Life of the Buddha Unit Essay Review: Week 11

The reading unit I chose to read this week was “The Life of the Buddha” by Andre Ferdinand Herold. Overall, I thought this unit was a good read. It was way easier to start and finish this reading assignment since it had a shorter length than the book reading assignments and the stories were split up into sections. The sections gave a note about what it would be about at the beginning and I thought this was nice and kind of like the reading guides from the Epics class. Although I did not write my storytelling post this week I think it would be easier to write based on a section of the reading. I was able to structure my reading diary around the stories so my thoughts were both more organized and useful than earlier reading diaries.

I have heard of Buddha the monk throughout my life so picking this unit was out of curiosity about his life since I did not know much other than his big belly and smiley face appearance. I was really surprised after reading this unit because I did not expect him to have a different name, be seen as godlike by many who passed him, or leave his family without much compassion. I think his state of mind throughout his life leading up to him becoming the Buddha was perplexing at times because he seemed distant from the truths of the world seeing death and sickness as something he could conquer. My impression before reading about his life was that the Buddha was all about peace and serenity. My favorite story from this unit was ‘Siddhartha’s first meditation’ because it really showed him sitting and the world understanding his deep thought (with the unmoving shadow over him) and the passing people gawk at his peaceful state. Then I thought it was crazy that after awakening from this state, he simply says to his father the must stop working in the fields, I was hoping for more insight into what that meant or why it was important. My least favorite story was the one where everyone in the kingdom found out of Siddhartha’s departure and was stricken with such great grief. The horse dying was a total shocker since Siddhartha was leaving to conquer this happening in the first place. I would like to read more about where Siddhartha's life goes from when he became the Buddha and I was please to see there were numerous links I could visit to read more about certain parts of his life (his marriage to Gopa for example). The fact that he has a son and was still more passionate about becoming a monk than leaving him is weird to me when I compare the love that Siddhartha's father has for Siddhartha even when he knew from his birth he would never stay in the kingdom.

I really like the ability to choose the stories from the Mythology and Folklore option. This gives me a lot of freedom to choose what I want to read about and I can gain more knowledge outside of just Indian Epics.

'self control' of Siddhartha from wikispaces