– Buddhism ⋅ is a philosophical way of nonviolence –
Siddhartha Gautama was born c. 560 BC as the son of a king and renounced his princely title* to a kingdom. He saw the misery, the need and the suffering of the poor people and wanted to help them – while his father chose ignorance. In the legends, it seems unlikely to me that there were no old people present in the Gautama’s palace and court, neither grandparents nor employees. His mother died shortly after he was born, he must have asked questions about old age and dead. Numerous stories report that he encountered old age and frailty outside the warrior villa. Unfortunately, 2600 years ago there was no writing or parchment to confirm this. Every Buddhist will today agree, he was a wandering ascetic with an admirable mind and heart. Well, there are now many stories – we like to tell them to give life more dignity and a certain splendor.
Gautama left his father’s golden cage, released his servant Chandaka and rode away on a battle horse. There is no record of whether his rich father supported him or rejected him forever – the old scripts tell Siddhartha was with many great teachers and gained wonderful knowledge of a bygone era. Jainism is about five thousand years old, a good teacher must have acquainted Siddhartha with the knowledge of Samsara and Nirvana – this point of view becomes very binding through the Third Truth. For me personally, Siddhartha Gautama, Dalai Lama and Mahatma Gandhi, is light in the darkness. In an authority world that hates itself so much as ours, there is unfortunately a lack of empathy to understand this. The Four Truths and the Eightfold Path of Buddha are all correct – a Buddhist should examine them to be allowed to say this ⋅ སེམས གཟིགས
*The Second Truth of Buddha suggests that it is better to abstain from clinging and craving. Nirodha means, it’s not necessary to be a prince. Desire is self perception of sexuality, to create a family, or to be born as a child in her.
Replacement by the /codex/ of wood
The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching
Bodhisattva/1998 ⋅ Zen monk Hanh describes Vietnam, the Four Truths, the Eightfold Path, Nirvana and Samsara, basic Buddhist teachings and the discourses. His life wisdom is easily understood in admirable, loving words, deep philosophy, inspiring peaceful compassion and heeding subtle empathy.
The Eternal Legacy
An Introduction to the Canonical Literature of Buddhism
Sangharakshita/Dennis Lingwood/1985 ⋅ An invaluable guide and reference book to Buddhist sacred texts, The Eternal Legacy gives students of Buddhism an unparalleled overview of texts from canonical Pali works to Mahayana sutras, together with their doctrinal and historical context.
Hyperion
The Fall of Hyperion
Dan Simmons/1989 ⋅ 26th century: the earth is annihilated, people are scattered over more than 200 planets. At the same time, artificial intelligences (AIs) have developed in the world-spanning computer network known as the “Technocore” and have risen to become the secret rulers of the world.
Endymion
The Rise of Endymion
Dan Simmons/1996/Continuation ⋅ On Hyperion, Raul Endymion is given a mission to crosses the portals of time in search of the girl Aenea, the promised savior of the future. But the henchmen of the ruling caste “Pax” want to prevent that. A brilliant epic saga about the future of humanity.
Dem Leben entfremdet
Arno Gruen/2013 ⋅ Our consciousness and our reality are dominated by crises, hate, excesses and violence, right up to contempt for humanity. Scientific knowledge, technology and computer science influence, supervise and command us. The sense of reality and compassion for other people are increasingly devalued and suppressed by an unnatural consciousness.
Solaris
Stanislaw Lem/1961 ⋅ Who’s testing whom? When Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he is forced to confront a painful, hitherto unconscious memory embodied in the living physical likeness of a long-dead lover. Scientists speculate that the Solaris ocean may be a massive brain that creates these incarnate memories, its purpose in doing so unknown.
Starwatcher
Jean Giraud (1938-2012) ⋅ est un auteur français de bande dessinée avec le scénariste Jean Charlier, de la célèbre bande dessinée de western Blueberry, qu’il signe sous le nom de Gir puis sous son vrai nom. Sous le pseudonyme de Mœbius, il est l’auteur et/ou le dessinateur de bandes dessinées de science-fiction. Vous pouvez voir et lire toutes ses œuvres magiques, c’est l’une des personnes les plus merveilleuses de l’art. Tu manques au monde.
Sophie’s World
Jostein Gaarder/1994 ⋅ Mysterious letters land in the mailbox of fifteen-year-old Sofie Amundsen in Oslo. What are these questions supposed to mean: »Who are you?«, »What is a human being?« and »Where does the world come from?«. Sophie is confused. The letters become more detailed and take you into the adventurous and mysterious world of thoughts of the great philosophers.
The Name of the Rose
Umberto Eco/1983 ⋅ In 1327. Benedictines in a Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns with his novice Adso of Melk to detective. His tools are the logic of Aristotle, the theology of Aquinas, the empirical insights of Roger Bacon.
Brave New World
Aldous Huxley/1932 ⋅ The novel opens in the World State city of London in the year 2540, where citizens are engineered through artificial wombs and childhood indoctrination programmers into predeter-mined classes (based on intelligence and labour. It is a society that rests on consumerism, collectivism, mass production techniques and has a rigid caste system.
The Origins of Totalitarianism
Hannah Arendt/1951 ⋅ “The ideal subject of totalitarianism is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e. the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e. the standards of thought) no longer exist.“ The mob always will shout for ‘the strong man’, the ‘great leader’. For the mob hates society from which it is excluded.
Ego
The Game of Life
Frank Schirrmacher/2015 ⋅ The journalist specifically points to the information economy, its early origins and the connections between our dependency on technological progress. This opens up the continuation or entry into a manipulated and programmed society for the reader. This book espouses the belief that human beings today are motivated predominately by self-interest and ego.
The Selfish Gene
Richard Dawkins/1976 ⋅ Are we puppets of our genes? According to Richard Dawkins; thesis, which was drafted over 30 years ago and is still provocative today, our genes, passed on from generation to generation, control and direct us in order to maintain themselves. Dawkins describes the molecular gene as the fundamental unit of evolution. A cold but insightful book.
The Circle
Dave Eggers/2013 ⋅ The narrator dives into the psyche of a young achievement-oriented woman and undresses her lucid metamorphosis. Mae’belline Holland, an initially likeable employee of an up-and-coming account management organization (The Circle), loses herself in self-absorbed pinnacles of digital achievement and blossoms into a cold-hearted algorithm of decadent values.
The Every
Dave Eggers/2021 ⋅ The Circle comes an exciting new follow-up. When the world’s largest search engine/social media company, the Circle, merges with the planet’s dominant ecommerce site, it creates the richest and most dangerous–and, oddly enough, most beloved―monopoly ever known: the Every.
1984
George Orwell/1949 ⋅ The protagonist, Winston Smith, is a diligent mid-level worker at the Ministry of Truth who secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion. Smith keeps a forbidden diary. He begins a relationship with a colleague, Julia, and they learn about a shadowy resistance group called the Brotherhood.
Animal Farm
George Orwell/1945 ⋅ The novel is based on the belief that all revolutions only bring about a shift in the kaleidoscope of power, but that the basic structure of society always remains the same. The satire aims not only at the unique historical fact, but at every revolution in general, whose causes and impulses, whose failure and final reversal Orwell demonstrates the opposite in an animalistic state: “Four legs good, two legs bad.”
La Trilogie Nikopol
Enki Bilal/The Nikopol Trilogy/Comic/1999 ⋅ La trilogie est divisée en La Foire aux Immortels, La Femme Piège et Froid Équateur, qui racontent une période de quelques années, commençant par une étrange pyramide flottante habitée par des dieux égyptiens, qui à leur tour mènent leur propre guerre interne alors que le dieu renégat Horus veut une vie plus immortelle.
The Man in the High Castle
Philip K. Dick/1962 ⋅ It’s America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some twenty years earlier the United States lost a war―and is now occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan.
MADE IN UNIVERSE