelations. Learning the story of Buddha from birth was so
informational.
My
favorite story from the reading was Siddhartha’s trips into the city in Gopa’s
Dream and Siddhartha is Eager to Know the Great Truths. Siddhartha was shocked
to discover pain and suffering. So much so that he completely changed his
entire life path toward seeking the end of these terrible pains. These two
stories took me by surprise not because of their content but the message. We so
often brush off the pain of the world and accept that sickness and age and
death are inevitable, and while that is true and should be remembered it is all
too often a justification. To see that Siddhartha was so incredibly inconsolable,
reminded me that suffering is not mundane. Life is not mundane. The parallels
between the story of Jesus and Siddhartha was also a little unexpected. I have
always been aware of the principle of universal history but these two stories
were much more similar than I had originally realized.
I
absolutely loved The Life of Buddha. It is one of those things that I feel was
unjustly excluded from being a classic. The religious aspects aside Siddhartha’s
story is such a good “Food for Thought” provoking story. This story has
inspired me to re-kindle my exploration of the Greek, Roman, and now Eastern
classics.
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| Image of Buddha Meditating Provided by Wikipedia |
Bibliography: The Life of Buddha by Andre Ferdinand Herold (1922)
Translated by Paul C. Blum (1927)
Mentioned Stories: Gopa's Dream & Siddhartha is Eager to Know the Great Truths
Gloria,
ReplyDeleteI am glad you read and enjoyed The Life of Buddha section of the Untextbook! I was planning on reading it this past week, but got caught up in things and didn't get around to it. So it was nice to have your essay and storytelling post to read and get a little synopsis of it!
The stories of Siddhartha sounds truly incredibly. I agree with you that we are often very desensitized to the traumatic events that happen in the world. I'll admit, I'm even that way sometimes. And then sometimes, I cry at the drop of a hat (or some commercial on TV...really?!). But we all have our own ways of coping with things and, sometimes, we just have to harden ourselves against the bad. It is a very interesting thing to think about it!
Gloria, I have yet to read any of the untextbook but I continue to find all of the stories interesting that I read from other people talking about the untextbook. It seems as if I need to dive into some of them, over, I still really enjoy the epics as we continue to see the overlap of the different authors.
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