After a hiatus, Malayalam actor Mohanlal is back blogging - this time to share his reflections on a book by a Zen Buddhist.
In a touching piece published on Saturday, Mohanlal writes on his admiration for the book titled "At Home in the World" by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. The Zen master is a victim of the Vietnam war that forced him to wander all over the world without a shelter and the book recounts many of the ordeals he had to suffer.
Interestingly, Mohanlal relies on an anecdote the sage narrated in the book to answer his critics, who attacked him over his recent blogs and accused the actor of leaning towards the right-wing forces.
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After narrating an episode in the book, wherein Thich Nhat Hanh writes about how those from the north of Vietnam were branded anti-American communists and those from the south as anti-communists, Mohanlal says he is somehow like the Zen master who told the US media that he was from the center.
"I have written about several issues in my blog. I wrote all those as the human being that I am and without any bias. But people interpreted them how they wanted. But I stay firm within my mind," he writes in the blog titled “Zen Buddhist ways of mindfullness".
Quoting the Zen master, who lives in his Plum ashram in France, the actor says anyone can be a Buddha through practice.
"You have to stand at the center if you want to raise to the Buddha state of mind. For that we should stay unbiased. Then we realize how blissful the life is. And we can raise our opinions without prejudices," he writes.
Mohanlal writes that the book offers the path to a creative sanyas of hope, compassion, love and respect.
Mohanlal was criticized for his recent blogs on demonetization and the student agitations in JNU. A two-time national award winner and a lieutenant colonel in the territorial army, Mohanlal was accused of blindly following the sort of nationalist narratives propagated by the Sangh Parivar forces.
Mohanlal, who publishes a blog entry on 21st of every month, did not write during last December. His blog published in November was on the demonetization.