Since what you so delicately refer to as a 'painful subject' has raised its ugly head again, perhaps this will be a good opportunity for reviewing the situation. To begin with, my condition (physical and mental) is no worse than it has been, and I find myself able to make engagements for a month ahead with comparative equanimity (though further ahead than that will not bear thinking about). But with variations in the state of the weather, and of my guts, so the idea of suicide approaches and recedes; and the situation remains precarious, though not (as I think at the moment) critical.

Now, the reason for the present state of alarm in Colombo is simply this. A week or two ago, the Colombo Thera wrote to me saying that he would like to hear how I was, since he had been told that I was not well. So (perhaps injudiciously) I sent him a fairly detailed account of my condition. One reason that led me to do so was the nature of my disorder -- satyriasis. If I had kept silent about it, my silence might have been construed (later) as a desire to conceal matters that (in accordance with Vinaya) should be declared. And, having decided to speak of this, I could scarcely leave out all mention of suicide.

It seems that the Colombo Thera was much worried about the contents of my letter, and without reference to me (I had not actually asked him to treat it as confidential), he showed it to Ananda Pereira; for a few days ago I had from him a letter of big-brotherly advice, which was quite beside the point and rather difficult to answer. (He says, 'If you chuck it, who knows what sort of a body you will get in your next life?' If this means anything, it means that I am likely to get a worse body than my present one. And this implies that my fifteen years' practice of the Dhamma would leave me worse off than before I started, in which case it follows that the best thing for me to do is, precisely, to 'chuck it' as soon as possible before I sink any further. He is thus advocating just the opposite course of action to the one that (presumably) he intends to advocate. I am by no means ungrateful to him for past benefits (which have been generous), but what am I to make of such an equivocal advisor at the present time? And again, he tells me that my body is 'good for many years yet'. I am quite aware of this depressing fact, but it is small comfort to be reminded of it when one is wondering how to get through the next few days. If I were sure that it would not last much longer I might be reconciled to putting up with it; but the thought of another twenty or thirty years makes me reach for the razor.)

I think it is possible that you may be aware that the situation is not quite as simple as it seems, and that bluff common sense is scarcely adequate to deal with it. Both my doctor and yourself, by exercising restraint in the matter of giving advice, have been far more helpful -- and I am duly grateful. I know the Colombo Thera is not well, so it is quite natural that he should have shifted the burden of a difficult situation on to somebody else's shoulders. I asked neither for advice nor for help, but people are not to be put off by a little thing like that.

As to medical treatment, my doctor has detailed accounts of my disorder. I have several times asked him if the condition can be treated, saying that I am prepared to go to Colombo if it can. But he has at no time suggested that there might be a treatment, even after consulting other doctors. Now, if he, or any other competent doctor who has seen my accounts, is prepared to assure me that there is at least a reasonable chance of improvement after treatment, then I am at least prepared to consider going to Colombo and, if necessary, entering hospital. But what I am not prepared to do is to go to Colombo simply on somebody's confident assurance that the trouble can be put right. The reason is quite simple: if I accept this assurance and submit to examination and treatment, and then after all the trouble and discomfort involved I find there is no improvement, it is quite possible that I shall be even less inclined to go on living than I am now. As I have said, the situation is precarious but, at the moment, apparently not critical; so before risking a disturbance of the present equilibrium, it would be just as well to find out if there is really any chance of improvement.

Now the question of Colombo. It is clear from Ananda's letter that he thoroughly disapproves my living in solitude: 'I think you are taking life, and yourself, a little too seriously. This talk of suicide also is significant. Maybe you have been alone too much. Solitude is good, but a man needs friends, needs contacts with equals. Otherwise he loses his sense of proportion.' I want to make clear to you my own view of this matter, so I shall discuss it at some length.

When this kuti was first built, some people from Colombo came and visited me. Soon after, my dáyaka came to me in tears and said that he had received a letter from my visitors strongly criticizing him for having built the kuti in such a remote place. This, of course, was quite unfair, since it was I myself who had chosen the site. But I have found, right from the beginning, that there has been strong resentment by people living in Colombo about my living in solitude. I mentioned this fact once to the late Ven. Ñánamoli Thera, and he simply said 'Are you surprised?' It is not that Colombo-dwelling monks feel that I am an example that puts them to shame (since this would not account for the laymen's resentment), but rather that people find it scandalous (though they cannot say so openly) that anyone should take the Buddha's Teaching so seriously as actually to be willing to 'lose his sense of proportion' by living in solitude, and perhaps also to lose his life. People want their Dhamma on easier terms, and they dislike it when they are shown that they must pay a heavier price -- and they are frightened, too, when they see something they don't understand: they regard it as morbid, and their one concern (unconscious, no doubt) is to bring things back to healthy, reassuring, normality. So they want to bring me back to Colombo to set their own minds at rest.

And now, of course, when there is the risk of a really public scandal (a suicide), this anxiety is multiplied a hundredfold. But, as I told you before, suicides -- with the attainment of arahattá, too -- were fairly common amongst bhikkhus in the Buddha's day. Now, however, things have come to such a pass that, though a suicide for the sake of the Buddha's Teaching would be bad enough, the real scandal would be if it became known that some person or other still living had reached one of the stages. People do not, in their heart of hearts, like to think it possible -- the shock to their comfortable conventional ideas would be intolerable (I am not thinking here of the village people, who do not, after all, have so many comfortable ideas).

All this, perhaps you will say, may or may not be true; but what has it to do with the advisability or not of my spending some months in Colombo (I mean apart from medical treatment)? It has this to do with it: that I am obliged to ask why there is all this insistence on my staying in Colombo -- do people say I should because it would really be to my benefit? or for the sake of their own peace of mind?

One thing is quite likely: if I were to stay in Colombo, there would be less risk of my deciding on suicide (at least while I was there). In this matter, Ananda's instinct is not mistaken -- if I have contacts and company, the thought of suicide recedes --; and it might be concluded that, in this way, both I should be benefitted, and other people's minds would be set at rest. But the trouble is this: the more I get into company, and the closer I get to Colombo, the more insistent become my lustful thoughts. I stated this quite clearly in my letter to the Colombo Thera, saying that even at the Hermitage I have little peace from such thoughts, and that it is only here, where I am quite cut off from all disturbing contacts and I do sometimes manage to concentrate my mind (as in the last few days, oddly enough), that I have periods of freedom in which I can, to some extent at least, practise the Dhamma.

But Ananda has chosen to ignore this part of my letter completely, no doubt because it is inconvenient. The fact is, then, that thoughts of suicide can be reduced at the cost of increasing lustful thoughts (and I know from experience that even before this trouble when I had simply the intestinal disorder, most of my time in Colombo was devoted to lustful thoughts[1] -- what it would be like now, I hesitate to think). In other words, as the risk of suicide decreases so the risk of disrobing increases. I wish to emphasize this point, since as things are at present this consideration must take first place. And whatever anybody else may think about it, if I have to choose between the two evils, I choose suicide rather than disrobing.

The fact that suicide would create a scandal and that disrobing would not, cannot under any circumstances whatsoever be made a reason (in my case, at least) for preferring the latter course. So, if I fear disrobing more than I fear suicide, then I fear Colombo more than I fear Bundala. (I make no mention of the misery of living in Colombo even at the best of times.) Possibly this obstinacy will meet with your disapproval, possibly not; but at least I want you to know that I shall not easily be dislodged from this position. (I do not think that you will press the matter, but you may meet people who are more determined upon it, and you will be able to make my position -- whether it is right or wrong -- clear to them.) So much for that.

I was a little puzzled about your S.O.S. I do not see that an alarm could arise until I had actually killed myself or else botched the job and was in need of medical attention. If ever I do again decide on suicide I shall certainly not tell anyone in advance -- they would only come and interfere with the business. If I was actually contemplating it I should never have mentioned it in my letter to the Colombo Thera.

What am I to make of a young village boy who brings me dána, worships me respectfully, and then, as he leaves, says 'Cheerio!'? Is there any suitable reply to this?




[L. 95]   6 May 1964

I wrote a slightly astringent reply to Ananda,[1] and he has sent me a graceful recantation, admitting that he was tired and rather short of sleep when he wrote his earlier letter. I have sent off a reply to his reply, apologizing for anything excessive that I may have said; so I think we are all friends again. Though I do not see much likelihood of improvement, I do not want to give the impression that I am obstinately and neurotically refusing all offers of help. I don't at all want to go to Colombo, but if people are going to be upset if I refuse, then I am willing to agree (on the understanding, naturally, that I return here when treatment is finished).

Point Counter Point I have been through several times, but I should be quite happy to go through it once more. Perhaps you may be amused to hear how I first encountered the book. When I was eighteen, after leaving school but before going up to Cambridge, I went to Italy for six months to learn Italian and to 'broaden my mind', as they say. I went first to Florence, where I was a paying guest in a family. Two or three times a week I had tuition in Italian from a young Italian doctor in the city, and there were also two young ladies (about twenty-five, perhaps) who (separately) wanted me to give them practice in English conversation. (Whether they had designs on me, I really don't know -- I was far too innocent. Dear me, yes! I blush to think of it.) Anyway, I remember the first session I had with one of the young ladies. I walked to her house in the hot sunshine and was admitted to her cool shady drawing-room. She motioned me to a seat beside her, and then explained that she had just bought Point Counter Point but had found it too difficult for her. Would I give her some help with it? She produced the book, and opened it in front of me at page one.... Now, if you will look at page one, the first paragraph,[2] you will see that, from a linguistic point of view, the passage offers considerable difficulties to a would-be translator with only three months' Italian at his command. It is not at all easy to put into Italian. But, far worse than that, the subject matter is hardly the sort of thing that an eighteen-year-old English schoolboy is accustomed to discuss with strange young ladies (indeed, with any young ladies at all). But I was committed, and I took the plunge. I explained that there was a worm; and I explained that the worm was growing... but where was the worm growing? That was the difficulty -- the young lady wanted to know where the worm was growing, and I did not know the Italian word for the place where the worm was growing. What on earth was I to do -- draw a picture? or point to the spot? I forget how I eventually explained the situation, but to my astonishment the young lady was not in the least embarrassed when I had made matters clear.... Yes, my six months in Italy certainly 'broadened my mind'.

I don't in the least object to the young boy saying 'Cheerio!' -- he is very proud of his English, and probably has no idea at all of the meaning of the word. But it seemed so remarkably incongruous.




[L. 96]   19 May 1964

Thank you for sending Dubliners. Though the actual content is slight, the writing is masterly, and one is left with a feeling of despair that life should be so completely futile. Life is like this, and there is nothing else to be expected from it. The final pages of the last story ('The Dead') are a little sentimental, and we have the impression that Joyce is saying that life is worth living provided only we have some romantic episode in our past. But I find this a blemish; and in Ulysses Joyce is quite merciless -- there is no loophole at all for hope.

The German student's letter can, I think, be taken as a sign that people in Germany are at least prepared to read the Notes, whether or not they agree with them; and this is more than can be said for the English (Mrs. Quittner seems to be a startling exception). The copy of Mind (the principal English philosophical review) shows quite clearly that the Notes will be of no interest whatsoever to current professional English philosophy. This is all rather as I had anticipated.

I am not a great reader of poetry -- I prefer ideas to images -- but the books that I have been recently sent on mystical Christian poets and Maháyána Buddhism are of interest as entirely confirming the view that I have expressed in the Notes (Preface (m)). Though I am not an artist, I occupy the corresponding position as a producer of culture -- in this case of, shall we say, Buddhist thought -- as opposed to that of a diffusionist of culture; and it is true to say of me -- quoting Palinurus quoting Flaubert -- that 'a man who has set himself up as an artist [for which read bhikkhu] no longer has the right to live like other people'. This statement is closely paralleled in the Suttas: 'One who has gone forth should frequently reflect that he must behave differently (scil. from householders)' (A. X,48: v,87-8). The pure culture-diffusionist is obliged to regard all culture as good per se; but the solitary artist (or monk) will discriminate ruthlessly. There is no-one I abhor more than the man who says 'all religions are the same'.

I was glad to hear that you managed to write something about Point Counter Point -- the fact that it turned out to be nonsense is of no significance at all. It is absolutely essential, if one is going to learn anything in this life that is worth learning, not to be afraid to make a fool of oneself. The real fool is the man who has never discovered his foolishness -- or rather, the man who is afraid of discovering his foolishness.




[L. 97]   24 July 1964

I am glad to get a letter from you again after this interval and I shall be happy to take up our correspondence again. It has been very considerate of you not to have written before this and, indeed, I have really been feeling little inclined to answer letters. Ever since I left Colombo (and also while I was there) I have been getting a slight daily fever. This slight rise in temperature is quite enough to rule out any kind of intelligent thinking. Besides, as I foresaw quite well, my stay in Colombo provided plenty of stimulation for my already over-stimulated sensual appetite, and the effect has been taking some time to wear off. It is quite plain that if I were to have a prolonged stay in a town it would take little to induce me to disrobe.

But even if (as anticipated) my stay in Colombo brought about no improvement in my health (except for the cure of aluham,[1] which covered half my body), it was not, I think, altogether a waste of time. In the first place, people who might otherwise have been worrying both themselves and me will now be satisfied that, medically speaking, there does not appear to be anything very much that can be done to improve my condition. This, at least, clears the air a little. And in the second place, I decided to speak openly to the Colombo Thera about a certain matter (which, I think, did not come as a surprise to you).[2]

It was not originally my intention to speak about this matter at all, but I found myself more and more at cross-purposes with various people, and the increasing strain of trying to provide a plausible account of my behaviour without mentioning the most important item eventually persuaded me that I was perhaps not justified in perpetuating false situations in this way. Whether my decision was right I am not sure (it is not the sort of thing about which one can consult someone else), but I feel that my position is much simplified since this rather awkward cat is out of the bag and is semi-public property for which I am no longer solely responsible. This seems to make living rather easier for me (though, of course, it also makes it easier to die). But what the effect of the announcement (which was actually intended for the Colombo Thera's ears only) on other people will be -- whether of benefit to them or not, I mean -- I really don't know.

It is fortunate, in any case, that the Notes have already made their appearance since (i) they provide something more solid than a mere assertion for anyone who wants to make up his mind about the author, and (ii) they are perhaps sufficiently forbidding -- and unpalatable -- to protect their author from becoming a popular figure (it is, to my mind, of the greatest importance that no occasion should be given for complacency about the traditional interpretation of the Suttas -- people must not be encouraged to think that they can reach attainment by following the Commentaries).

Now, as to the two Suttas you mention, the first goes like this:

-- What, lord, is the benefit, what is the advantage, of skilful virtue?
-- Non-remorse, Ánanda, is the benefit, is the advantage, of skilful virtue.

Gladness Joy Calm Pleasure Concentration Knowing-and-seeing in accordance with reality Disgust and dispassion Knowing-and-seeing of release

. . . . . . . . of non-remorse. . . . . . . . . of gladness. . . . . . . . . of joy. . . . . . . . . of calm. . . . . . . . . of pleasure. . . . . . . . . of concentration. . . . . . . . . of knowing-and-seeing in accordance with reality. . . . . . . . . of disgust and dispassion.

Thus it is, Ánanda, that skilful virtue gradually leads to the summit. (A. X,1: v,1-2)

The second Sutta (A. X,61: v,113-16) runs like this:

An earliest point of nescience, monks, is not manifest: 'Before this, nescience was not; then afterwards it came into being'. Even if that is said thus, monks, nevertheless it is manifest: 'With this as condition, nescience'. I say, monks, that nescience, too, is with sustenance, not without sustenance. And what is the sustenance of nescience? The five constraints (hindrances).[3] I say, monks, that the five constraints, too, are with sustenance, not without sustenance. And what is the sustenance of the five constraints? The three bad behaviours[4].... Non-restraint of the faculties.... Non-mindfulness-and-non-awareness.... Improper attention.... Absence of faith.... Not hearing the Good Teaching (saddhamma).... Not frequenting Good Men (sappurisa, i.e. ariyapuggala).

I say, monks, that science-and-release, too, is with sustenance, not without sustenance. And what is the sustenance of science-and-release? The seven awakening-factors[5].... The four stations of mindfulness.... The three good behaviours.... Restraint of the faculties.... Mindfulness-and-awareness.... Proper attention.... Faith.... Hearing the Good Teaching.... Frequenting Good Men.

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Editorial notes:

[94.1] lustful thoughts: This need not be understood as 'sexual thoughts' -- one can lust after the succulent foods offered by Colombo dáyakas, the diversionary books of the temple libraries, and so on. [Back to text]

[95.1] Ananda: Part VII, L. 117-118. [Back to text]

[95.2] the first paragraph: The correct reference is to the seventh paragraph. [Back to text]

[97.1] aluham: Ash-skin, skin with ash-colored spots: a dry scaly mildly-itching disease, widespread in the drier areas of Sri Lanka. [Back to text]

[97.2] a certain matter: During his stay in Colombo the author handed over L. 1 to the Colombo Thera. The envelope of L. 1 was inscribed: 'In the event of my death, this envelope should be delivered to, and opened by, the senior bhikkhu of the Island Hermitage, Dodanduwa. Ñánavíra Bhikkhu, 20th September 1960.' Apparently the letter had been kept at Bundala until 1964, when it was handed over already opened and its contents were then discussed. This discussion became known to others, and thus the author's attainment of sotápatti came to be known (and accepted and denied and debated) even before his death. [Back to text]

[97.3] The five constraints (nívarana) are desire-and-lust, ill-will, sloth-and-torpor, distraction-and-worry, and doubt. [Back to text]

[97.4] The three bad behaviours: i.e. by body, speech, and mind. [Back to text]

[97.5] The seven awakening-factors (satta-bojjhangá) are: mindfulness, investigation of phenomena, energy, gladness, tranquillity, concentration, and indifference (equanimity). [Back to text]