Skip to main content

Biography of Lord Buddha "Old Path White Clouds" by Thich Nhat Hanh


I have been passed this book to read by one of my seniors, probably knowing my passion for reading, in-fact reading anything from science, biographies, fictions, philosophy etc. At first glance, I thought when will I be able to finish this reading as I am also reading a book by H.H. Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpochhe "What Makes you not a Buddhist" and Min Jin Lee's "Free Food for Millionaire".
The book is pretty thick with 572 pages excluding appendix and chapter summary which if considered it comes to 600 pages. This is one book which seems to have covered almost every life and struggle of Siddhartha Gautama, the Lord Buddha, an Enlightened one.
The book starts with the chapter "Walking just to Walk". At a glance the title of the chapter does not seem to make any sense but as you drill dipper and flip pages as you go, it makes lots of sense. It seems to be the first teaching of Lord Buddha, the awakened one. The deeper meaning of "Walking just to Walk" is dwell in present and know what you are doing, including even breathing out and breathing in.
After reading the book, I discerned that, Lord Buddha was the first person to work against the caste system that existed in India and other areas. During Buddha's time, people with "low caste" didn't have privilege to study any text, rather they made living by doing odd jobs like tending water buffaloes and other odd jobs you can mention for the rich society of people/higher caste people. Lord Buddha didn't differentiate people between high and low caste instead accepted all people wanting to study with him as Bhikkhu (monk) and Bhikkhuni (nuns). Thus his disciple were from all walks of life. Some were merchants, kings, prince, princesses, hermits, brahmins, water buffalo tender etc, you can go on with the list.
The book contains teachings of Lord Buddha in simple language, which makes it quite easy to understand. The book also explains "emptiness" as explained by Buddha.
Lord Buddha went through many sufferings and obstacles. Some of his disciples abandoned him with the intention of starting another teaching which Buddha took very calmly, but finally all those abandoned disciples came back to his refuge.
The books drills into answering many confusing questions like "Love is Suffering" and "If love is suffering, how would one learn without loving what he/she is learning or doing". In order to make his teachings easy to understand, Buddha picks up example from our daily activities or some musical instrument.
I am deeply moved by the content of this book, though I had some problem with slight grammatical errors, but if given a chance I would make this book a text book for some religious monastic schools. I know students in monasteries learn biographies of Buddha, but I think "Old Path White Clouds" will do the justice.
I would recommend everybody to read this book, be it people who aren't buddhist, as all religion teaches the same thing after all.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cordyceps

  This article is part of my thesis “Fuelwood Consumption and Production in Alpine Bhutan: A case study in Wangchuck Centennial Park, Bumthang, Bhutan). I have also worked on uses of Cordyceps in Pharmaceutical industries long time back, but could not trace out as of now. If people are interested I will try to re-write it and publish it. I have also cited references, in-case if any readers is interested to explore further. I will also try to provide papers to those who are interested to know more about the organism. What is Cordyceps Cordyceps sinensis is an Ascomycetes medical fungus with a long and illustrious history. The genus Cordyceps is mostly entomophagous flask fungi belonging to the family Clavicipataceae (Winkler, 2008). Although it is not actually a mushroom in the taxonomic sense, it has been regarded as a medicinal mushroom for centuries. The name Cordyceps comes from the Latin words “cord” and “ceps”, meaning, “club” and “head”, respectively (Holliday et al., 2005). Th
2 comments
Read more

Non-Wood Forest Products (NWFPs) or Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs)

Both Non-Wood Forest Products (NWFPs) and Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) refers to what is earlier known as Minor Forest Products (MFPs). The use of "MFPs" terminology has been discontinued as it seems to greatly mis-guide the produce. For instance collection and trade of Cordyceps ( Ophiocordyceps sinensis ) by high alpine dwellers and even Chirata ( Swertia chirata ) in the east (Shigkhar Lauri) contributes more than 50% of their annual earnings, which of-course is clear that these forest products doesnot justify to be called as minor. NWFPs and NTFPs are two very similar yet different terminologies adopted to address these produce of forest other than timber. In short it includes everything besides timber. Rattan Shoot In Bhutan we use NWFP and it is defined in the National Forest Policy of Bhutan, 2011as, "NWFP means resin, varnish, katha, kutch, plants, flowers, seeds, bamboo, bulbs, roots, leaves, grasses, creepers, reeds, orchids, cane, fungi, moss, medic
6 comments
Read more

The Mighty Manas River and Future of "SHE"

The Manas River is a trans-boundary river in the Himalayan foothills between southern Bhutan and India . It is named after Manasa , the serpent god in Hindu Mythology . It is the largest river system of Bhutan, among its four major river systems; the other three are Amo Chu or Toorsa , Wang Chu or Raidak, Puna Tsang Chhu or Sunkoosh . The total length of the river is 376 kilometres, flows through Bhutan for 272 kilometres and then through Assam for 104 kilometres before it joins the mighty Brahmaputra River . Mighty Manas River is formed by merging two rivers, viz. Dangme Chhu and Mangde Chhu in a place called Dung-du-me brag and Un-dhala thang in Panbang.  Confluence of Dangme Chhu and Mangede Chhu  and also showing Bird eye-view of Panbang. Source: Google Earth  The river valley has two major reserve forest areas, namely the Royal Manas National Park   in Bhutan and the contiguous Manas Wildlife Sanctuary encompassing Project Tiger Reserve which constitutes a UNESCO Wo
11 comments
Read more