An excellent point. I recommend Siddhartha as an introduction to other paths. Yes it’s a novel and yes it’s written by a white European, but I think that’s what

An excellent point. I recommend Siddhartha as an introduction to other paths. Yes it’s a novel and yes it’s written by a white European, but I think that’s what makes it valuable as a bridge. This conversation between Siddhartha and the Buddha is always relevant. Siddhartha must leave because Buddha himself did not achieve enlightenment by reading and studying the Buddha’s teaching. He found his own path there. I think about this a lot when, say, a Paul Graham essay makes the rounds. There’s a sense that “to become like X, I must read them and do what it says so I might become them.” But of course they didn’t become who they read, were not The Next Steve Jobs. They were the first of themselves.