Buddha Hb

Deepak Chopra retells the life of the Buddha as a novel, starting not with a saint but with a young man. Siddhartha is a prince raised to inherit his father's throne, kept inside the walls of the kingdom while he longs for the world beyond them. Chopra writes in his author's note that the Buddha was mortal like anyone else, and that his enlightenment came by way of a heart as human and as vulnerable as our own.

When people he trusts betray him, Siddhartha gives up his palace and his title. He goes out alone, faces his own demons, and takes up the life of a wandering monk. His spiritual fast pushes him to the edge of death. There he learns that willpower alone cannot master the body and mind, and only when he lets go of that struggle does he move beyond his suffering and reach enlightenment.

The man we now picture as a figure of calm and peace lived through love and desire, violence and grief, and long stretches of struggle before surrender. Chopra follows that path from the hard ground of worldly life to the heights of spiritual awakening, and shows how the truths Siddhartha found went on to shape people far beyond his own time and place.