Senses In Siddhartha

1093 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Importance of eye vision

Senses are an important gateway for receiving information about the world around us. However, in Indian culture, various forms of sights such as gaze, glances, darshan were not only used to receive information but were often used to communicate with one another without speaking anything. Hence, sight held a significant position in all major Indian religions.
In Buddhism, order of senses is as follow: Sight, hearing, smells, taste, and touch. (McHugh, The Senses). For Buddhists, sight is the sense, which allows one to experience objects at the greatest distance. For example, you can see a river, which you cannot hear, taste, smell or touch. Hence according to Buddhism, sight is the most significant sense among all other senses (McHugh, The Senses). Here in this extract from “Life of Buddha”, suffering and pain from sight of dead body plays a significant role in making Prince Siddhartha (Gautama Buddha) realize about the suffering and wretchedness that exists in the world. It makes his mind dejected and forces him to contemplate about the higher purpose of life so as to escape from this samsara - cycle of rebirth and re-death.
According to Buddhists, the four sights— old man, diseased man, dead corpse and the ascetic were specific observations which made Prince Siddhartha realize about the suffering that existed in this world and separated him from all worldly pleasures in order to become “The Enlightened One”. Because of the predictions that attended prince Siddhartha’s birth – that he would either become a world leader or a great holy man – his father, king Shudhdhona tried to protect his son from the more distressing features of the world for 29 years. But dissatisfaction grew within prince Siddhartha and so he asked the king ...

... middle of paper ...

...e of this poem might be to make the reader empathize with the suffering that he/she sees in the world and try to find a way around it by reducing it. This extract teaches us that life contains suffering and suffering is due to earthly objects as the people who cared for the dead man were attached to him and this caused them to suffer. The only way out of this suffering and samsara is nirvana and this can be attained by following Buddha’s eightfold path – right view, right intention; right speech, right action, right livelihood; right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration (McHugh).
All in all, the very sight of death and dead person, made Gautam Buddha realize that “Life contains suffering” and it was only through the sense of sight that he was able to extract four noble truths from Four sights in Buddhism. Hence sense plays a major role in Indian Religion.

Show More
Related

  • Siddhartha

    459 Words  | 1 Pages

    In this paper, I will be explaining how Siddhartha had arrived at the Four Noble Truths. The first paragraph contains how Siddhartha’s life was full of suffering, pain, and sorrow. The second paragraph will be the cause of suffering is the desire for things that are really illusions in Siddhartha’s life. Following, in the third paragraph I will be explaining how the only way to cure suffering is to overcome desire. Finally, I will be explaining that the only way to overcome desire is to follow the Eightfold Path.

    Read More

  • Uniting Mind, Body, and Spirit in Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha

    764 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the first part of the book, Siddhartha is consumed by his thirst for knowledge.  He joined the samanas and listened to the teachings of the Buddha in attempt to discern the true way to Nirvana.  Though he perfected the arts of meditation and self-denial, he realized that no teachings could show him the way to inner peace.  While with the ascetics only a third of his quest was accomplished.  Siddhartha said, "You have learned nothing through teachings, and so I think, O Illustrious One, that nobody finds salvation through teachings" (27).  His experiences with the samanas and Gotama were essential to his inner journey because they teach him that he cannot be taught, however this knowledge alone would not deliver him to enlightenment.  Siddhartha had taken the first step in his quest but without the discovery of the body and spirit, his knowledge was useless in attaining Nirvana.

    Read More

  • Siddhartha’s Influences

    431 Words  | 1 Pages

    The beautiful courtesan, Kamala, taught Siddhartha the importance of love along with the pleasures of it. While in the town of Samsara, he was introduced to a life of luxuries by her. She taught him how to please a woman and how to keep her satisfied. He also learned how to gamble and the art of running a business from her friends. Although Siddhartha felt moments of joy, nothing fulfilled the longing in his soul. Over the years, one of the more important lessons he gained from Kamala was that he could have this life of pleasurable things and yet still yearn for a deeper meaning in his heart.

    Read More

  • Siddhartha - The Three Stages

    557 Words  | 2 Pages

    During this period-the realm of the mind, Siddhartha actively sets about letting the self die, escaping his Self.  This attempt reaches its most concentrated form during his stay with the ascetic Samanas, during which he discards all material possessions and tries further to flee his own body and control his other needs. This is shown when he says, "He killed his senses, he killed his memory, he slipped out of his Self in a thousand different forms."  S...

    Read More

  • Altered-States-of-Consciouness (ASC): The Causes and the Impact on Society

    2141 Words  | 5 Pages

    The world is not what it appears to humans, but there are things that may be recorded, repeated, and experienced by others. Though each person is different, it is believed that we all experience the world in the same way more or less. Touch, taste, sight, smell and sound are the ways we interpret our environment. However, from time to time people have experiences that occur beyond those five senses and defy explanation as anything other than an otherworldly. Those experiences became a large part of religion, yet the manner in which most occur begs the question – why?

    Read More

  • Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism: Similar Views of Life

    2658 Words  | 6 Pages

    Larry A. Samovar, Richard E. Porter, Edwin R. McDaniel, “Hinduism”, communication between cultures, pg 132-138.

    Read More

  • The Ascension of Buddhism in America

    631 Words  | 2 Pages

    The founder of Buddhism was a man named Siddharta Gautama. He was born as a prince of a small kingdom located near today’s Nepal, around 500 B.C.E. (Gurinder 1). According to the legends, Siddharta was raised in the lap of luxury. He was given the finest clothes, riches, and a mansion for every season (Fisher 136). Despite having anything his imagination could conjure, he was unconvinced of their value (136). As the story continues, he was presented with the four sights that were being kept from him (136). These sights included death, sickness, old age, and a monk seeking lasting happiness rather than material possessions (136). After these sights, Sidhharta began his long path to enlightenment. After six years of searching, he had reached his goal of an ultimate consciousness called Nirvana, or enlightenment that is above ordinary human states of mind (Gurinder, Numrich, Williams 1-2). After his discovery of the ultimate consciousness, he was given the title of Buhhda, which means “Enlighten One” (2).

    Read More

  • Ex – Basketball Player

    1078 Words  | 3 Pages

    enable us to understand the moral of the poem. Which is work hard and you will receive you goals and never give up.

    Read More

  • Depression And Mental Illness (Crime)

    2229 Words  | 5 Pages

    The objective mind takes cognizance of the objective world. Its media of observation are the five senses. It is the out growth of man’s physical nece...

    Read More

  • Kenneth Fearing’s Dirge

    1633 Words  | 4 Pages

    ..., the content and form has self-deconstructed, resulting in a meaningless reduction/manifestation of repetition. The primary focus of the poem on the death and memory of a man has been sacrificed, leaving only the skeletal membrane of any sort of focus in the poem. The “Dirge” which initially was meant to reflect on the life of the individual has been completely abstracted. The “Dirge” the reader is left with at the end of the poem is one meant for anyone and no one. Just as the internal contradictions in Kenneth Fearing’s poem have eliminated the substantial significance of each isolated concern, the reader is left without not only a resolution, but any particular tangible meaning at all. The form and content of this poem have quite effectively established a powerful modernist statement, ironically contingent on the absence and not the presence of meaning in life.

    Read More

  • Epicurus's Theory Of Death

    820 Words  | 2 Pages

    Epicurus believed that death was not a misfortune. He Believed that once an individual passes away, he or she looses their wordily sensation. He drew that sensation is a necessary condition of value to a person, so without it, the person will not sense, therefore be incapable of feeling. Contemporary philosophers however object this theory. Arguing that death is bad precisely because it deprives a person of good experiences which one could not possibly experience when deceased. In paragraph one of this essay, it expands on the epicurean argument for death not being a calamity for the one passing away. The second paragraph will look at the with this view and lastly paragraph three will consider the objective argument of Thomas Nagel and Fred Feldman.

    Read More

  • The Similarities and Differences between Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism

    1179 Words  | 3 Pages

    Upon reading about the historical and religious background of Ancient India, one can clearly assume that the country was strongly influenced by three main religious teachings: Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. These three sects in religious thinking have many similarities as all recognize the life-cycle and the need of liberation, they worship one central deity that used to be a human who gained enlightenment and they all recognize the existence of the eternal soul and after-death re-incarnation. However, they also share a lot of differences that mark the underlying principles of practicing them. I will identify the scope of differences and similarities in these ancient religions in an attempt to understand why each attracted followers, why each was shaped a certain way and how they preserved the interest of followers on into the modern times as well.

    Read More

  • Sensation And Senception: The Process Of Sensation And Perception

    742 Words  | 2 Pages

    First of all, Sensation comes first when you gather the physical stimulus which is registered by sensory organ. After a long process, you will be able to make sense out of the sensation. For instance, seeing the light is sensational, but determining the color of that light is perception. In the bottom-up processing, Sensation is an important part, which means that the sensation happens when the sensory organs transmit information to our brain. However, in top-down process, perception is the important part of it. In this case, perception can occur after the brain interprets the sensory information and sends the signals to the sensory organ in order to respond to the physical

    Read More

  • Religious Paths

    2028 Words  | 5 Pages

    While examining different religious paths within Hinduism from the perspective of four patterns of transcendence (ancestral, cultural, mythical and experiential) it is interesting to see how each pattern found its dominance over four segments of Hinduism: Vedic sacrifice, the way of action, the way of devotion and the way of knowledge.

    Read More

  • Essay on Discourse in A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man

    1483 Words  | 3 Pages

    Each of his senses was brought under a religious discipline. In order to mortify the sense of sight he made it his rule to walk in the street with downcast eyes, glancing neither to right nor left and never behind him. His eyes shunned every encounter with the eyes of women (162-3).

    Read More

More about Senses In Siddhartha

Open Document