Beyond suffering and happiness

Sailen Routray

When you read a story and someone asks you what is it about, what do you say to them? More often than not, if you are lazy like me, you just share the theme. But sometimes you read a book of stories that all share the same theme, and when you try and think about what is it that you just read after finishing the volume, then the theme just becomes a frame within which the people in the stories move, and when you start coming close to either the center or the frame itself, then everything dissolves into everything else.

That's what happened to me after finishing reading 'The Stone Boy and Other Stories' by the Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. This was the first book of fiction that I finished reading this year (in 2026). The preceding year ended with me being really sick. So, the memory of that illness were still quite fresh with me as I was reading the book. 

There is a story about illness in the book. In 'The Giant Pines' a famous Buddhist monk at the height of his powers is stricken down with a wound, which is later revealed to be of supernatural origin. The recovery involves journeys both within and without, the one outside to a mountain far far away. This story like the other nine stories in the book were all originally written in Vietnamese and published individually. These were later translated and collected into a volume. The first Indian edition came out in 1997 and the one I read was a fourth reprint in 2012 by Full Circle. 

 

All the stories, including the title story 'The Stone Boy', are related to the theme of suffering, a central concern in Buddhism and Yoga. The story narrates the experiences of a girl 'To' who is caught up in the crossfires of political conflict in Vietnam. Another story 'A Lone Pink Fish' is also about a girl, Dao, fleeing the conflict in Vietnam on a boat, who gets stranded in an island and is saved by who else, but a lone pink fish. 

These two stories occupy almost half of the pages of the book and provide its spine. The other stories are illumined by these two. Many of the stories are retellings of old Buddhist legends and tales, like the story titled 'The Bodhisattva on the Fragrant Mountain', which narrates the story of an ordinary princess becoming a Bodhisattva of Compassion through the trials and tribulations that her father makes her go through. In fact, such transformations abound in the stories, sometimes engendered by outer circumstances, and at times happening randomly. The book reads like a collection of folk tales and legends retold for a modern audience.  

Reading the book is a strange experience. There is a stillness on every page, in every line. However, at the same time, there is also a need to move, to turn the page, to know what happens next. It is very difficult to sustain this dynamic across the two hundred odd pages of the book. But Hahn manages it quite well. For those who have read 'Old Path White Clouds' and liked it will find in 'The Stone Boy and Other Stories' a familiar, comforting territory, which at the same time contains many fine, new, refreshing streams.