He also put an end to this, this also died in him. He rose, bid his farewell to the mango-tree, his farewell to the pleasure-garden. Since he had been without food this day, he felt strong hunger, and thought of his house in the city, of his chamber and bed, of the table with the meals on it. He smiled tiredly, shook himself, and bid his farewell to these things.
In the same hour of the night, Siddhartha left his garden, left the city, and never came back. For a long time, Kamaswami had people look for him, thinking that he had fallen into the hands of robbers. Kamala had no one look for him. When she was told that Siddhartha had disappeared, she was not astonished. Did she not always expect it? Was he not a Samana, a man who was at home nowhere, a pilgrim? And most of all, she had felt this the last 72
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time they had been together, and she was happy, in spite of all the pain of the loss, that she had pulled him so affectionately to her heart for this last time, that she had felt one more time to be so completely possessed and penetrated by him.
When she received the first news of Siddhartha’s disappearance, she went to the window, where she held a rare singing bird captive in a golden cage. She opened the door of the cage, took the bird out and let it fly. For a long time, she gazed after it, the flying bird. From this day on, she received no more visitors and kept her house locked. But after some time, she became aware that she was pregnant from the last time she was together with Siddhartha.
Hyderabad Colonnade, Library of Congress
Topics Worth Investigating
1. Complete and explain the analogy between the potter’s wheel and Sansara.
Tarthang Tulku describes the mental aspect of Sansara as follows: When we have not trained our awareness, we cannot separate ourselves from these endlessly repeating patterns of thought. Without being aware of our awareness, we have no access to a reality beyond the contents of what we are thinking. We cannot recognize or communicate anything other than what the shifting stream of thought allows. Unable to act on a deeper inner Siddhartha: An Open-Source Text
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knowledge, we become isolated and weak, and the self defeating quality of our isolation stimulates still more isolation.
This unending circular karmic pattern, burdensome and hopeless, is what the Buddhist tradition calls samsara.1
Characterize in some detail the objective aspects of Sansara in contemporary life.
2. Explain the despair inherent in the “game-playing” attitude toward life.
Why isn’t the game of Sansara a game worth playing?
3. Hesse writes, “Never before, had it become so strangely clear to Siddhartha, how closely lust was akin to death.” Susan Sontag notes a similar point:
Tamed as it may be, sexuality remains one of the demonic forces in human consciousness—pushing us at intervals close to taboo and dangerous desires, which range from the impulse to commit sudden arbitrary violence upon another person to the voluptuous yearning for the extinction of one’s consciousness, for death itself.2
What do psychoanalysts write about the relation between passion and death?
1.
Tarthang Tulku. Mastering Successful Work. Berkeley, CA: Dharma Press, 1994. 42-43.
2.
Susan Sontag. Styles of Radical Will. New York: Farrar Straus, 1969.
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Chapter 8
By the River
Assault of Mara, ©Kathleen Cohen
From the reading. . .
“Passionately he wished to know nothing about himself anymore, to have rest, to be dead.”
Ideas of Interest from “By the River”
1. Siddhartha concludes the game of Sansara is not a game worth losing his life over, and so he leaves the life of sensation. Why, then, does he fall even deeper in despair as he assertively abandons the ways of his old life?
2. Siddhartha defensively replies to Govinda’s inquiries, “I am on a pilgrimage.” When Govinda expresses surprise, Siddhartha rationalizes his 75
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assertion. Why pose such a pretense before his old friend?
3. Later in life, Siddhartha refers to this meeting with Govinda described in this chapter and claims that he learned something significant from Govinda. Can you discover any clue as to what Siddhartha learns?
4. In what ways did Buddha’s warning, in the third chapter, to “be aware of too much knowledge” foreshadow Siddhartha’s present crisis?
The Reading Selection from “By the
River”
Siddhartha walked through the forest, was already far from the city, and knew nothing but that one thing, that there was no going back for him, that this life, as he had lived it for many years until now, was over and done away with, and that he had tasted all of it, sucked everything out of it until he was disgusted with it. Dead was the singing bird, he had dreamt of. Dead was the bird in his heart. Deeply, he had been entangled in Sansara, he had sucked up disgust and death from all sides into his body, like a sponge sucks up water until it is full. And full he was, full of the feeling of been sick of it, full of misery, full of death, there was nothing left in this world which could have attracted him, given him joy, given him comfort.
Passionately he wished to know nothing about himself anymore, to have rest, to be dead. If there only was a lightning-bolt to strike him dead! If there only was a tiger a devour him! If there only was a wine, a poison which would numb his senses, bring him forgetfulness and sleep, and no awakening from that! Was there still any kind of filth, he had not soiled himself with, a sin or foolish act he had not committed, a dreariness of the soul he had not brought upon himself? Was it still at all possible to be alive? Was it possible, to breathe in again and again, to breathe out, to feel hunger, to eat again, to sleep again, to sleep with a woman again? Was this cycle not exhausted and brought to a conclusion for him?
Siddhartha reached the large river in the forest, the same river over which a long time ago, when he had still been a young man and came from the town of Gotama, a ferryman had conducted him. By this river he stopped, hesitantly he stood at the bank. Tiredness and hunger had weakened him, and whatever for should he walk on, wherever to, to which goal? No, there were no more goals, there was nothing left but the deep, painful yearning to shake off this whole desolate dream, to spit out this stale wine, to put an end to this miserable and shameful life.
A hang bent over the bank of the river, a coconut-tree; Siddhartha leaned against its trunk with his shoulder, embraced the trunk with one arm, and 76
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looked down into the green water, which ran and ran under him, looked down and found himself to be entirely filled with the wish to let go and to drown in these waters. A frightening emptiness was reflected back at him by the water, answering to the terrible emptiness in his soul. Yes, he had reached the end.
There was nothing left for him, except to annihilate himself, except to smash the failure into which he had shaped his life, to throw it away, before the feet of mockingly laughing gods. This was the great vomiting he had longed for: death, the smashing to bits of the form he hated! Let him be food for fishes, this dog Siddhartha, this lunatic, this depraved and rotten body, this weakened and abused soul! Let him be food for fishes and crocodiles, let him be chopped to bits by the daemons!
