Siddhartha

             Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse, depicts the journey and experiences of a man named Siddhartha, on his quest to reach enlightenment. Throughout the story, Siddhartha undergoes many epiphanies, experiences many different sides of life, and changes his idea of how to reach enlightenment several times. Once Siddhartha became a Buddha he was rather logical, scientific, and rational in his approach. He did not speak of supernatural phenomena or an afterlife, he dismissed the possibility of miracles; and he taught self-reliance. He had little use for rituals and formalistic laws, and urged each man to work out his own salvation. Nonetheless, at the end of the novel, can we say he is a good Buddhist?
             The historical Gotama, like the figure in Siddhartha taught that love and deep attachment to anyone or anything was wrong, since it lead to suffering. Buddha never defined the state of Nirvana, as he understood it, beyond saying that in it the end of suffering is attained, and that this is accomplished by the absolute extinction of the will. The basic teaching of Buddha is formulated in the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. The First Noble Truth is the fact of suffering. The Second Truth is that suffering arises from human desire for something, and that this desire can never be satisfied. The Third Truth is that there is a way to achieve a release from suffering. And the Fourth Truth prescribes the manner of overcoming suffering and attaining true knowledge. The first two steps in the Eightfold Path, which leads to the end of, suffering, are right understanding and right resolution; a person must first discover and experience the correctness of the Four Noble Truths, and then resolve to follow the correct path. The next three steps likewise form a kind of unit: right speech, right behavior, and right livelihood. These reflect the external aspects of a person's life, which must not be neglected. The interior disciplines constitute the fina...

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Siddhartha. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 19:21, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/16979.html