Siddhartha met the Buddha
Why did he turn and leave?
There is a book
Titled "Siddhartha"
The protagonist
A young man seeking liberation
Is also named Siddhartha
He searched for half his life
One day
He actually met the Buddha himself
A fully enlightened, perfect living Buddha
Standing before him
All who saw the Buddha bowed down
His best friend converted on the spot
Staying behind as a disciple
But what about Siddhartha?
He stared at the enlightened one for a long time
Then softly said, "Thank you"
"But I will not follow you"
After speaking
He turned around
And walked into the woods alone
Think how unusual this is
A man seeking answers his whole life
The answer stands right before him
Within his reach
Yet he lets go and leaves
In this action
Lies the deepest secret of the book
And perhaps the secret of spiritual practice
Hello
Everyone
I am Wang Lijie
Today we discuss "Siddhartha"
By German author Hermann Hesse
Written in 1922
Hesse later won the Nobel Prize
He gave this book a subtitle
"An Indic Poem"
A German born in Europe
Obsessed with ancient Eastern classics
Wrote a novel
A bedside book for generations of youth
Many read it during their most lost moments
First, let's clear up a common confusion
The historical Buddha
Was named Gautama Siddhartha
Hesse did something very clever
He split the name in two
The "Siddhartha" half
Given to the protagonist
The name Gotama
Given to the true Buddha
So in this book
Siddhartha and Buddha
Are two different people
But combine their names
And you get the historical figure
Hesse's split was brilliant
He's secretly telling you
That you and Buddha
Shared the same name
But were split apart
Your task in this life
Is not to chase the lost half
But to become whole yourself
Now
Back to the core question
Buddha is right there
Perfect and complete
Why does Siddhartha leave
Their dialogue in the book
Shakes me every time
Siddhartha says to Buddha
Your teachings are flawless
Logically sound
You explain the world as a chain of cause and effect
Clear and irrefutable
You have reached the peak everyone seeks
But
There is a tiny crack in your teaching
What crack
Siddhartha says: Under the Bodhi tree
All alone
At the moment of enlightenment
What exactly happened
You cannot put it into words
What you can teach us
Is a body of knowledge about the world
But the secret that made you Buddha
Cannot be contained in words
Or passed to me
Therefore
Siddhartha says
No one finds salvation through teachings
I must go
To experience that moment myself
Or be shattered trying
Do you understand what he's saying
He's not saying Buddha is wrong
He is talking about enlightenment
It is not a piece of knowledge
It cannot be handed over
You can give me a complete map
But you can't give me the experience of being there
When we analyzed "The Remote Savior"
We discussed an almost identical scene
Master Zhixuan heard Ding Yuanying's flawless plan
And replied with the same sentiment: logically correct
But not the same as actual realization
No matter how precise the map is
It is not the actual land beneath your feet
After listening
The Buddha looked at him quietly
And said something profound
The Buddha said: You are very clever
My friend
You are very eloquent
But
Be careful
Do not be too clever
Then the Buddha left
Siddhartha left too
Between these two
Neither convinced the other
Speaking of this
Don't you think
This scene
Hits a sore spot for many today
In our comment section
People repeatedly ask the same question
It's a heartbreaking question
They say: I understand the logic
I understand the concept of emptiness
Impermanence and non-self
I can explain it all - so why is my life still a mess
When things happen
I still feel anxious
I still break down
None of those principles seem to help
The story of Siddhartha
Addresses exactly this problem
Understanding
And attaining
Are separated by a whole river
You may memorize the scriptures
But those are rafts others used to cross
You are just staring at their rafts on the shore
You yourself
Have never even touched the water
So after Siddhartha left
what did he do
This is the book's most subversive and real part
You'd think he became his own teacher
went to the mountains to meditate
and soon reached enlightenment
But no
His first discovery leaving the woods was
After years as a Brahmin
and an ascetic Samana
I've been trying to destroy the Self
trying to dissolve the Me
into the universal essence of Atman
But the result
I lost myself
Of this mysterious Siddhartha
I know nothing at all
So he decided from now on
no more asceticism
I will be my own teacher
I will get to know this unknown Siddhartha
Sounds inspiring, right
But where did this path
actually lead him
It led him straight into the secular world
He fell for a beautiful woman
learned from her how to love
He went into business
became a merchant
learned to make money, drink, and gamble
He grew wealthier
grew fatter
and grew more numb
The once lean, holy ascetic
bit by bit
became greedy and anxious
a fat worldling needing wine and gambling to sleep
The three skills of his youth: fasting
waiting
and thinking—all rotted away in vice
One night
he had a dream
of Kamala's songbird in its golden cage
The bird suddenly stopped singing
He looked closer
the bird was dead
lying stiff in the cage
He took the dead bird out
and tossed it into the alley
At the moment he threw it away
Seized by a sudden, immense dread
He felt he had thrown away everything
Precious and beautiful in his life
Along with that dead bird
Waking from the dream
He was filled with self-loathing
That very day
He left the city in silence
And never returned
He wandered aimlessly through the woods
Until he reached a riverbank
Staring at the water
He wanted only to plunge in
To drown himself
And end this filthy, weary life
You see
This man who had seen the Buddha
This seeker of the Way
Had become a suicidal drunkard
But as he let go to fall into the river
From the depths of his desolate soul
A voice surfaced
A single word
A single syllable
The ancient and holy Om
As the word left his lips
His slumbering soul suddenly awoke
He recognized his own foolishness
He did not die
Exhausted, he fell asleep under a tree
When he awoke
A brand new Siddhartha
Was born
Later, he realized something
The key to the entire book
As a Brahmin and ascetic, he said
I tried to kill the Self with fasting
But the Self hid in my holy pride
And grew larger in secret
He had to lose everything first
He had to truly fall
To roll through greed, lust, and despair
To truly say goodbye to them
There is a sentence here
I want to read to you exactly
Siddhartha said: Lust and wealth are not good
I have known this for a long time
Known it for ages
But this time
I did not just know it with my mind
I used my eyes, my soul, and my body
To experience it firsthand
Think about that for a moment
Knowing something beforehand
And experiencing it yourself
Are two different things
That is why
Knowing so many truths
Doesn't mean living well
Truths are known by the mind
But living
Is experienced with the whole self
In Buddha's pure teachings
This part was missing—the part where he falls
And climbs out of the mud himself
The rift Siddhartha saw back then
Required the rest of his life
And a total descent
To finally bridge
After being saved by the river
Siddhartha sought no more masters
He stayed by the river
With an old ferryman
And became a ferryman himself
He began to learn from the river
Listening to its voice every day
Slowly
He understood the river
It is always flowing
Yet it is always here
Every moment is brand new
The water is at the source and the middle
And the mouth—past, present, and future
All happen at once in this river
The three skills from his youth
Fasting, waiting, and thinking
Came back to life
Becoming his true wealth
To be able to wait
To remain calm
To listen quietly to a river
This was his entire practice
He went to no temple
His meditation mat
Was the river
And every moment lived earnestly
Including the deepest pits he fell into
But the story isn't over yet
You think becoming a sage by the river
Is the end of the journey
This river
had one last lesson for him
And this lesson
nearly broke him again
He had a son
Kamala, the woman who taught him to love
was on a pilgrimage to see the Buddha
when she was killed by a snake
leaving him with an eleven-year-old boy
And guess what
This sage who could see through the Buddha
and dared to reject an enlightened master
completely lost his composure
in front of his own son
The child grew up in luxury
and was spoiled
Cold and willful
he despised his father, a poor ferryman
He refused to love Siddhartha
As for Siddhartha
he could not let go
He watched his son torment and humiliate him
yet could not bring himself to be angry
Hoping with gentleness and patience
to slowly warm the boy's cold heart
The old ferryman urged him to let go
and to ask the river
But this time
Siddhartha would not listen
He who could fast, wait, and teach detachment
when it came to his son
became the most ordinary, anxious parent
Finally
the boy ran away in the night
and never returned
Siddhartha was in agony
But it was through this pain
that he mastered his final lesson
He suddenly remembered
many, many years ago
was he not the same
Standing in the night
determined to leave his Brahmin father
to become a Samana
His father could not stop him then
and could only watch him leave
Now it was his turn
to watch his own son leave
Is this not the cycle of Samsara
What hurts even more
The Siddhartha of the past
always felt superior to ordinary people
Mothers worrying over their children
fathers doting blindly on their sons
In his eyes
they were all just overgrown children
But now
he felt that same blind, lingering pain
Suddenly, he understood them
He even came to love them
No longer looking down on the world
he finally became their brother
You see
knowledge
let him reject the Buddha
But only love
only this bleeding heart for his son
truly made him whole
The end of spiritual practice
is not to soar above humanity
but to fall back into the world
into the pain and attachments of life
For one who never feels pain
how can there be compassion
So you see
where Siddhartha finally arrived
was not a gift from the Buddha
It was because he rejected the Buddha
and lived his own life to the fullest
enduring even the most wretched parts
that he finally arrived
This raises a difficult, honest question
one I want to leave with you
If enlightenment cannot be taught
if another's truth is only their raft
then these videos I make
the scriptures you read
and the logic you hear
what use are they
Are we doing what Siddhartha first did
holding someone else's raft
staring at it from the shore
refusing to enter the water
I have no standard answer
I am also just feeling for stones in the river
Siddhartha did not start a sect
nor did he write down a doctrine
He simply became a quiet ferryman
carrying one person after another
from this shore to the next
He cannot cross the river for you
But he can tell you
The river
Can be crossed
People have truly reached the other side
Perhaps this book, Siddhartha
And everything I've said
Serve only this purpose: they are others' rafts
Not your destination
The most they can do
Is one day
Make you willing to walk to the shore
To squat down
Reach into the water
And feel the real, cold current
As for stepping in and crossing
No one can do that for you
This book, Siddhartha
Have you read it?
While reading
Which part touched you most?
The moment he rejected the Buddha?
Or when he almost jumped into the river?
Let's talk in the comments
I really want to hear where your river is
I am Wang Lijie
See you next time