Such a Wise Guy

So I finally read Herman Hesse’s “Siddhartha”.

I’m not sure why I hadn’t before. I think it’s Nietzsche’s fault. My preconception was that anything philosophical, with such a long and obscure name, and written by a German, would certainly be a death march to read. But on the contrary, I found the writing pretty mundane: something that would be entirely readable at a high school level.

In terms of content, it was okay. Most of the book talks about the protagonist’s various failed attempts to find enlightenment: first from teachers, then from asceticism, then from hedonism and materialism. That didn’t have a whole lot of value to me. Like, most of us don’t need to know what doesn’t work; we want to know what does! In the end, Siddhartha finds his own path to wisdom, and it resonates somewhat with what I feel.

But there was one especially interesting nugget near the end of the book. Siddhartha’s lifetime friend Govinda chose to follow the Buddha, and they talk about how Siddhartha was unable to gain enlightenment from his teachers. Then they have the following exchange:

       Govinda said: “Oh, Siddhartha, you still seem to like joking a bit. I believe you and I know that you have not followed any teacher. But have you found, if not a teaching, then certain thoughts, certain insights that are your own and that help you live? If you told me a little about them, you would delight my heart.”
       Siddhartha said: “I have had thoughts, yes, and insights, now and then. Sometimes, for an hour or for a day, I have felt knowledge in me the way we feel life in our hearts. There were a number of thoughts, but it would be hard for me to communicate them to you. Listen, my Govinda, this is one of my thoughts that I have found: Wisdom cannot be communicated. Wisdom that a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish.”
       “Are you joking?” asked Govinda.
       “I am not joking. I am telling you what I have found. Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. We can find it, we can live it, we can be carried by it, we can work wonders with it, but we cannot utter it or teach it. That was what I sometimes sensed in my youth, what drove me away from the teachers.”

I find this singularly insightful. I have no doubt that deep wisdom exists, but it does seem very difficult to share with others, at least until they’re ready and willing to hear it. But even then, the ultimate teacher of wisdom is life; no one can “tell” you wisdom.

I’ve seen that problem in action at some of the dharma talks I’ve attended, where in the Q&A period it becomes readily apparent that someone in the audience has completely missed the point of the talk, and the speaker struggles to find a way to plant what’s in his or her head into the listener’s.

For the past couple years, I’ve listened to dharma talks by the hundreds, both in person as well as via podcast. Have they made me any wiser? All I can honestly say is that in some cases they’ve given me meaningful things to think about. But as I stated earlier, it’s exactly that contemplative analysis—“thinking about it”—that fosters the growth of one’s own true wisdom; just listening to someone else’s words unquestioningly won’t do it.

And, of course, the teachings that I’ve internalized have only taken root because my mind and heart happened to be a fertile field at the moment. Five, ten, twenty years ago, I was a different person, and hadn’t had the life experiences necessary to be able to understand many of the things I’ve since come to believe.

And then there’s my own writings here in my journal. In many ways, I write these entries for myself, but there’s also a secondary desire that some of the nuggets of wisdom that I uncover will be of some value to my friends who read my entries. But Hesse’s assertion still rings true: I can’t just put wisdom down on a screen and expect others to receive it. The things that come as insights to me might seem simplistic or self-evident to you—or even to me—when they’re put down in writing.

Naturally, I’ll continue writing, and hope that my philosophical musings don’t become repetitive and bore you to tears. But I realize that you’ve got to find your wisdom yourself, and I can only make vague gestures toward the things that I have uncovered for myself.