Primary source
Siddhartha
Written by Hermann Hesse · 1922 · grounds Hermann Hesse
Overview
A Brahman's son leaves everything arranged for him, tries asceticism, meets the Buddha and refuses to follow him, falls into wealth and self-disgust, and finally learns to listen to a river. Its argument is that wisdom cannot be transmitted, only arrived at, and that the ruin on the way was not a detour.
A full write-up of this book has not been published yet.
Watch the series
5 episodes drawn from this book, about 7m 54s in total. Each one opens on the problem rather than on the summary.
- 01He Met the Buddha and Walked AwayI put my seeker in front of the Buddha. Not a false teacher, not a fraud to be exposed. The real one, whose teaching my seeker examines and finds without a single flaw. And then he does not join.1m 38s
- 02I Can Think, I Can Wait, I Can FastA woman asks my seeker what he can actually do. He owns nothing. He has spent three years as an ascetic in the forest and has no trade, no property, and no prospects. His answer is three short sentences.1m 31s
- 03The Years You Would Call WastedMy seeker leaves the forest and becomes exactly what he despised. Rich, comfortable, a merchant, a gambler, a man of appetites. It lasts for years. I want to be clear that I did not write those years as a mistake.1m 37s
- 04Listen to It Instead of Looking at ItHe ends as a ferryman, which is the least distinguished thing he could possibly become. He carries people across a river, and the river turns out to be the teacher that no teacher could be.1m 31s
- 05Knowledge Can Be Conveyed, But Not WisdomAt the end of his life my seeker meets his old friend again. Govinda has followed the Buddha faithfully for fifty years and is still searching. He asks for a teaching, and what he gets is the sentence the whole book was built to reach.1m 37s