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Old Path White Clouds: Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha
written by Thich Nhat Hanh
Studio : Parallax Press
by Parallax Press
Publisher : Parallax Press
Released : 1991-05-01
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780938077268
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 45 reviews)
List Price : $26.95
Our Price : $15.85
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Product Description |
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Drawn from original sources, Old Path White Clouds is the beautiful classic recounting of the life and teachings of Gautama Buddha over the course of eighty years. It is retold alternately through the eyes of Svasti, the buffalo boy who provided kusa grass for the Buddha's enlightenment cushion, and the Buddha himself. |
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Very lucid, yet penetrating |
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Wonderful recount of Buddha's life. The author has put in a lot of research in maintaining the chronology and the facts. The best part is that the book is not overloaded with miracles. It makes Buddha come across as a great "human" leader with emotions and pragmatism alike. A lot to learn. |
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The Only Thich Nhat Hanh Book You Need |
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I have several Thich Nhat Hanh books. I really like him. However, I do think that Thay's books are really similar to each other. That is why I think that this book (all 600 pages) is the only one necessary to have by Thich Nhat Hanh. It covers all the essential teachings that are in Thay's other books. I enjoy the story format; it makes reading the teachings and Dharma talks easy. They are very well integrated into the story. On a contradicting note; there are three other books by Thay that one should have. Those are The Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Diamond Sutra, The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, and finally for in depth study The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching. |
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Easy way to understanding Buddhism |
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'Old Path White Clouds' is a story of Siddhartas life and the early spreading of the buddhist teachings, or "Dharma". The book is an excellent introduction to the basic ideas of buddhism. |
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The Best Story of Budha! |
This is a deeply wise book. It reflects the wisdom of Thich Nhat Nanh and gives a glimpse into enlightenment and how the enlightened person lives. I learned to ask questions that deepen insight through the reading of this book. It is a foundation for much of the work I do with CEO's and is a foundation for my leadership book "Unleashing Genius." A MUST READ FOR THOSE ON THE PATH.
Unleashing Genius: Leading Yourself, Teams and Corporations |
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Walk with the Buddha |
M. Dianna Ryel-Lindsey
MA Indo-Tibetan Buddhism
Giovannina Jobson, Advisor
March 7th, 2008
Old Path, White Clouds: Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha
By: Thich Nhat Hanh
While at Deer Park Monastery in California, I watched a video of Thich Nhat Hanh dictating what the experience of writing Old Path, White Clouds. He spoke of the memory of writing the book with sweet nostalgia, a far off look in his eye. Thich Nhat Hanh, the Venerable Vietnamese monk who has aided in changing the face of Buddhism in the West, whose work has been deemed "Engaged Buddhism," took on the project of writing the Buddha's life, footstep by footstep. He literally wrote this book with a pen. He would work in four hour shifts for quite a long period of time until the book was done. Thich Nhat Hanh claimed that he was walking alongside the Buddha, with the Buddha, in the Buddha's era. He said it was a marvelous experience to write Old Path, White Clouds. Two women typed up Thich Nhat Hanh's work, and one of the women spoke of stopping mid-sentence to cry because she was so moved by Thich Nhat Hanh's glorious, sensitive flow of words.
The book is to be made into a movie in 2008 by Producers Michel Shane and Anthony Romano. They sought out Thich Nhat Hanh to discuss receiving the rights to make a film from Old Path, White Clouds. Humbly, Thich Nhat Hanh was perfectly fine with this inquiry. However, he wanted the producers to spend some time in his France home, Plum Village Retreat Center and Monastery. Thich Nhat Hanh informed them that they must create this movie mindfully. That is the only way a movie of the life of the Buddha could be produced.
Further, the Dalai Lama has given his consent that the book is as accurate as possible, and the Dalai Lama has taken an advisory role in the creation of the movie's script. "Drawn directly from twenty-four Pali, Sanskrit, and Chinese sources, and retold by Thich Nhat Hanh in his inimitably beautiful style, this book traces the Buddha's life slowly and gently over the course of eighty years..." describes the back cover of the book. Thich Nhat Hanh's personal journey in writing this exquisite book, and the future production of this book into a movie prove the importance and earnest way in which Old Path, White Clouds can speak to all audiences about the Buddha's life.
The book is in three parts and quite large, so I thought it would be a great undertaking to read. Hidden underneath tangled, weaving Oak tree branches, in a small hut in Deer Park Monastery in Escondido, California, I began to read Old Path, White Clouds. In a quintessential retreat setting, I understood why Thich Nhat Hanh's face filled with nostalgia as he remembered "walking with the Buddha" when writing the book. I felt as if I were floating, levitating as my eyes glided quickly across the words. Meditating and reading this book every day made me feel quite close to the Buddha (and the Buddha within). Thich Nhat Hanh's mindfulness in concentration and detail are obvious in his poetic, lyrical writing style. His care and precision is evident, and takes the reader right along with him on a journey in becoming a part of the Buddha's community, the Sangha.
BOOK ONE
The first section details the Buddha's youth and decision to leave home for the monastic, mendicant life. The book begins with Siddhartha Gautama in the woods outside of a village in India. He meets Svasti, the young Buffalo herder and Sujata, a young villager girl with some wealth. They brought him rice and kusa grass to sit on comfortably for meditation. He taught the children to eat quietly, with reverence, in mindfulness and gratitude. The children were drawn to his presence. Soon, more children came to hear Siddhartha Gautama's teaching, and the children eventually dubbed him "The Awakened One," the Buddha.
Born in 560 BC in Lumbini (India?) near the city of Kapilavastu, The Buddha grew up in a kingdom of wealth and riches. (He died at eighty-years-old in 480 BC.) Siddhartha Gautama was born to King Suddhodana and Mahamaya, his mother.
...Siddhartha was told about the dream his mother had before giving birth to him. A magnificent white elephant with six tusks descended from the heavens surrounded by a chorus of beatific praises. The elephant approached her, its skin as white as mountain snow. It held a brilliant pink lotus flower in its trunk, and placed the flower within the queen's body. Then the elephant, too, entered her effortlessly, and all at once she was filled with deep ease and joy. She had the feeling she would never again know any suffering, worry, or pain, and she awoke with the sensation of pure bliss. When she got up from her bed, the ethereal music from the dream still echoed in her ears... [The holy men of the kingdom were summoned.]
Your majesty, the queen will give birth to a son who will be a great leader. He is destined to become either a mighty emperor who rules throughout the four directions or a great Teacher who will show the way of truth to all beings in Heaven and Earth...
Mahamaya died shortly after childbirth, and Siddhartha was raised by Mahapajapati, known as Gotami, his aunt. Siddhartha, the Prince, was not interested in the affairs of the kingdom, although well-read and studied, he longed for more.
He wasn't interested in women, but nonetheless, he did meet Yasodhara. Her care and concern for the poor of India and her unconventional views brought her and Siddhartha to be close. Siddhartha was disgusted by the politics of India at the time, especially the Caste System, and Yasodhara agreed. They eventually married. Siddhartha and Yasodhara would speak of compassion together and meditated together. Their lives revolved around generosity, working with the poor. Yasodhara learned to care for herself to be able to give more; she listened as Siddhartha advised. Siddhartha continued to voice his concerns that more must be done, that he was destined to take a journey to solve the problems of India in his day.
In the meantime, Yasodhara became pregnant. Their son was named Rahula, "a fetter or a bondage." According to legend, it is more likely that he was named after a lunar eclipse (rahu) that might have occurred around the time of Rahula's birth. During many talks, Yasodhara (lovingly called Gopa by the Buddha) came to understand that Siddhartha had a mission to accomplish. He consoled her:
Gopa, please don't worry. You are a woman of depth. You are my partner, the one who can help me to truly fulfill my quest... In the near future I must leave and travel far from you; I know you possess the courage to continue your work. You will care for and raise our child well. Though I am gone, though I am far away from you, my love remains the same... And when I have found the Way, I will return to you and to our child.
Thus, Siddhartha left for a life of wandering, renouncing all for the sake of spirituality. He found numerous teachers among the forest-dwelling monks of India. He accomplished easily and quickly numerous deep levels of meditation: the state of no materiality, the state of neither perception nor non-perception, and so on... "He realized that the body and mind formed one reality that could not be separated. The peace and comfort of the body were directly related to the peace and comfort of the mind." He learned of the joys of meditation and the inseparability of interdependence and non-self.
"If the waves understood that they themselves were water, they would transcend birth and death and arrive at inner peace, overcoming all fear." Siddhartha's consciousness was raised to the suffering of all sentient beings; it is a common ground shared by all. Through meditation, Siddhartha became the Buddha, the Awakened One.
Siddhartha gazed at the star and exclaimed out of deep compassion, "All beings contain within themselves the seeds of Enlightenment, and yet we drown in the ocean of birth and death for so many thousands of lifetimes!"... He promised to share his discovery to bring help all others liberate themselves from suffering.
In Deer Park, the radiant Buddha taught his five ascetic friends of the Dharma, the law or words of the Buddha. His knowledge, he shared. At once, he had turned the Wheel of the Dharma. The Buddha taught of the Middle Way path, and also, the Noble Eightfold Path: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
He stated, "I have followed this Noble Eightfold Path and have realized understanding, liberation, and peace."
BOOK TWO
This section of Old Path, White Clouds gives descriptions of the Buddha's travels around India and the quickly growing Sangha. Uruvela Kassapa begins the book by stating:
On this fresh spring morning,
the Enlightened One passes through our city
with the noble community of 1,250 disciples.
All are walking with slow, calm, and radiant steps.
The Sangha grew rapidly with exposure to the radiant teacher, the Buddha, and his dedicated disciples. In the second chapter, the Buddha determines that India's monsoon season is not a pleasant or safe time to travel. Thus, the three month deep meditation retreat was established. With donations and the working hands of the Sangha, the community built huts from bamboo, thatch, and pounded earth. For the first year the location for the Sangha was the Bamboo Forest. This was a time of deep reflection, study, and meditation for the monks and disciples. It became a valued tradition.
An ascetic Dighanakha had questions for the Buddha. He did not believe in doctrine or subscribing to any tenets. The Buddha replied:
You see, my friend, if we are attached to some belief and hold it to be absolute truth, we may one day find ourselves... thinking that we already possess the truth, we will be unable to open our minds to receive the truth, even if truth comes knocking at our door... My teaching is not doctrine or philosophy... It is the result of direct experience.
The Buddha handles doubt so elegantly! He is never on the defensive proving a point. He leads by example. His words are controlled, compassionate, and gentle. The Buddha's life, he leads by his own genuine experience.
Thich Nhat Hanh agrees, "Do not think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice nonattachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints."
The Buddha goes on to describe a gorgeous metaphor:
I must state clearly that my teaching is a method to experience reality itself, just as a finger pointing to the moon is not the moon itself. An intelligent person makes use of the finger to see the moon. A person who only looks at the finger and mistakes it for the moon will never see the real moon... My teaching is like a raft used to cross the river. Only a fool would carry the raft around after he had already reached the other shore, the shore of liberation.
This teaching is vital in Buddhism. The teachings of the Buddha are stepping stones, not the end-all. Buddhism leaves the path open to the individual's experience, and if a person holds too tightly to "the view" or "the Buddha's words," they will be carrying a very heavy raft on their shoulders.
Next, the disciples experience Ambapali and her power of physical beauty. Sariputta asked the Buddha, "Master, how should a monk regard a woman's beauty? Is beauty, especially that of a woman, an obstacle to spiritual practice?"
The Buddha answered:
Bhikkhus, [(disciples)] the true nature of all dharmas transcends beauty and ugliness. Beauty and ugliness are only concepts created by our minds... But perhaps no beauty has more capacity to distract a man's concentration than a woman's beauty. If one is obsessed with a woman's beauty, he can lose his way.
This has long been an issue historically with Buddhism. The female, seen as a mara, or distraction (sometimes translated to be demon), is an obstruction in the monk's path of becoming enlightened. Of course, feminists have harped on this. Yet, many modern women see this as a sign of the times and let it go. Unattached, many women know that they can become enlightenment to the same extent as men and are not concerned with the term "mara." Thich Nhat Hanh presents the issue gently in Old Path, White Clouds.
The Buddha continues, "...the beautiful may still appear beautiful and the ugly may still appear ugly, but because you have attained liberation, you are not bound by either... Such a person understands the impermanent and empty nature of all things." In this account of the Buddha's life, this is where the teachings are morphing progressively from Hinayâna to Mahâyâna Buddhism.
Following this, the Buddha returns to his home palace to meet his son Rahula as an older boy. Rahula joins the Buddha on his quest and becomes the youngest disciple, layperson. He is too young to become a full-fledged monk. The Buddha states, "With understanding and love, there is nothing you cannot accomplish." These are simple, profound, and beautiful words; the Buddha elaborates quite a bit on the correct form of love that does not hold possession or greed.
The Buddha and the Sangha are walking once again and encounter an "untouchable," a man of the lowest Indian caste bathing in the river. The Buddha approaches him to greet him in a friendly manner. The man backs away! "I am an untouchable. I don't want to pollute you and your monks."
The Buddha replies, "You are human being like the rest of us," and he invites him to join the Sangha.
Sunita, the man, placed his palms to his forehead, astonished, he says, "No one has ever spoken so kindly to me before." He devotes the rest of his life to the Buddha and his teachings.
In an incredibly important point in the book, it covers the historical trials of women who wanted to become lay disciples and eventual nuns. "After hearing the Dharma talk, the queen and princess felt their hearts open. They both wanted to become lay disciples, but did not dare ask." At that time in India, politically, it would have been considered absurd and for women to become nuns. Their place in society had to do with tending the home and serving their husbands and children. There was no room for strict devotion to a spiritual path, monastic devotion.
A group of women, including the Buddha's aunt Gotami, shaved their heads, dressed in robes, and walked barefoot to meet the Buddha and portray their eager earnestness in becoming lay disciples and eventual nuns. The Buddha was not discriminatory against women, but he was unsure as to how to open the Sangha without disrupting it inside and out. He was afraid that society would not support the Sangha with women in it. Harmful conflict could come to consume the Sangha.
Finally, the Buddha comes up with strict laws that would allow the women to become nuns. The rules were stricter than the monks'. It has remained this way unto this day.
Here are the extra eight rules for women:
First, a nun, or bhikkhuni, will always defer to a bhikkhu, even if she is older or has practiced longer than he has. Second, all bhikkhunis, must spend the retreat season at a center within reach of a center of bhikkhus in order to receive spiritual support and further study. Third, twice a month, the bhikkhunis should delegate someone to invite the bhikkhus to decide on a date for uposatha, the special day of observance. A bhikkhu should visit the nuns, teach them, and encourage them in their practice. Fourth, after the rainy season retreat, nuns must attend Pavarana ceremony and present an account of their practice, not only before other nuns, but before the monks. Fifth, whenever a bhikkhuni breaks a precept, she must confess before both the bhikkhunis and the bhikkhus. Sixth, after a period of practice as a novice, a bhikkhuni will take full vows before the communities of both monks and nuns. Seventh, a bhikkhuni should not criticize or censure a bhikkhu. Eighth, a bhikkhuni will not give Dharma instruction to a community of bhikkhus.
These rules sound terrifyingly sexist to the modern ear. However, the women were so elated to be part of the Sangha and learn alongside the Buddha, that they bowed, thanked him, and accepted the rules immediately. It was understood that the Buddha was defying society and taking a huge risk for the women's sake. In order to defend the Sangha to society, the rules were set up to protect the nuns, to help ensure their place in the Sangha. Unfortunately, the rules have historically remained until modern day.
Shortly thereafter, the Buddha delivered The Sûtra on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness. Ananda repeated the Buddha's words, "Sati means `to dwell in mindfulness,' that is, the practitioner remains aware of everything taking place in his body, feelings, mind, and objects of mind- the four establishments of mindfulness, or awareness." This is where venerable Thich Nhat Hanh picked up his famous words, "Present Moment, Wonderful Moment." Being present is being able to truly live life in happy awareness no matter what realities occur.
BOOK THREE
The third book entails further, deeper teachings of the Buddha like full breathing, the raft not being the shore (do not get stuck in the teachings), and virtuous action and wisdom being "the two most precious things in life." He also teaches of co-dependent arising not to be grasped through logic and words solely. This must be contemplated through the art of meditation. "When you look at a leaf or a raindrop, meditate on all the conditions, near and distant, that have contributed to the presence of that leaf or raindrop. Know that the world is woven out of interconnected threads."
The Buddha continues in his teachings and traveling. Ending up at one point in Alavi, he meets a farmer. He refuses to give a Dharma talk until the farmer and all present had finished eating. The Buddha then elucidates a discussion on hunger. "If I delivered a Dharma talk while our brother was still hungry, he would not be able to concentrate. There is no greater suffering than hunger." Always remember those who are hungry, is the advice of the Buddha.
The book finishes with gorgeous verses of the Buddha's teaching. Ananda stated, "Lord, listening to the sound of the tide and looking out over the waves, I follow my breath and dwell in the present moment. My mind and body find perfect ease. I find that the ocean renews me."
The teachings become more and more esoteric. Uttiya asked, "After you die, will you continue to exist or not?"
The Buddha replied, "This question... I will not answer... I only answer questions that pertain directly to the practice of gaining mastery over one's mind and body in order to overcome all sorrows and anxieties." Becoming enlightened means no longer holding on to the fear of death. Becoming enlightened entails no death.
Finally, the book ends with the chapter entitled Old Path, White Clouds. The Buddha has passed away at eighty-years-old; he is given a wondrous ceremony in the midst of sal trees.
"For six days and nights, the people of Kusinara and nearby Pava came to offer flower, incense, dance, and music. Mandarava blossoms and other flowers soon thickly carpeted the area between the two sal trees." After this, his body was carried into town for a magnificent funeral. The practice of meditation and teaching Buddhism continued well after his death and to this day.
Thich Nhat Hanh concludes his compassionate book with, "The Buddha was the source... Wherever the rivers flowed, the Buddha would be there." Old Path, White Clouds is a timeless treasure as are the teachings of the Buddha. I recommend this book for: anyone curious about Buddhism, people young or old, those of any and all spiritual traditions, and practitioners on any level. Thich Nhat Hanh presents the Buddha's life with great reverence and sensitivity. This book's words flowed throughout my being as I read the superlative, spiritually provocative life story of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha.
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