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Post by Lacey Doby on Oct 3, 2013 20:38:05 GMT
It appears as though the main opinion on Siddhartha is that people don't like him. He is patronizing to his father, crule to his only friend, Govinda, and he sees himself as above others. The second half of the novel , however, involves him showing love for his son and gaining a deeper understanding of how the world functions, so his qualities are clearly not all negative and he changes quite a bit from the beggining of the novel.
Did Siddhartha deserve enlightenment? Also, what kind of a person deserves to be enlightened?
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Post by allegra on Oct 3, 2013 22:30:09 GMT
I would have liked to talk about what it means to find Nirvana nowadays; how pieces of Siddhartha fit into society today.
Siddhartha today would be something of a Robert-Frost-like character who rejects major paths of teaching for, say, the road less traveled by. Almost hippie-like in his endeavors, it feels as though Siddhartha is making a big point of not being taught by anything other than himself/ the river. I wonder who today fits those kinds of characteristics. My first thought is the hipster subculture type thing going on where people are trying to be unique, which is cool and all, but it ends up making everyone look and act the same. That's why it's referred to as a subculture. It makes me curious if "finding Nirvana" isn't somehow the same. It certainly was with the Buddha where many people would attempt to be taught, but arguably nothing came of it or at least nothing came of it for Govinda. I'm curious as to whether the book is attempting to get people to follow this type of nature-teaches-you-everything way of thought or whether it's a just-be-yourself type of thing going on. Regardless it would be interesting to discuss.
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Post by hannahlewman on Oct 3, 2013 23:14:17 GMT
One idea I wanted to discuss was: Why do Siddhartha and the Buddha have the same name? What similarities or differences between the two characters does the sharing of a name highlight?
As we learned when Siddhartha met the Buddha, the Enlightened One's real name is Siddhartha Gotama, and we can reasonably assume that Hesse didn't accidentally give two of characters the same name. What link does the shared name imply? Also, did the shared name help foreshadow where Siddhartha's spiritual journey would take him? Discuss the role of the name Siddhartha as it applies to the plot and mechanics of the novel.
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Post by mattagritelley on Oct 4, 2013 0:06:20 GMT
My prompt would read: Discuss the role of the teacher-student relationship in the novel and compare it to Siddhartha's personal opinion on the matter.
As a sort of prerequisite, I hope that everyone read and thoughtfully identified the message behind Emily Dickinson's quote in class. My proposed question acts a complement to the difference between "liquor at the lip" and "liquor in the jug," or the difference between storage and experience. Mr. Parris' prompt seeks to identify a disparity between Siddhartha's intrinsic enlightenment and the ability to share or relay such an experience.
It is clear that Siddhartha believes he cannot learn through teaching and will never be able to teach his discoveries: “Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else ... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it" (142). My prompt searches for more than the difference between perception and relaying or storage and experience. It seeks the identification of the novel's dichotomy: Siddhartha's adamant belief that wisdom and nirvana are unteachable/learnable while his own enlightenment is achieved through the amalgamation of his various teachings.
I would hope that, by discussing this, we would be able to identify this central conundrum and examine its significance. Siddhartha learned to free himself of pain and suffering from the Samanas, trade and conduct business from Kamaswami, love from Kamala, and accept the cycle and unity of life from Vassudeva. Without this learned wisdom, Siddhartha would have never reached enlightenment. He would have never been able to bestow it, however ephemerally, upon his best friend, Govinda, at the end of the novel.
So, why does Siddhartha insist on this contradiction? Perhaps some may find it is not dichotomous at all.
This prompt would allow for many unique, thoughtful and altogether differing opinions.
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Post by kevinle on Oct 4, 2013 0:12:58 GMT
I was also gone for the second half of class, so I did not reach all of the questions...
I heard a bit about the cycles in the book during discussions. All of the prompts were centered on Siddhartha's life, but I wonder quite a bit about Siddhartha's son. Will his son's life be comparable to his own life? Will the son follow the cycle Siddhartha followed, first leaving the father and then finding self?
While they both started by leaving their fathers, Siddhartha did not grow up spoiled while his son did. What will the differences be between Siddhartha and his son?
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Post by jessicalee on Oct 4, 2013 0:13:42 GMT
My question is one that is based off of something that Mr. Parris brought up while I was questioning the existence of enlightenment. I had brought up the idea that enlightenment can never be reached because we are constantly feeding off new ideas and experiences, thus depicting more of linear structure. Mr. Parris then questioned whether our life was more of a cyclical nature in that we experience suffering and then reach enlightenment and then suffer again and reach enlightenment again continuously. So, off of that, my question is: Do we live our lives in a perpetual line or a perpetual cycle?
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amychen
New Member
“But the wild things cried, “Oh please don’t go—we’ll eat you up—we love you so!”
Posts: 47
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Post by amychen on Oct 4, 2013 0:17:29 GMT
My gut-reaction was to simply place a rock on the table and nothing else, but I quickly realized the topic of the rock would probably have been easily exhausted and used the best of my wrinkly grey brain-folds to think up another idea. I from the past, present, and future, I have drawn up a book that has existed, does exist, and will always exist. If you haven't yet read the masterpiece of literature known as Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, you should. Here's how it goes: A donkey-kid named Sylvester gets a hold of a magic pebble that can turn him into a rock. He uses this pebble in defense from a lion. In the process, however, he loses hold of the rock and is unable to change back. His parents then go on a search for him, and SPOILER ALERT they find him one day as they eat a picnic on the rock and coincidentally put the pebble on the rock. Cue heartfelt ending. The reason why I'd like to have this book as a prompt (like with the Emily Dickinson poem and Picasso drawings, a piece by itself sans-question) is not only because it would be fun, but also because I think it'd be an interesting book to go over in the context of Siddartha. It ties in well with the rock metaphor (Slyvester turns into a rock; I don't know how much more straightforward that can get), while also raising questions as to how Siddartha would have handled the situation, as either Slyvester's parents or Slyvester himself. Would Siddartha have kept looking for his child? Would Siddartha have lamented about his rock form? These questions are perfect for though-provoking dancing, and lighten the mood of the testing situation to help students remember that, yes, we are still supposed to act like normal human beings.
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Post by samwerner on Oct 4, 2013 0:31:15 GMT
What is "om," and why is it "om?'
In other words, beyond attempting to define what summation of life concludes with the realization of Om, and what Om really is, why must it be Om? The "why" in the question even makes me shudder, because there are endless possibilities and vast amounts of space for answers. Without going too deep into the "why" part of Om, I found myself thinking it the entire discussion because it seemed the harder we looked for a definition, the more elusive it became. Even now, when I'm trying to sound intelligent explaining this question, I find myself mainly just wanting to scream, "WHY OM?!"
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Post by emilybrinkmann on Oct 4, 2013 0:50:44 GMT
My question would be something along the lines of the importance of the journey. Mr.Parris asked the class about half way through the book if we thought the "Kamala Phase" had the same significance as the "samana phase". I would have liked to discuss this more with my peers after finishing the book because I am on the fence and I feel that Siddhartha's realization of Om would not have happened if he had not had every one of his experiences. That his journey was the most important part of his life. Saying that, I personally feel that the struggles we face are what make us stronger, and that Siddhartha learned more from the Samana stage. But I feel that there are things that I am not thinking about, and I know that people could disagree with me (and those conversations tend to be the more enlightening) and I am curious to what people think about it and why.
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Post by austinellerbruch on Oct 4, 2013 1:14:46 GMT
I would have left a blank slip of paper in the envelope. One reason, in accordance to the literature, that I would choose this as the prompt is because of Siddartha's belief that one cannot teach wisdom, that true enlightenment can only derive from within the individual, therefore I do not think that a prompt will be needed in starting the discussion. I feel as though the best discussion derives from what is formed within, not from an external source of influence like a written prompt.
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alice
New Member
Posts: 30
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Post by alice on Oct 4, 2013 1:36:22 GMT
We spent a great deal of time examining the importance of self (understandably) in "Siddhartha" which led me to begin thinking about the other people in the novel. Self may be important but group dynamics and social settings are important as well. It seems impossible to me that such an in depth journey only be done by one person. Did the people he met truly affect him or would he have reached the same conclusion just moving from place to place?
How important are/were other people to the individual's trip to enlightenment? What if he had met the people he met in a different order?
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Post by sammywong on Oct 4, 2013 1:59:52 GMT
Is it good to allow the outcome of external means dictate the emotion one feels?
This is definitely natural, but my question for the class would be whether or not they believe it is "right."
My take on the book was that once Siddhartha discontinued to base his happiness and sadness on what happened to him externally, internally he finally reaches nirvana.
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Post by clairem on Oct 4, 2013 2:00:57 GMT
On my slip of paper I think I would have left a challenge instead of a question. It would either have challenged the group to either (a) Think of the worst thing they possible could (i.e.: Hitler, genocide, death, stealing, etc.) and convince those around you that it is good or (b) Recall the most moving event in their lives' and convince those around them why their event is more powerful than the stories of the others. Challenge A is based off of Siddhartha's belief from page 144 that, "everything that exists is good--death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly" (Hesse 144). Challenge B steams from the idea that people will take away different ideas from different experiences and thus no two people go through the same event and come out of it the same way just as no one can attempt to impart the wisdom they have learned from an experience onto another person. These challenges would change up the usual discussion and truly force us to think like Siddhartha and interact more with the text than we do in regular discussion.
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Post by adamgrace on Oct 4, 2013 2:14:48 GMT
Put yourself in Siddhartha's shoes. Would you (realistically) leave Kamala and your wealthy life? If so, why?
Personally, I would stay there for a very long time. Siddhartha obviously has a certain drive that allows him to forever search for enlightenment. But honestly I would be perfectly content at the village.
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Post by robertxu on Oct 4, 2013 2:15:44 GMT
If I could have designed a prompt for today's discussion it would have been: "Discuss the similarities/differences between the ideologies of the Samanas, the Buddha and Siddhartha". This prompt was inspired by the discussion that we had in class the period before the test that involved whether the Buddha was actually spreading Siddhartha's view of "enlightenment" or simply an "escape from suffering". I feel that such a broad topic would keep conversation flowing because everyone is bound to have a unique perspective (supported by the text) on at least one of the ideologies. For example, the Samanas want to break away from the Self, which is interconnected to the physical/material world. Hesse writes about Siddhartha's experience with the Samanas, "Siddhartha had one single goal to become empty, to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure and sorrow-- to let the self die" (Hesse 14). Siddhartha's beliefs at the end of the novel involve coming to terms with everything in the world from a holistic standpoint, which includes coming into terms with his self/the physical world. I am more of a fan of Siddhartha's beliefs than the Samanas' beliefs because the Samanas seem to prefer a more narrow and black and white view of the world, while Siddhartha seems to be more accepting/understanding. While that is one of the interesting relationships between the different ideologies that I observed from the novel, I would be very interested to hear what my classmates discerned from the text.
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