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.
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