ColetteScrapbook4

The Assignment
To get a feeling for how the Samanas, Indian ascetics that are found in the novel //Siddhartha//, try to reach enlightenment, we gave up something we enjoy for a week. I decided i was going to give up my ipod, including listening to music.

The beginning of the week
Starting out on the first day, I realized how inconvenient not using my ipod was going to be. I use my ipod to listen to music, look at the weather, check my email, and just all the time. Listening to music is something I do as soon as I wake up until i leave the house, and as soon as i get home until i go to bed. My ipod is almost always hooked up to speakers playing music. The different genres of music i listen to affects how i feel. Not listening to any music for those first couple days was quiet and distracting. I was also not very happy in the morning...it was too quiet and it gave me headaches. The quiet seemed like it was a way "to numb the mind" (10).



The middle of the week
I felt so lonely and depressed from not listening to music in the morning. I felt empty, but I don't think it was the same kind of empty as what Siddhartha said his goal was, "to become empty...empty of wishes, empty of dreams, empty of joy" (7).

End of the week
I used my ipod and listened to music because i just didn't want to do it anymore and it wasn't fun. It was "hard to bear--and, behold". I wouldn't want to do this again. I realized I didn't feel the need to take something away that i use and makes me happy. "...perhaps are we going in circles"(8) Siddhartha said. So, I decided I was just going to use it because I didn't want to be without the use of it.

Awakening
Siddhartha reached awakening after deciding that following the path of the Buddha wasn't his path. To him, awakening looked like "the sky and river flowed". I chose to draw this because i think this is what he saw because "the forest and the mountains were fixed in their place" and "blue was blue, river was river".

Kamala

 * Name ** : Kamala
 * Location ** : She lives in a big village near a river.
 * Eyes ** : Dark clever and alert eyes.
 * Hair ** : She has "high-piled black hair" (28) that goes around her pretty face, and she has high arched eyebrows.

**About Me:** Kamala has a soft, clever face, and red lips that look like a "newly opened fig" (30). Hands that are "long and narrow, with wide gold bracelets" (28) and her body always wears fine clothing. Friendly to everyone and full of love. ** Hobbies / Profession **: Prostitution, "the art in which you are an expert" (30) as Siddhartha once put. She is very well known and popular in the town.

** Looking For: ** A man who "must have clothes, handsome clothes, and shoes, good-looking shoes," (30) and another important thing, a man who has "a lot of money in his purse, and gifts for Kamala." (30). If Siddhartha was interested, which most men are, he would have to clean up his appearance and have valuable riches. But it is very good that he can "read and write, very good" (32). = =

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= Samsara: =

During the week days, my usual routine is: 1. Waking up around 6:45 or 7 2. Eating breakfast 3. Going to the bus stop 4. School 5. Going home 6. Doing homework 7. Spending time with my family 8. Eating dinner 9. Going to bed My week days are pretty simple. Starting off with waking up, and then eating breakfast. After I'm done getting ready for the day, I go to the bus stop. I'm at school most of the day, and the most exciting parts of school is usually during lunch. After school, and when i get home from riding the bus, I do more school stuff, homework. I wish we didn't have to do homework so often because that would give us more free time and time to spend alone relaxing the body and calming the mind. And just time to do the things we actually WANT to do and not NEED to do... but I guess its good to have some mandatory tasks that you have to get done so you can feel the satisfaction of being productive. I love spending time with my family and catching up with them, and hearing about what they are doing at school and work. Then we eat dinner, and then if i'm done with my homework, i go to bed. It seems like i can never sleep enough during the night to not feel tired at school during classes. There's nothing in my daily life that affects me in a bad way or is in the way of my "quest to be truly happy" (Riddle). Something that i really liked, that Siddhartha said was, "We find consolations, we find ways to numb the mind, we learn technical skills for deceiving ourselves. But the essential, the path of paths, that we do not find" (10). I think that is such an interesting thing to say out loud and admit. I don't feel that way about my life, but I can imagine people having different ways to numb their mind like alcohol or drugs or shopping. Maybe traveling to get away from their own lives and try to leave things behind. That's not the reason why I like traveling though.

=The River:=

Moody River-Frank Sinatra
Lyrics: "I looked into the muddy water and what could I see? I saw a lonely, lonely face just lookin' back at me Tears in his eyes and a prayer on his lips And the glove of his lost love at his fingertips"

Quote from text: "(he) looked down into the green water...he saw a frightful void reflected in that water, corresponding to the terrible void of his soul." (47)

Analysis: Frank Sinatra is singing about himself being alone and unhappy of the way thing's turned out between him and his lover. Siddhartha is looking at his reflection in the water, regretting the paths he tried to take during his life up until this point. Both people looking into the water were not happy and satisfied with what they were looking at. They didn't want that image to be reflected into the water. They were unhappy with the sadness that happened.

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Black Muddy River-The Grateful Dead
Lyrics: 'I will walk alone by the black muddy river, And sing me a song of my own.

When the last bolt of sunshine hits the mountain, And the stars start to splatter in the sky, When the moon hits the southwest horizon, With the scream of an eagle on the fly, I will walk alone by the black muddy river, And listen to the ripples as they moan, I will walk alone by the black muddy river, And sing me a song of my own."

Quote from text: "Dead was the bird in his heart....If only a lightning bolt would come and kill him! If only a tiger would come and devour him!" (46)

Analysis: In the song by the Grateful Dead, it talks about someone going alone and on being on their own, and going their own path. Seeing and hearing the nature around them. Both of them talk about animals and bolts. But they are both different in their overall message, because Siddhartha is talking about how he's so unhappy he would rather have a tiger come and eat him instead of living in this life.

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All this time-Sting
Lyrics: "And all this time, the river flowed Endlessly to the sea If I had my way I'd take a boat from the river And I'd bury the old man, I'd bury him at sea"

Quote from text: "the same river over which a ferryman had once taken him when he was still a young man coming from Gotama's town....what reason had he to continue on, and where to, toward what goal?" (47)

Anaylsis: I'm not sure who the old man is in Sting's story. I was thinking it might be himself, and he's unhappy and not wanting to go further. Or the old man was a ferryman who told him a way he should go, a path in his life, and now he wanted to harm the man as a sort of revenge for taking him on the wrong path. Siddhartha is trying to think of reasons of why he continued searching for the correct path of life. For both of them, I think the riverman had an influence on what path to go as they were on the river.