I have now returned to Bundala armed with some heavy authorities with which to add weight to any replies I may be called upon to make to people's comments on the Notes. Learned objections usually call for learned replies, and a salvo of passages from about page 650 of some forbidding work can be quite effective. But learned objections to the Notes are actually a misunderstanding, since the Notes is not a learned book at all (though this is not to say that it is an easy book); and the more intelligent objections that may be raised cannot be answered simply by reference to authority. Learned objections must, no doubt, be answered; but it is the more urgent personal objection that it is worth taking trouble with. But will there be anything more than polite acknowledgments?

The Ven. Thera remarked that if students make use of the Notes when studying for their examinations they are certain to fail. This, of course, is perfectly true; and, indeed, I should be horrified to learn that the Notes had been approved as a textbook for school or university use. I have made the Notes as unattractive, academically speaking, as possible; and it is hardly conceivable that anyone could be so perverted as to set their pupils to learning them by rote. No -- let them stick to the citta-víthi, which, being totally meaningless, is eminently suited for an examination subject.

I have started making corrections and additions to the Notes, in the carbon copy. The corrections, fortunately, are very minor, and concern only such things as faults in style and grammatical slips; but the additions are more substantial and, I hope, make things clearer. No doubt I shall go on making them as they occur to me.

My general impression, so far, is that NA CA SO is attracting most attention.[1] This is perhaps understandable, since the natural question to ask, upon being told that the Buddha denies a 'self' (a misleading statement) but asserts rebirth, is 'Who, then, is reborn?'; and the answer comes out pat: Na ca so, na ca añño, 'Neither the same (person) nor another'. The consequence is, that everyone supposes that this celebrated (and facile) phrase is the key to the whole of the Buddha's Teaching. It must therefore come as rather a shock -- almost as a scandal -- to find it criticized by a bhikkhu whose sanity nobody had hitherto seen any reason to question. Certainly, there is hardly a single popular book on Buddhism that fails to quote this phrase -- many of them seem to suppose that it is found in the Suttas (at least, they do not point out that it is not found in the Suttas).




[L. 71]   18 November 1963

The fact that a copy of Notes should have been returned to you is really no reason for despair. Though in this particular case it seems to have been due simply to a misunderstanding, it is conceivable that someone might send back his copy as a gesture of strong disapproval with the contents. At least this would show that he had read the book, and also that he had understood enough of it to provoke a strong reaction: and this is really more than we can hope from the majority of the people we have sent it to. In fact, if the entire edition were returned with contumely, we should be able to congratulate ourselves on having produced a profound effect -- and remember that hate and love are very close. As it is, however, I fear that the book will be 'much treasured', but not 'much read'. (After all, if people do start sending back their copies, we shall be able to send them out to an entirely fresh set of people.)

I find it a little discouraging that, in no less than four replies, the title of the book is given as 'Notes on the Dhamma'. This carelessness in such an obvious matter makes one wonder if it really is worth the trouble of spending perhaps an entire morning working on a single sentence to get it exactly right, with the necessary and sufficient degree of qualification, not too much and not too little, to guard against all possible misinterpretation. If readers are going to add and subtract words to suit themselves, all this seems to be so much wasted effort (apart, of course, from the satisfaction one derives from actually getting a recalcitrant sentence to express one's meaning precisely -- but then this is at least half the pleasure of writing).

Palinurus is Cyril Connolly, who edited the highbrow magazine Horizon throughout the last war. It maintained a persistently high standard, when standards everywhere else were deteriorating, but it ran at a loss and was kept in being by a wealthy and disinterested patron (I forget whom). Connolly is of interest as a particularly articulate and well-read example of the despairing modern European intellectual (Camus was another). He has lost all faith in religion (his ideas about the Dhamma, which he puts together with Christianity, are quite mistaken), and yet sees no hope outside religion. Connolly, who is quite as cultured as Huxley, lacks Huxley's missionary zeal for the salvation of mankind (on a modest scale) through mysticism for the few and mescalin for the masses, and consequently sees nothing for it but continuation of the 'book-bed-bath defence system'. And, after all, Europe actually has nothing better to offer than despair, together with a number of elaborate and fairly efficacious -- but strictly temporary -- devices for concealing despair. The only permanent defence against despair -- síla-samádhi-paññá -- is quite unknown in the West (and, alas! it is becoming almost unknown in the East).

You will have noticed that my interpretation of The Trial as the account of a man who, at a certain point in his life, suddenly asks himself why he exists, and then considers various possible justifications for his existence until he is finally obliged to admit honestly to himself that there is no justification, corresponds to what I have said in the Preface to the Notes:

Every man, at every moment of his life, is engaged in a perfectly definite concrete situation in a world that he normally takes for granted. But it occasionally happens that he starts to think. He becomes aware, obscurely, that he is in perpetual contradiction with himself and with the world in which he exists.

I was particularly pleased to get your last letter since it seems to show that you are managing to make some sense out of the Notes -- and this, in its turn, means that I have succeeded, to that extent, at least, in making the Notes intelligible. PHASSA, to which you make particular reference, is by no means the easiest in the book; and though you do not indicate how far the subordinate notes are comprehensible to you, it is already a considerable advance to have grasped that 'contact' is primarily 'an appropriation by a misconceived self' (to use your own words). By way of contrast, here is the Milindapañha's account of 'contact':

"Bhante Nágasena, what is contact?"
"Your majesty, contact is the act of coming in contact."
"Give an illustration."
"It is as if, your majesty, two rams were to fight one another. The eye is comparable to one of these rams, form to the other, and contact to their collision with each other."
"Give another illustration."
"It is as if, your majesty, the two hands were to be clapped together. The eye is comparable to one hand, form to the other, and contact to their collision with each other."
"Give another illustration."
"It is as if, your majesty, two cymbals were to be clapped together. The eye is comparable to one cymbal, form to the other, and contact to their collision with each other."
"You are an able man, bhante Nágasena."
(from Warren's Buddhism in Translations, pp. 186-87)

I quite agree that comments on the Notes are likely to be few and slow, and I also agree that it is a matter of very secondary importance. Constructive criticism will probably be negligible (though I might get some ideas for improvements and additions -- particularly to meet unforeseen objections); and we are certainly not seeking anybody's Imprimatur to sanction our appearance in public. The principal reason, surely, for our saying that we should be glad to hear the comments that people may wish to make is to find out how much adverse or positively hostile reaction the Notes, with their rather anti-traditional tone, are likely to arouse -- in other words, to find out to what extent (if at all) the Ven. Thera's apprehensions are justified. In brief, to find out whether any precautions are necessary if and when the Notes are made generally available to the public at large. For the rest, so long as we know that a few people at least are likely to find them helpful, that is all that really matters. (Naturally, I am curious to know what people's first impression is, in order to satisfy my author's vanity; but this is quite beside the point.)




[L. 73]   30 November 1963

I have finished Russell's Nightmares and must confess that they did not come up to expectation. No doubt it was my fault for expecting too much, knowing how unsatisfactory I find his philosophical views; but I had hoped that, at least, when he was not writing normal philosophy, he would be entertaining. Alas! I found his wit insipid, and his serious passages almost intolerable -- there was something of the embarrassment of meeting a Great Man for the first time, and finding him even more preoccupied with trivialities than oneself.

In his Introduction, Russell says 'Every isolated passion is, in isolation, insane; sanity may be defined as a synthesis of insanities', and then he proceeds to give us examples of isolated insanities -- the Queen of Sheba as Female Vanity, Bowdler as Prudery, the Psycho-Analyst as Social Conformity, and so on. Amongst these, as you noted, is the Existentialist as Ontological Scepticism. Here, Russell's satire is directed partly against what Sartre has called 'a literature of extreme situations'; and this, for an Englishman, is no doubt a legitimate target, since the English do not admit that there are such things -- though, of course, this makes the English a target for the satire of the rest of Europe, particularly the French.

But what Russell is not entitled to do is to group the insanity of doubting one's existence along with the other insanities, and this for the simple reason that it precedes them. One may be vain or modest; one may be prudish or broadminded; one may be a social conformist or an eccentric; but in order to be any of these things, one must at least be. The question of one's existence must be settled first -- one cannot be insanely vain if one doubts whether one exists at all and, precisely, Russell's existentialist does not even succeed in suffering -- except when his philosophy is impugned (but this merely indicates that he has failed to apply his philosophy to itself, and not, as Russell would have us believe, because he has failed to regard his philosophy in the light of his other insanities). The trouble really is, that Russell does not, or rather will not, admit that existence poses a problem at all; and, since he omits this category from all his thinking nothing he says concerns anybody in particular.

It is noteworthy that the one nightmare that did amuse me, that of the Metaphysician, does in fact represent Russell's own personal nightmare -- a fear of discovering existence (for existence and the negative -- 'not' -- go hand in hand). But Russell has long ago firmly repressed this fear by harsh logical measures, and it only shows its head when he is off his logical guard. Once upon a time, Russell said 'Whatever A may be, it certainly is'; but that was in 1903. Since then Russell has learned sanity (his own brand), and has declared (in 1919) 'It is of propositional functions that you can assert or deny existence'. In other words, Russell holds that you can assert 'lions exist', and that this means '"X is a lion" is sometimes true', but that if you say 'this lion exists' you have said something meaningless. From this it follows that Russell regards the assertion 'I exist' as a meaningless utterance, and this allows him to regard the existentialist as a lunatic.

It is no doubt true that the assertions, 'I exist', 'I do not exist', and so on, are meaningless, but only in the eyes of one who is no longer a puthujjana. And, even then, they are not meaningless in Russell's sense. According to one of the Commentaries, the Buddha once said that 'all puthujjanas are mad', and from this point of view the puthujjana's doubts about his existence are insanity. But this is not Russell's point of view, since he is still a puthujjana.

Together with existence, Russell has removed the word 'not' from Logic (even if he does not go so far as his metaphysician Brumblowski, who has expelled it from his ordinary language). Russell came to the conclusion (I speak from memory) that to say 'A is not B', where A and B are individual things, is illegitimate; what one should say is '"A is B" is false'. Thus, instead of exists and not, Russell has true and false; but whereas the first pair applies to things, the second pair applies to facts -- it is only of propositions that you can assert the truth or the falsity. (For the significance of this replacement of things by facts -- it is the foundation of positivism -- I would refer you to note (f) of the Preface to the Notes.) I may say that I enjoyed Russell's idea of a special department of Hell for those philosophers who have refuted Hume -- this is one of the few points about which I agree with Russell (but does it not make nonsense of Russell's whole philosophy of the acceptance of 'scientific common sense'? Russell would be only too happy to be able to refute Hume).

I was interested by the Mathematician's Nightmare, but for quite a different reason. There, you will remember, Professor Squarepoint has a vision in which all the numbers come to life and dance a ballet. Amongst these numbers there is one that refuses to be disciplined, and insists on coming forward. It is 137,[1] and this number is the cosmic number that Sir Arthur Eddington found to be at the base of physics. Now it so happened that I used to be interested in Eddington's interest in this apparently rather undistinguished number, perhaps even because it is so undistinguished in every other respect. And it happened that my interest in this number enabled me, indirectly, to write FUNDAMENTAL STRUCUTRE. Although, now, I have entirely lost my interest in 137, and although it plays no part in my description of Fundamental Structure, yet it is not difficult to trace it in the Notes. In §I/9, I say that the structure of a thing of certain complexity is represented by . This is arrived at by purely phenomenological description (i.e. in the reflexive description of experience as such). Now, Eddington (I reproduce his arguments as far as I remember them) says that this figure represents the structure of a 'particle' (in nuclear physics).[a] Now, so long as Eddington sticks to the figure above as the structure of a 'particle' he remains (whether he knows it or not) within the field of phenomenology (which requires an 'observer' as well as an 'observed' -- like the 'subject' and 'object' in phassa). But Eddington is a quantum physicist, and must treat his results with scientific objectivity (which eliminates the 'observer' or 'subject' -- see the last footnote to the Preface), and so he must do away with himself. How does he do it? Answer: by putting another 'particle', similar to the first, to take his place. Eddington then quietly retires, leaving a relationship between two identical 'particles'. To find out the nature of this relationship we simply have to multiply the two 'particles' together. Since each 'particle' has 10 o's and 6 x's, simple arithmetic gives us 100 oo's, 36 xx's, and 120 xo's (or ox's). For some reason that I now forget, we ignore the unlike pairs (xo's and ox's), and consider only the oo's and xx's. Added together these come to 136. And this, so it seems, is the number of degrees of freedom of the electron. But there is a snag: since the two particles we multiplied together are absolutely indistinguishable in all respects, we can never know, in any calculation, whether we have got them the right way round or not. So one extra degree of freedom has to be added to compensate for our uncertainty. The total number is therefore 137. (I am afraid, perhaps, that these pages may be something of 'The District Judge's Nightmare'; but there's nothing in them of any importance whatsoever.)

In any case, thank you for sending the book, which both satisfied my curiosity and exercised my critical faculty.




[L. 74]   8 December 1963

I had heard vaguely about President Kennedy's assassination from several people. It seems to have been rather a spectacular affair on the whole -- first the actual assassination of the President at long range by a skilled marksman, and then the televised murder of the alleged assassin (even out of court, I see, you will only allow that the assassin was 'alleged') by the owner of a night-club. Splendid copy for the newspapers. Personally, I am inclined to feel that the fact of a murderer's victim being a politician should be taken as an extenuating circumstance when he comes to be tried. Politicians can be extremely provoking.

The news of Huxley's death, on the other hand, makes me rather melancholy. I had hoped vaguely (probably without good reason) that he might have found something in the Notes of use to him, in payment of the debt that I owe him for the instruction that I derived from his books in my earlier days. I learnt from him to throw away a lot of rubbish that I was carrying around with me (which I had picked up during my course of education), and this saved me a lot of time and trouble later on. Of course, it was partly (and no doubt necessarily) a matter of throwing away the baby with the bathwater; and both Huxley and I had to go out subsequently to pick up the baby again. The curious thing is that we picked up different babies.

I am re-reading Sartre's L'Être et le Néant with some care to find out the extent of my disagreement with him. Earlier, the book was of some help to me, and was at the same time a hindrance, since I accepted things that had later to be rejected. The basic point of disagreement is that Sartre takes the existence of the subject ('self') for granted, and identifies it with consciousness. But it is stimulating to disagree with him and to try to see exactly where there is disagreement. This exercise has resulted in a number of additions to and insertions in the Notes, with the idea of making certain things stand out more clearly. But there is nothing in the way of a major alteration. In the meantime, if you find things in the Notes that puzzle you, and you think I might be able to clarify them, then by all means let me know (of course, there are a number of things that are difficult in themselves, and no amount of additional words will simplify them, but there may also be things about which I have been unnecessarily obscure).

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Footnotes:

[72.a] Kierkegaard once remarked that, since all his contemporaries were busily engaged in making everything (i.e. Christianity) easy, the only task left for him was to make it difficult again. And this he proceeded to do, not without effect. During the last months of his life he launched a bitter attack on the falsity and hypocrisy of the Established Church in Denmark with its state-salaried priests. He expected to suffer persecution for this attack; but, instead, became a popular figure. [Back to text]

[73.a] I do not allow the validity of the arguments he uses to derive this figure; such, for example, as the postulate that a given particle A has an equal chance of existing or of not existing. This strange assumption, which has currency neither with Russell nor with me, has as its immediate consequence the remarkable conclusion that exactly the same number of things exist as do not exist. (Whatever one may think of this, it is apparently good currency in quantum theory, if we are to judge from the following utterance by Dirac: 'We may look upon these unoccupied states as holes among the occupied ones.... The holes are just as much physical things as the original particles....' [PQM, p. 252] But it must be remembered that quantum theory is an ad hoc system made to account for the observed facts and produce results. So long as it does this [and it does it only rather imperfectly] nobody bothers about whether it is intelligible or not.) [Back to text]















Editorial notes:

[70.1] NA CA SO: The book was sent out with an accompanying note requesting reactions to the book so that necessary revisions could be made in a proposed printed (and not cyclostyled) edition. [Back to text]

[73.1] 137: A fraction very close to 1/137 is known to physicists as the 'fine structure constant'. It and its factors are involved in considerations of the weak nuclear and electromagnetic forces and as such it is an important constant for quantum physicists in describing basic electron-electron scattering. [Back to text]