Deep stories

The book "Old Path White Clouds: Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha" by Thich Nhat Hanh and Nguyen Thi Hop is interesting. I must have already said it but it's very easy to read. Thanks to commuting times, I've managed to read about 1/5.

It's strange for me to read it, though, because while for most of the time I can't predict what happens on the next page, it still feels as if I had read the book many times. I definitely have come across excerpts of the biography from the various yoga books that I've read or yoga-related videos that I've watched. But the whole story - nope. Currently the most logical assumption is that uncle and/or aunt may have read it to me when I was less than 6 years old.

Back then I used to sleep in an old barn house, roughly similar to this:

Thank you, Wikimedia Commons for the image.

It had small windows, mostly covered with curtains. The wooden walls and ceiling were all pitch-black, covered in a 1-2 mm layer of soot. Instead of a 220 V mains, our "village" got like 180 V due to a cheap transformer about 2 km up the road. Why cheap? The transformer was struck by lightning and burned empty about twice per year. Anyway, the 180 V mains was split among the buildings, and the power to the old barn house was routed through a long extension cord. Indoors, we had a 60 W incandescent bulb hanging just above a small round table with 4 chairs. Just in case, we also had an oil lamp or a candle on the table.

In the evenings, the youngest aunt and the youngest uncle, me and my sister used to sit around the table, drink tea and enjoy good stories. Each evening, the aunt or uncle read a story or two from one of their books. Sometimes we would discuss a story and ponder over the potential interpretations of its symbolism. The most inspiring stories, for me at least. Sometimes we would spend the evening listening to uncle play the guitar and sing.

While (re-)reading "Old Path White Clouds" now, I see the deep effect that these stories and discussions had on the aunt and uncle but also how it has shaped my psychology and that of my sister. For that, I am exceptionally grateful. "Old Path White Clouds" seems like a perfect compilation of bedtime stories for children, especially good for teaching compassion, humility, ways to deal with loss, etc.

Since then, I've enjoyed evening discussions over philosophical matters with other family members. Those discussions were also why I loved literature classes at school .. err, except for the books on battle gore (why the f were those even in the list of compulsory reading material). Many years later I recognised two books from which they had read the bedtime stories: Mahabharata, The Little Prince, and several other titles which I've forgotten.