Solitude and Loneliness: A Buddhist View

Solitude and Loneliness

A Buddhist View
Sarvananda

Charlie Chaplin observed, ‘Loneliness is the theme of everyone.’ Although true, it is equally true that we all very skilfully, and often unconsciously, organize our lives in such a way as to avoid loneliness.

Drawing on a wide range of sources – the poets Dickinson and Hafiz, the painter Edward Hopper, the sage Milarepa, the lives of Helen Keller and Chris McCandless, and of course the Buddha – Sarvananda explores the themes of isolation, loneliness and solitude from a Buddhist perspective and examines how and why our relationship to ourselves can be a source of both suffering and liberation.