One of the things about my reading is that it tends to follow threads. It is a rare book that I find to read that is utterly random. Last June I went to Mongolia for the month, and in my travels there I spend some time with lamas, monks, and had an audience with the Rinpoche. I know far more about the history and philosophy of Vedism, Hinduism, Shaivism, tantra, and assorted other belief systems in that universe. Having come into a world where Buddhist philosophy is very present, I have been engaged in what I would call ‘Buddhist activities’ and have had a rather piecemeal engagement with philosophies, mostly vajrayana school from the Gelugpa traditions in Mongolia. Related to all this, I began studying traditional Tibetan medicine, which begins (and ends) with the four medical tantras of the Medicine Buddha, and requires an empowerment to read them. This is also entwined with Yuthok Nyingthig, and other practices that have become part of my life, as I study these topics.

When a scholar I know, of Hinduism and comparative religion decide to offer a course on the history of Buddhism the timeliness of it could not have been more perfect. I had been slowly reading as I attempted to wend my way through thousands of years of philosophy, schools and beliefs, but this was the opportunity to learn from one of the most erudite scholars I’ve experienced in my life, and be taught from a perspective that was easy for me to understand, that is Vedic to Hindu to Buddhist (with side travels to Jainism and Taoism, to name just two.)

Five or so years ago in the throes of The Adelphi Project (book 594), I had re-read Siddhartha for the first time since my twenties. It was beautiful as always, but a story without the wider context I was now attempting to slot ideas and events into, my bending of the moment towards seeing the world from a different perspective. The book had come up in my Buddhist History class, and I had pulled it off the shelf. I have an old hardcover copy, the feet on the cover reminiscent of the Bamiyan Buddhas, a reminder of impermanence, at the very least. (The edition I have of Siddhartha is a New Directions book, translated by Hilda Rosner.)

The middle way was more prominent to me with all the history swirling in my head, that neither asceticism or indulgence would serve. I can relate to this struggle. That he ends his life finding balance as a ferry pilot is also perhaps something that I should consider, given all the time I have spent on ferries.

One of the things that drew me to Roberto Calasso was his engagement with the Vedas and other early literature, his fascination with with the beliefs as well as the acts, the rituals, that which is left after the fire of sacrifice. It was not the reason I embarked on The Adelphi Project, but there was a resonance of connection in the fascination. In his office in Brera there were a set of shelves behind where a guest would sit, two shelves wide, all the books covered in paper so there was a similar look to the books, slightly variations of beige and a hint of green, the titles obscured. I asked about them once and he said they’d been Bobi’s books, the ‘perfect library’, all the books one needed to own for the rest of one’s life. I doubt he and Roberto had sat down to consider how many books they could read in the remainders of their lives, but the thread, it is there. Looking at my shelves and the books I have, thinking of the idea that I can only read so many more, I find I want to re-read far more than I would have thought, before such a consideration. And consideration is the word. I want to reconsider books I have previously known, those that had meaning or whose content I wish to taste again, at this phase in my life.

Roberto once told me that when they started Adelphi Edizioni they bought the remainders from a different house, I forget which or the context, though I likely wrote it in the notes I used to scribble after we met. The crux of it though was that one of the things they purchased was the rights to the Italian version of Siddhartha, which, he said, turned out to be the best selling book and fund quite a few of their future dreams.

Returning to Siddhartha, as I have returned to my serious, but non-Buddhist, meditation practices, as I consider what it is to be alive and what to read for my remaining years, seems of a piece in this moment. This, the memories of Roberto, the eightfold path, history, philosophy and the current state of the world are all held within me as considerations of how to live a life of integrity, one that, I hope, bends towards wisdom and compassion. One does not need to be Buddhist to follow these paths, or Hindu, or, in my belief, to hold any religion or belief system at all. I think one merely needs to want to be as present as possible, to live in the world, and to liberally apply care across all beings and all situations. And probably, as well, to let things go, to let them flow by and past. I do miss Roberto, of course, and can be bogged into despair when I look at the world, but finding a way to step outside of this has long been my mode of presence, and Siddhartha and the threads of memory that surface in the re-reading, and the exhilaration of scholarship and this precise moment in life can, and do, feel like just the right ‘enough’.