Siddhartha (novel) & Herman Hesse

Post sayings and stories you find interesting or useful.
User avatar
retrofuturist
Posts: 27848
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:52 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Re: Siddhartha (novel) & Herman Hesse

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Jhana4,
Jhana4 wrote:
Hanzze wrote:_/\_
What does this symbol or emoticon mean?
As well as the specific meaning of "Hanzze has decided to retrospectively butcher one of his posts", it has the more general meaning on Buddhist forums of hands pressed together in the following form.

:anjali: :namaste:

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
Buckwheat
Posts: 970
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 12:39 am
Location: California USA

Re: Siddhartha (novel) & Herman Hesse

Post by Buckwheat »

The first time I read Siddhartha, I knew only the very basics of Buddhism and Hinduism. Since Siddhartha is a common Indian name (or at least I've heard of it) and all spiritual concepts in the book seemed like Hinduism, I did not associate it as a "Buddhist" book in the slightest, especially since he meets and rejects the Buddha in the course of the novel. I still fail to see how people confuse it as a biography of the Buddha. You would have to turn off your mind to get that impression.

No, for me, Siddhartha the novel is simply a novel that is inspiring - a translation of the "Book of the Heart" that transcends dharma, history, and all the sankara's we generally attach to any combination of ink and paper (or pixels now-a-days). It did however, give my abstract spiritual feelings some form that I could work with. I looked into Hinduism, but quickly found my true home in Buddhism.

There are levels of dhamma - the formal teachings of the Buddha, which are not at all part of Herman Hesse's novel - and the real heart of the wisdom-compassion, which Hesse does a fine job in bringing to life IMO.

Does anybody find it ironic that Siddhartha's one and only criticism of the Buddha's doctrine is that because enlightenment can not be taught the description is inadequate, yet Siddhartha goes on to have many informal teachers (including a river and a whore) and a semi-formal teacher in the ferryman that he lives with by the river? I don't believe this is an irony that Hesse left in by neglegence. It shows that we do need teachers, even when they are not formal. We all learn from experience and from people. A few rare individuals can do it without a formal teacher (Siddhartha, the Buddha, the ferryman), but the rest of us need formal methods to cut off our coarser defilements. Even then, we must realize that a good teaching only narrows the search, and genuine Truth lies outside the domain of a formal teaching.

And let us not forget that Siddhartha's training was not complete until he learned how to love. Only then could he see the people he ferried across the river, not as children, but as humans full of dignity and suffering. Though he was respectful and free of ill-will throughout the novel, it is only after losing his son that he develops compassion. That was his final humility, losing the pride of dignity and conceit, and he never would have gotten there without the ferryman (a good companion).

Anyway, that's my take. I'm not expecting to change any minds about the novel. And yes, I read it again just a couple months ago and I was just as moved as the first five times I read it. It is not a book about Buddhism. But it is a book about sila, samadhi, and panna.
Sotthī hontu nirantaraṃ - May you forever be well.
User avatar
Kim OHara
Posts: 5584
Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:47 am
Location: North Queensland, Australia

Re: Siddhartha (novel) & Herman Hesse

Post by Kim OHara »

:goodpost:
:namaste:
Kim
Sanghamitta
Posts: 1614
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:21 am
Location: By the River Thames near London.

Re: Siddhartha (novel) & Herman Hesse

Post by Sanghamitta »

At least one person I know will disagree... but I think it probably contains a very accurate pen portrait of what the Buddha was actually about, stripped of subsequent deification and hyperbole.
The going for refuge is the door of entrance to the teachings of the Buddha.

Bhikku Bodhi.
User avatar
Ben
Posts: 18438
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: Siddhartha (novel) & Herman Hesse

Post by Ben »

Buckwheat wrote:I did not associate it as a "Buddhist" book in the slightest
Interestingly, our local 'good' bookshop has a copy of Siddhartha in the religion section with a smattering of HHDL's books, ostensibly representing Buddhism.
kind regards,

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
User avatar
Ben
Posts: 18438
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: Siddhartha (novel) & Herman Hesse

Post by Ben »

Sanghamitta wrote:At least one person I know will disagree... but I think it probably contains a very accurate pen portrait of what the Buddha was actually about, stripped of subsequent deification and hyperbole.
PeterB wrote:When they [poets/Hermann Hesse] make a highly misleading pen portrait of the Buddha ?
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
User avatar
Alobha
Posts: 565
Joined: Mon Dec 19, 2011 8:27 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Siddhartha (novel) & Herman Hesse

Post by Alobha »

Buckwheat wrote: There are levels of dhamma - the formal teachings of the Buddha, which are not at all part of Herman Hesse's novel - and the real heart of the wisdom-compassion, which Hesse does a fine job in bringing to life IMO.
:goodpost:
Sanghamitta
Posts: 1614
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:21 am
Location: By the River Thames near London.

Re: Siddhartha (novel) & Herman Hesse

Post by Sanghamitta »

Ben wrote:
Sanghamitta wrote:At least one person I know will disagree... but I think it probably contains a very accurate pen portrait of what the Buddha was actually about, stripped of subsequent deification and hyperbole.
PeterB wrote:When they [poets/Hermann Hesse] make a highly misleading pen portrait of the Buddha ?
Precisely Ben.... :lol:
The going for refuge is the door of entrance to the teachings of the Buddha.

Bhikku Bodhi.
Buckwheat
Posts: 970
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 12:39 am
Location: California USA

Re: Siddhartha (novel) & Herman Hesse

Post by Buckwheat »

In my opinion, Hesse's mistake was to expect pop culture to use their intellect to differentiate between inspired fiction and the story that inspired the fiction. It seems he made several decisions based on delineating that difference such as putting the main character in a different religious tradition, a different caste, meet the Buddha and reject his teaching, and shuffle/alter the plot points that were inspired by the Buddha. To write that off as Hesse's ignorance ignores his literary point to differentiate between historic facts and religious inspiration. I can't lame Hesse for the ignorance of pop culture and the local bookstore owner. Plus the bookstore's job is to sell books. Buddhism and Hinduism are usually placed in a section with other books that the same target audience will purchase. Is that so wrong?
Sotthī hontu nirantaraṃ - May you forever be well.
User avatar
Kim OHara
Posts: 5584
Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:47 am
Location: North Queensland, Australia

Re: Siddhartha (novel) & Herman Hesse

Post by Kim OHara »

Buckwheat wrote:In my opinion, Hesse's mistake was to expect pop culture to use their intellect to differentiate between inspired fiction and the story that inspired the fiction. It seems he made several decisions based on delineating that difference such as putting the main character in a different religious tradition, a different caste, meet the Buddha and reject his teaching, and shuffle/alter the plot points that were inspired by the Buddha. To write that off as Hesse's ignorance ignores his literary point to differentiate between historic facts and religious inspiration. I can't lame Hesse for the ignorance of pop culture and the local bookstore owner. Plus the bookstore's job is to sell books. Buddhism and Hinduism are usually placed in a section with other books that the same target audience will purchase. Is that so wrong?
Hi, Buckwheat,
You write as if Hess was writing for a modern American readership. He wasn't - not by a long way.
Try putting all that kind of analysis into the context of the Germany of 1922, where the writer and his audience were still traumatised by WW 1, and the USA of 1951 (when it was first published there) when the hippie movement was just flickering into life.
We read any book in the context of our own experience, and those contexts can be so different that we might as well be reading different books.

:namaste:
Kim
User avatar
mikenz66
Posts: 19943
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:37 am
Location: Aotearoa, New Zealand

Re: Siddhartha (novel) & Herman Hesse

Post by mikenz66 »

Hi Kim,

Perhaps the use of the word "pop culture" was unfortunate, but I think the observation that Hess made it clear that he wasn't speaking specifically about the Buddha is an interesting one.

Besides, many of what we now call "New Age" ideas have been floating around since the 19th century and would have been well known in the literary and artistic community of the 1920s.

:anjali:
Mike
User avatar
Kim OHara
Posts: 5584
Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:47 am
Location: North Queensland, Australia

Re: Siddhartha (novel) & Herman Hesse

Post by Kim OHara »

mikenz66 wrote:Hi Kim,
... I think the observation that Hess made it clear that he wasn't speaking specifically about the Buddha is an interesting one.
That's a good point, Mike, and I'm sorry I didn't acknowledge it, Buckwheat. I guess I failed to acknowledge it because it is *far* from new to me (I read the book and understood that aspect some decades ago) but it was worth pointing out here because others clearly haven't.
mikenz66 wrote:Besides, many of what we now call "New Age" ideas have been floating around since the 19th century and would have been well known in the literary and artistic community of the 1920s.
Yes, but the way in which such ideas were understood by their adherents and the wider society were quite different from the way in which they are understood now. Our societies are far more pluralistic and far more knowledgeable about other societies and religions than Hesse's original readers, or even his first American readers in the early 1950s.The difference shows up even more in another of Hesse's books, Journey to the East, and I guess I would say one of the main differences is that 'the East' was not fully *real* to Hesse in the way it is real to us, so it is more seductive but more dreamlike.

:namaste:
Kim
Buckwheat
Posts: 970
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 12:39 am
Location: California USA

Re: Siddhartha (novel) & Herman Hesse

Post by Buckwheat »

Kim,
That is an interesting point: not only is it a different book for me than it was for Hesse and his immediate audience, I find myself having a difficult time even imagining the book from the perspective of that radical moment in history. That will require some research and reflection.

Thanks,
Scott
Sotthī hontu nirantaraṃ - May you forever be well.
User avatar
Kim OHara
Posts: 5584
Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:47 am
Location: North Queensland, Australia

Re: Siddhartha (novel) & Herman Hesse

Post by Kim OHara »

Buckwheat wrote:Kim,
That is an interesting point: not only is it a different book for me than it was for Hesse and his immediate audience, I find myself having a difficult time even imagining the book from the perspective of that radical moment in history. That will require some research and reflection.

Thanks,
Scott
Yes, it can be hard. One way is to imagine your grandparents or great-grandparents reading the book soon after it came out. Would they have? Would they have understood it?
Another way is immersion in the period, and it happens that I can suggest a fun way of doing that for a couple of hours: two good recent movies are set partly in Paris of the 1920s - Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris and Martin Scorsese's Hugo. Hugo is notionally a kid's film but it is actually better (IMO) than the other one.
Have fun.
:popcorn:
Kim
Post Reply