Eastern Journeys

Buddhism began in a way that was easily accessible, through Buddha's storytelling and teachings from his mouth to his followers' ears.   Buddha's followers needed only to listen to the stories  that they were being told, then apply the lessons of those stories to their everyday lives.  Of course Buddha was a master storyteller who inspired a great many followers.  Following Buddha's death in the early fifth century BCE, several Buddhist traditions flourished.  Of these traditions, only Theravada Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism, sharers of the basic concepts of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, survived with any strength and prevalence.  However, this was not something that developed easily or without consternation and disagreement, and it took from Buddha's death until 80 BCE for the schools to converge and reach some sort of consensus at the Great Council and then reach an accommodating eventual coexistence: "The old Hindu ways were making ...

 In The Bhagavad Gita: A Walkthrough for Westerners (New World Library, 2001), author Jack Hawley takes us masterfully through the greatest of Hindu scriptures.  He ponders and interprets the deepest questions asked and answered about life and death and everything beyond and between in the 700-verse poem originally written in Sanskrit, The Bhagavad Gita , the heart and soul of the epic Mahabharata .  Through Hawley's lens it's crucial to read not just his interpretation of the text of Gita itself. We must also read Hawley's preface, introduction, epilogue and afterword to get a better idea of how the Gita  has guided Hawley through the most difficult questions we have about our existence in this sphere: What is our purpose here?  Is there an infinite source of knowledge and wisdom?  Is this source God and how do we come to know God and reach our purpose?  What is this painful cycle of birth and death and how do we grow beyond it and find transcendence?...