monk by lake
(Click on the image to enlarge to full-screen)

Those of you who read my "poemsandprose" blog will have noted that a couple of days ago I posted a poem by the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.

This has renewed my interest in Buddhism and today I bought two books on the subject.

One of them was "Sayings of the Buddha Reflections for Every Day" (Published by Arcturus Publishing Limited - £7.99). This gives a wise saying for each day of the year, in calendar order.

Many of them are well worth quoting and I shall be posting some of them as footnotes to "poemsandprose", beginning tomorrow. Please look out for them there.

The other book I have bought is "The Essence of Buddhism" by Jo Durden Smith (Arcturus Publishing Limited - £6.99).

The introduction begins:

"Buddhism is not a religion in the sense in which the term is commonly understood in the West.

Buddhists are indeed the followers of the Buddha and of his teachings, but not in the same way that Christians are said to be the followers of Christ.

The Buddha did not begin to see himself, and is not seen by Buddhists, as a God; nor did he offer his disciples any sort of path to God.

No claims were made by him to any unaalterable truth, nor did he he demqand that his teachings should simply be accepted, taken on trust or acquired through an act of faith.

Instead he encouraged those who wished to make the spiritual journey he himself had undertaken to experiment for themselves as individuals, retaining what was useful to them and abandoning what was not.

As he is reported to have said some 2,500 years ago to the Kalamas people in north-east India (what is now Nepal):

Don't be satisfied with hearsay or tradition or legend, or with what's come down from your scriptures, or wit conjecture or logical inference or weighing evidence or a particular liking for a view . . . or with the thought:'The monk is our teacher'. When you know in yourselves: 'These ideas are unprofitable . . . being adopted and put into effect they lead to harm and suffering', then abandon them. [But] when you know in yourselves: 'These things are profitable . . . ' then you should practise and abide in them.

The goal announced by the Buddha, in other words, might be one and the same - the experience and understanding of ultimate truth - but each man, woman and child is enjoined to follow his or her own path there."