Solitude and Loneliness: A Buddhist View

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.