Knowledge and Wisdom

According to the Four Noble Truths, we suffer in this life because we desire things that
are impermanent. Friendships, food, frivolities; these are all things we naturally desire in our
existence. However, our desire becomes suffering once the fleeting happiness brought on by
these impermanent things is gone. Only when we stop desiring such things can we truly be
happy, teaches the Four Noble Truths. In the book Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, the main
character Siddhartha continuously searches for knowledge, and only finds peace when he finds
wisdom, which is impermanent.
The Four Noble Truths of Buddhist culture state that, Ordinary Life brings about
suffering. There is no denying that we suffer each and every day. Our lives are riddled with
sources of suffering such as wars, disease, and heartbreak. We are called to find a different way
of life, one that is not ordinary, one without suffering. In such a way of life, we are not to find
attachment to things, as the origin of suffering is attachment. We suffer when we become
attached to things that are impermanent. Ridding ourselves of desiring impermanent things rids
us of suffering. We can escape the cycle of suffering through the Eightfold Path, which is way of
self-awakening.
Siddhartha knows that he wants to find the path to Nirvana, the end to all suffering, and
he spends his life detaching himself from everything he possibly can. He even releases himself
from his family, his best friend, and his own son. Siddhartha was on the hunt for the knowledge
to Nirvana, and after years and years, he figures out that knowledge is impermanent. Teachings
on knowledge were impermanent, as words dissipate into thin air, and words do not express
thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately they are expressed, a little
distorted, a little foolish. Thus, while the teacher may have wisdom, the knowledge cannot be
shared. Ironic, how the one thing Siddhartha was searching for became the one thing that was
hindering his progress. Siddhartha then redefines his search as a search for wisdom, the one thing
that is permanent. His sole source of wisdom becomes a river, which is everywhere at once, and
that there is only the present time for it, not the shadow of the past not the shadow of the future,
which is permanent.
The Four Noble Truths and Siddhartha are very much intertwined. Siddhartha finds that,
in order to live the good life, he must not have any desire for anything impermanent. From the
very start, Siddhartha began to follow the Four Noble Truths and began his work to rid his life of
attachments. He tried it all, from a life of asceticism to a life of wealth, and while these
experiences brought him closer to wisdom, what he was finding was not permanent, and his life
was still full of desires. At long last, Siddhartha completes the Eightfold Path in the Four Noble
Truths when he gains true wisdom from the permanence of the river.








Bibliography
Hesse, Herman. Siddhartha. New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1999. Print.