Rating: 
Summary: A Good Effort on a Difficult Subject
Review: This isn't really a book about Buddhist philosophy. It is an attempt to examine an important life, that was lived over 2,500 years ago. Given the fact that The Buddha and his followers didn't choose to create a cult of personality, there aren't many available sources for information about the human side of The Buddha. As such, I think the author did a good job of examining the world that The Buddha experienced and piecing together limited information to add a human element to an enlightened being. I was especially touched by the account of The Buddha's final days, when he was venerated by many, but chose to pass on in relative isolation as a means of furthering his message. If you are looking for philosophical insights, you should look elsewhere, but if you want to know about the world from which The Buddha sprang, this is a good, readable choice.
Rating: 
Summary: Enlightenment
Review: Writing a biography of Buddha is an un-Buddhist thing to do. Buddha means enlightened or awakened one. The process of preserving the traditions of Buddha's life began shortly after his death in 483 B.C.E. About a hundred years after his death the Pali Canon was established. Other texts exist. They do contain reliable historical material. There is no developed chronological account of Siddhatta Gotama's life. Of emphasis are his birth, his renunciation of normal domestic life, his enlightenment, the start of his teaching career, and his death. In the accounts the Buddha is presented as a type. When Gotama was 29 he took to the road. He had a yearning for existence that was wide open and complete. Family life was incompatible with higher forms of spirituality. Attachments to things interfered with spirituality. He was a near contemporary of Confucius and Socrates. He sought Nirvana to overcome the endless cycle of death and decay. 800 to 200 is known as the Axial Age. Socrates, Confucius, and Buddha have been mentioned, and in addition to them, others who established the ethos under which men still live include LaoTzu, Zoroaster, Plato, and the great Hebrew prophets. New religions emerged-- montheism in Iran and the Middle East, Taoism and Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Greek rationalism in Europe. Study and debate became important religious activities. There was a new cult of kingship in Gotama's lifetime. The image of the Universal Monarch became his alter ego. Gotama rode out from the family house when the existence of suffering penetrated his world. He was able to look at Vedic society with the objectivity of an outsider. Gotama joined some of the wandering monks. They had become almost like a fifth caste. Gotama found a teacher who taught that ignorance rather than desire lay at the root of our problems. He was taught to look for holiness everywhere. Even suffering had a redemptive role. An ascetic often finds it is extremely difficult to liberate himself from the material world. It is not known when the first yogic exercises evolved in India. The word Yoga comes from a term to yoke or bind together. The sages and prophets of the Axial Age were coming to realize that egotism was the greatest obstacle to experiencing the absolute. The abandonment of selfishness and egotism would be the basis of Gotama's own dharma. Yoga and ethical disciplines were practiced by him. He practiced withdrawal of the senses and concentration. Gotama did not think the elevated state of consciousness reached through the use of Yogic methods was Nirvana because afterwards he still had the same desires. He tried asceticism and that proved as fruitless as Yoga. In seclusion Gotama found his way to enlightenment. He fostered wholesome states of mind, disinterested compassion. He adopted a habit of mindfulness. The transitory nature of life was one of the chief causes of suffering. The prosperity of one person usually depends upon the poverty of another. Gotama developed a new Yogic method. Scholars traditionally give the enlightenment of Gotama as around the year 528 B.C.E. What he found was not a new invention. His plan could not be understood by rational thinking alone. Nirvana is a still center. It gives meaning to life. Buddhism is essentially a psychological religion. His first attempt at teaching was a failure. At a later stage the Buddha probably developed one of the most frequent subjects of meditiation, the Chain of Dependent Causation. The fire sermon was a brilliant critique of the Vedic system. The three fires of greed, hatred, and ignorance were an ironic counterpart to the three holy fires of the Vedas. The followers of the Buddha, little Buddhas, are as impersonal as he is in the accounts. Notes and glossary appear at the end of the book. This biography is correct and succinct, and yes, enlightening.
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