“I suddenly felt I was in heaven. The spot was in fact no different from when I had passed it not long before, but my way of seeing it had changed. Every element lived in harmonious relation with its neighbour, and all was kith and kin. I knelt a mortal; I rose an immortal.”
So many of you will have seen the new film adaptation of Yann Martel’s ‘Life of Pi’ but how many of you have read the book? Reading it was something that I had intended on doing for some time but had never got round to, so when the film came out I decided I couldn’t see it before doing so. I opened the first page and WOW, I was hooked! I finished the book within a matter of days! Not only was the writing simply amazing, there were a few parts that intrigued my Buddhist side and have stuck with me. Pi is an Indian boy who was first ‘introduced to God’ through Hinduism (and later goes on to become Christian and Muslim simultaneously) . As I’ve mentioned in my welcome post, I don’t believe in God, but there are so many similarities between Hinduism and Buddhism that it was impossible not to take something away from Pi’s musings.
“The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart”
“If there’s only one nation in the sky, shouldn’t all passports be valid for it?” – Although this particular quote refers to believers of all religions being accepted to heaven, in a Buddhist sense it makes me think that regardless of whether a person is Buddhist, Muslim, Christian or atheist, enlightenment is achievable for anyone. A kindhearted atheist may well become enlightened before a Buddhist who is yet to understand.
And finally one to meditate over – “I saw my suffering for what it was, finite and insignificant, and I was still. My suffering did not fit anywhere, I realized.”
The Budding Buddhist 