You speak of 'feeling the incarnating of God in ourselves so that we realize that we are of the very stuff of God', and then you go on to say 'Oh, I know how you will react to any such statement....' Well, how do I react? I say that to take what we call 'experience of God' as evidence of the existence of God is a mistake. But there are mistakes and mistakes, and it is perhaps worth looking a little more closely.

Observe, to begin with, that I do not deny that we may have 'experience of God'. It is a fashionable blunder (as I remark in the Notes) to hail modern science as vindicating the Buddha's Teaching. The assumption is, that the Buddha solved the whole question of transcendence (self) or Transcendence (God) by anticipating the impersonal attitude of the scientist. But this is rubbish, and it simply makes the Dhamma a kind of logical positivism and myself a kind of Bertrand Russell in Robes. No -- numinous experience is just as real as sex or romantic love or aesthetic experience; and the question that must be answered is whether these things are to be taken at their face value as evidence of some kind of transcendent reality or whether the eternity they point to is a delusion.

Certainly in sexual love we do seem to experience eternity; and this is often taken as religiously significant (by the Hindus, for example, with their Shivalingam, not to mention their temple eroticism). But what a derisory eternity it is that lasts for a few seconds or minutes and then leaves us wondering what all the fuss was about! As the rude rhyme puts it bluntly:

Cold as the hair on a polar bear's bum,
Cold as the love of a man when he's come.

When we come to more specifically numinous experience the situation is more delicate. In its grosser forms, certainly -- awe in a cathedral, panic fear in a thunderstorm -- it can come and go, and we oscillate between eternity and transience; and even if transience can be eternal, eternity cannot possibly be transient. Palinurus is doubtful and suggests a compromise:

Man exudes a sense of reverence like a secretion. He smears it over everything, and so renders places like Stonehenge or the lake of Nemi (Diana's mirror) particularly sacred, -- yet the one can become a petrol-station, and the other be drained by a megalomaniac; no grove is too holy to be cut down. When we are tired or ill, our capacity for reverence, like our capacity for seeing the difficulty of things, increases till it becomes a kind of compulsion-neurosis or superstition; therefore it would seem that the mythoclasts are always right, -- until we know what these mother-haters, these savagers of the breast, will worship in their turn. Lenin, the father figure mummified, replaces the Byzantine Christ. Reverence and destruction alternate; therefore the wise two-faced man will reverence destructively, like Alaric or Akbar, and, like Gibbon, Renan, Gide, reverently destroy. (p. 87)

Although Jaspers distinguishes various kinds of ciphers, the important point is that anything can be read as a cipher if we care to make the effort of 'existential contemplation'. Since anything can indicate Transcendental Being, there is at least the theoretical possibility that one might pass the whole of one's life reading one's every experience as a cipher, and in such a case we should perpetually be approaching Eternity. This attitude is less easy to dismiss, and Jaspers has taken care to tie up all the loose ends with an ultimate cipher. Although we can perpetually approach Being, we can never actually reach it, and this inevitable failure and frustration of our efforts may be a temptation to despair. This temptation to despair, says Jaspers, should spur us on to 'assume' the cipher of frustration. 'The non-being which appears in the frustration of all our efforts to achieve a direct understanding of Being is now seen to be an indirect revelation of the presence of Transcendence' (I quote from Grimsley's book, p. 188). But it must be emphasized that the assumption of this cipher is an act of faith in Transcendence and without such faith we can never make the necessary jump -- indeed, they are really one and the same thing.

So, then, Jaspers leads us to the point where everything indicates Transcendence and nothing reveals it, and thence to despair; and despair is an invitation to jump to the conclusion that Transcendence (or Eternity, or God) exists. But different attitudes are possible in the face of this invitation. The theists, of course, accept the invitation with many thanks. Jaspers himself is inclined to accept it in spite of the difficulties involved. Lessing declined the invitation, perhaps regretfully ('Das, das ist der garstige breite Graben, über den ich nicht kommen kann, so oft und ernstlich ich auch den Sprung versucht habe.'[2]) Sartre explains away the invitation, too easily dismissing what is a real problem. Camus accepts the invitation to Transcendence in a contrary sense -- as evidence of the non-existence of God. For him it is a matter of 'la protestation lucide de l'homme jeté sur une terre dont la splendeur et la lumière lui parlent sans relâche d'un dieu qui n'existe pas'.[3]

And what, then, about the Buddha's Teaching -- how does it tell us to deal with the question whether or not God exists? The first thing is to refuse to be bullied into giving a categorical answer, yes or no, to such a treacherous question. The second thing is to see that the answer to this question will depend on the answer to a more immediate question: 'Do I myself exist? Is my self in fact eternal, or is it something that perishes with the body?' And it is here that the difficulties begin. The Buddha says that the world is divided, for the most part, between the Yeas and the Nays, between the eternalists and the annihilationists, and that they are forever at each other's throats. But these are two extremes, and the Buddha's Teaching goes in between.

So long as we have experience of our selves, the question 'Does my self exist?' will thrust itself upon us: if we answer in the affirmative we shall tend to affirm the existence of God, and if we answer in the negative we shall deny the existence of God. But what if we have ceased to have experience of ourselves? (I do not mean reflexive experience as such, but experience of our selves as an ego or a person. This is a hard distinction to see, but I must refer you to the Notes for further discussion.) If this were to happen -- and it is the specific aim of the Buddha's Teaching (and of no other teaching) to arrange for it to happen -- then not only should we stop questioning about our existence and the existence of God, but the whole of Jaspers' system, and with it the doctrine of ciphers, would collapse.[a] And what room, then, for despair? 'For the arahat' (I quote from the Notes) 'all sense of personality or selfhood has subsided, and with it has gone all possibility of numinous experience; and a fortiori the mystical intuition of a trans-personal Spirit or Absolute Self -- of a Purpose or an Essence or a Oneness or what have you -- can no longer arise.'




[L. 136]   25 December 1964

The philosophical works with me will be enough to occupy me for the time being. Actually, with a well-written bit of philosophy I probably take as much time to read it as I suppose you do with a good volume of poetry. And also, the satisfaction that philosophy can provide (when the philosopher has a valid thought -- i.e., a thought that one has oneself thought, or might have thought -- and succeeds in communicating) is surely not less than what an experienced reader of poetry derives from a good poet, even if the atmosphere is not quite the same. For example, the passage from the Grenier on being dépaysé (which you yourself recognize as part of your own experience) can be read repeatedly, each time with the same, or increased, resonance. And an opening passage such as this (from Heidegger), despite -- or perhaps because of -- its apparent simplicity, at once reveals endless unsuspected perspectives to the mind, and, for me at least, is extraordinarily stimulating:

Why, in a general way, is there something rather than nothing? That is the question. And probably it is not just any question. Why is there something rather than nothing? It is, manifestly, the first of all questions...[a]

This last paragraph is rather by way of apologizing for having returned the four volumes of Yeats quite so quickly. I have a feeling that you would like me to like Yeats, and I feel a little guilty that I am unable to do very much about it. In earlier days, perhaps, I might have convinced myself that I ought to like him, and with persistence I might even have to some extent succeeded. But now it is too late. He is pleasing, certainly; but if one is no more than pleased by a poet, then it is quite obvious that one is incapable of reading poetry.

Graham Greene, I allow, is a first-class writer -- at least he would be if he were a little less convinced of the infallibility of Catholic dogma. If one believes in this dogma (as he evidently does), no doubt all the tensions and anguishes that his characters go through will seem valid enough; but if one does not happen to share these beliefs, one comes away from his books with the feeling that he is making things unnecessarily difficult for everybody. He is quite right to insist that more is at stake in our worldly affairs than meets the eye -- I know this myself, and I am satisfied that I have (from the Suttas) some idea of what is at stake (beyond this life, I mean) --; but it weakens one's case, not strengthens it, to be dogmatic about it, no matter whether that dogma is right or wrong. There is more eschatological dogma in one of Graham Greene's novels than there is in my Notes on Dhamma.




[L. 137]   1 January 1965

A pleasant surprise to get your letter! But how hard it is to communicate! Kierkegaard held that direct communication was impossible, and said (with Dostoievsky) that the surest way of being silent is to talk. I have been reading your letter and trying to grasp its meaning (the words and sentences, of course, are quite clear) -- trying, in other words, to get the feel of it, to seize upon its Archimidean point. Instead of saying very much myself by way of reply (though I shall say something), I thought rather of sending you a few translations from the Suttas about food,[1] ranging, as you may think, from the warmly human to the coldly inhuman, from the simple to the abstruse (and yet the warmest [2] and the coldest [4] are from the same Sutta!). Perhaps you do not know that the Buddha has summed up the entire Dhamma in the single phrase: Sabbe sattá áháratthitiká, All creatures are stayed (supported, maintained) by food (D. 33: iii,211, etc.).

Your reference to the autonomous mood in the Irish grammar can perhaps be turned to account, particularly since you yourself go on to suggest that a linguistic approach to the deeper questions of life might be rewarding. There is, in fact, a Sutta in which all the five aggregates (the factors present in all experience) are defined in this very way.

Matter is what matters;[a] feeling is what feels; perception is what perceives; determinations (or intentions) are what determine (or intend); consciousness is what cognizes. (Khandha Samy. 79: iii,86-7)

A further point. When an arahat is talking to people he will normally follow linguistic usage and speak of 'I' and 'me' and 'mine' and so on; but he no longer (mis)understands these words as does the puthujjana (see Additional Texts 14).

It would be unfair on my part to allow myself to suggest, even by implication, that the Buddha's Teaching is easier to understand than it is; and still more unfair to lead you to suppose that I consider myself capable of benefitting you in any decisive manner. All I can do is to plant a few signposts in your way, in the hope, perhaps, of giving a certain orientation to your thinking that might stand you in good stead later on.

Thank you kindly for your offer of theatre tickets, but our rules rule out visits to theatres, however much we might like to attend a performance.

P.S. Do you know that in Prof. Jayatilleke's book, The Buddhist Theory of Knowledge (which you have kindly sent me) the words 'sotápanna' (stream-enterer) and 'arahat' are not to be found in the index? Nor have I met with them in the text. This is simply Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.

Next section

Back to Clearing the Path - Contents

Back to Ñánavíra Thera Dhamma Page

Footnotes:

[135.a] Jaspers' scheme, as I said before, consists of the world of objects (thoughts and things), which is 'being-there', and, transcending that, the world of self, which is 'being-oneself', and, transcending that, the world of Being, which is 'being-in-itself'. You will see that when, as is the case with the arahat, all transcendence (in this sense) has ceased, all that is left is the world of objects (so long, at least, as the arahat continues to live). For the Buddha, in other words, reality -- in the sense of what is left after ignorance (avijjá) has been removed -- consists, precisely, of thoughts and things. This is diametrically opposed to the Hindu teaching of máyá, which holds that the world of thoughts and things is what is unreal or illusory and that the task is to transcend this and attain the ultimate reality of pure Being (or pure objectless Consciousness). See, on this question, an earlier letter of mine (containing a Pali verse starting Sankapparágo purisassa kámo). Does this make it clearer why the empirical world is more real and substantial in the Buddha's Teaching than in the Hindu? The Buddha says (approximately) that the self is illusory and the empirical world is real, whereas with the Vedantists it is the other way round. [Back to text]

[136.a] It is probably a bogus question. [Back to text]

[137.a] I.e. is afflicted or breaks up -- the phrase ruppatí ti rúpam is untranslatable into English. [Back to text]















Editorial notes:

[135.1] Jouhandeau: 'When the universe considers with indifference the being whom we love, who is in truth?' [Back to text]

[135.2] Lessing: Gotthild Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781), German critic and dramatist. 'That, that is the hideous wide gulf, across which I can never get, no matter how earnestly and often I have tried to make the jump.' The passage is quoted (in German) at CUP, p. 90. [Back to text]

[135.3] Camus: 'the lucid protestation of men cast into a land whose splendour and light speak ceaselessly to them of a non-existent God.' Selected Essays... 'The Desert', p. 93 (originally published in Noces [Charlot, 1939]). [Back to text]

[137.1] Translations on Food:

     1. All creatures are stayed by food. (Anguttara X,27: v,50)

     2. With the coming together of three things, monks, there is descent into the womb. If mother and father come together, but the mother is not in season and the one to be tied[a] is not present, then so far there is not descent into the womb. If the mother and father come together and the mother is in season, but the one to be tied is not present, then still there is not descent into the womb. But when, monks, mother and father come together and the mother is in season and the one to be tied is present -- then, with this coming together of three things, there is descent into the womb. Then, monks, for nine or ten months the mother carries him about in the womb in her belly with great trouble, a heavy burden. Then, monks, at the end of nine or ten months the mother gives him birth with great trouble, a heavy burden. Then after he is born she nourishes him with her own blood; for in the discipline of the noble ones, monks, the mother's milk is blood. (M. 38: i,265-66)

     3. Thus I heard. Once the Auspicious One was living at Sávatthi in Jeta's Grove, in Anáthapindika's Park. There the Auspicious One addressed the monks.
     -- Monks!
     -- Lord! those monks assented to the Auspicious One. The Auspicious One said this.
     -- There are, monks, these four foods staying creatures that have become[b] or assisting those seeking to be. Which are the four? Solid food, coarse or fine; secondly contact; thirdly mental intention; fourthly consciousness. These, monks, are the four foods staying creatures that have become or assisting those seeking to be.
     And how, monks, should solid food be regarded? Suppose, monks, a man and his wife taking few provisions set out on a desert track; and they have a beloved only son. And when they are in the desert the few provisions of that man and wife are consumed and run out; and they still have the rest of the desert to cross. And then, monks, that man and wife think 'Our few provisions are consumed and have run out, and there is the rest of the desert to cross: what if we were to kill this darling and beloved only son of ours, prepare dried and cured meat, and eating our son's flesh we were in this way to cross the rest of the desert? Let not all three perish.' Then, monks, that man and wife kill that darling and beloved only son, prepare dried and cured meat, and eating their son's flesh in this way they cross the rest of the desert. And as they eat their son's flesh they beat their breast 'Where is our only son! Where is our only son!' What think you, monks, would they be taking food for sport? Would they be taking food for pleasure? Would they be taking food for adornment? Would they be taking food for embellishment?
     -- No indeed, lord.
     -- Would they not be taking food, monks, just for crossing the desert?
     -- Yes, lord.
     -- It is in just this way, monks, that I say solid food should be regarded. When solid food is comprehended, monks, the lust of the five strands of sensuality[c] is comprehended: when the lust of the five strands of sensuality is comprehended, there is no attachment attached by which a noble disciple should again return to this world.
     And how, monks, should contact-food be regarded? Suppose, monks, there is a flayed cow: if she stands against a wall she is devoured by the animals living on the wall; if she stands against a tree she is devoured by the animals on the tree; if she stands in the water she is devoured by the animals living in the water; if she stands in the open she is devoured by the animals living in the open. Wherever, monks, that flayed cow may stand she is devoured by the animals living in that place. It is in just this way, monks, that I say contact-food should be regarded.
     When contact-food is comprehended, monks, the three feelings[d] are comprehended; when the three feelings are comprehended, there is nothing further, I say, for the noble disciple to do.
     And how, monks, should mental-intention-food be regarded? Suppose, monks, there is a charcoal-pit deeper than a man's height, and full of clear glowing charcoal; and there comes a man who likes life and dislikes death, who likes pleasure and dislikes pain; and two powerful men seize his two arms and drag him towards that charcoal-pit: then, monks, that man^,s intention would be directed elsewhere, his desire would be directed elsewhere, his aspiration would be directed elsewhere. Why is that? That man, monks, thinks 'If I fall into this charcoal-pit I shall thereby meet with death or with pains like those of dying'. It is in just this way, monks, that I say mental-intention-food should be regarded.
     When mental-intention-food is comprehended, monks, the three cravings[e] are comprehended; when the three cravings are comprehended, there is nothing further, I say, for the noble disciple to do.
     And how, monks, should consciousness-food be regarded? Suppose, monks, a guilty thief is caught and brought before the king: 'This, sire, is a guilty thief: sentence him to what punishment you please'. The king says 'Go, my friend, and wound this fellow a hundred times this morning with a spear'. And they wound him a hundred times in the morning with a spear. Then at midday the king says 'My friend, how is that fellow?' 'Sire, he is still alive.' The king says 'Go, my friend, and wound that fellow a hundred times now at midday with a spear'. And they wound him a hundred times at midday with a spear. Then at nightfall the king says 'My friend, how is that fellow?' 'Sire, he is still alive.' The king says 'Go, my friend, and wound that fellow a hundred times now at nightfall with a spear'. And they wound him a hundred times at nightfall with a spear. What do you think, monks, would this man being wounded three hundred times during the day with a spear thereby experience pain and grief?
     -- Even, lord, being wounded once with a spear he would thereby experience pain and grief. How much more three hundred times!
     -- It is in just this way, monks, that I say consciousness-food should be regarded. When consciousness-food is comprehended, monks, name-&-matter is comprehended; when name-&-matter is comprehended, there is nothing further, I say, for the noble disciple to do.
     So said the Auspicious One. Those monks were gladdened and delighted in the Auspicious One's words. (Nidána Samy. 63: ii,97-100)

     4. Monks, do you see 'this has become'?
     -- Yes, lord.
     -- Monks, do you see 'coming-to-be with this food'?
     -- Yes, lord.
     -- Monks, do you see 'with cessation of this food, what has become is subject to cessation'?
     -- Yes, lord.
     -- In one who is doubtful, monks, 'What if this has not become?', there arises uncertainty.
     -- Yes, lord.
     -- In one who is doubtful, monks, 'What if there is not coming-to-be with this food?', there arises uncertainty.
     -- Yes, lord.
     -- In one who is doubtful, monks, 'What if with cessation of this food, what has become is not subject to cessation?', there arises uncertainty.
     -- Yes, lord.
     -- By one who sees with right understanding as it really is, monks, 'This has become', uncertainty is abandoned.
     -- Yes, lord.
     -- By one who sees with right understanding as it really is, monks, 'Coming-to-be with this food', uncertainty is abandoned.
     -- Yes, lord.
     -- By one who sees with right understanding as it really is, monks, 'With cessation of this food, what has become is subject to cessation', uncertainty is abandoned.
     -- Yes, lord.
     -- 'This has come to be': herein, monks, are you free from uncertainty?
     -- Yes, lord.
     -- 'Coming-to-be with this food': herein, monks, are you free from uncertainty?
     -- Yes, lord.
     -- 'With cessation of this food, what has become is subject to cessation': herein, monks, are you free from uncertainty?
     -- Yes, lord.
     -- 'This has come to be' is well seen with right understanding as it really is?
     -- Yes, lord.
     -- 'Coming-to-be with this food' is well seen with right understanding as it really is?
     -- Yes, lord.
     -- 'With cessation of this food, what has become is subject to cessation' is well seen with right understanding as it really is?
     -- Yes, lord.
     -- If, monks, you were to cling to this cleansed and purified view, if you were to treasure it, adhere to it, or cherish it, would you then, monks, be comprehending the teaching of the parable of the raft[f] as something for crossing over with, not for holding on to?
     -- No indeed, lord.
     -- If, monks, you were not to cling to this cleansed and purified view, if you were not to treasure it, adhere to it, or cherish it, would you then, monks, be comprehending the teaching of the parable of the raft as something for crossing over with, not for holding on to?
     -- Yes, lord.
     -- There are, monks, these four foods staying creatures that have become or assisting those seeking to be. Which are the four? Solid food, coarse or fine; secondly contact; thirdly mental intention; fourthly consciousness. And these four foods: what is their occasion, what is their arising, what is their provenance, what is their origin? These four foods: craving is their occasion, craving is their arising, craving is their provenance, craving is their origin.

And this craving...?	...feeling is its origin.
And this feeling...?	...contact is its origin.
And this contact...?	...the six bases are its origin.
And these six bases...?	...name-&-matter is their origin.
And this name-&-matter...?	...consciousness is its origin.
And this consciousness...?	...determinations are its origin.

     And these determinations: what is their occasion, what is their arising, what is their provenance, what is their origin? These determinations: nescience[g] is their occasion, nescience is their arising, nescience is their provenance, nescience is their origin.
     Thus, monks, with nescience as condition, determinations; with determinations as condition, consciousness; with consciousness as condition, name-&-matter; with name-&-matter as condition, the six bases; with the six bases as condition, contact; with contact as condition, feeling; with feeling as condition, craving; with craving as condition, holding; with holding as condition, being; with being as condition, birth; with birth as condition, ageing-&-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair, come to be: thus is the arising of this whole mass of suffering. (M. 38: i,260-263) [Back to text]

[137.1.a] I.e. the being to be reborn. [Back]

[137.1.b] 'Become' both here and below (in 4) is equivalent to 'come into being'. [Back]

[137.1.c] Pleasing sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches. [Back]

[137.1.d] Pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral. [Back]

[137.1.e] Being, un-being, sensuality. [Back]

[137.1.f] See M. 22 for the parable of the raft. [Back]

[137.1.g] Or 'ignorance' -- avijjá. [Back]