About citta. I suggested "heart" (which I think you sometimes use) or "mentality" (which I have been using) as a better, though not entirely satisfactory, alternative to the entirely unsatisfactory "cognizance". But now I think I have found the answer. Citta and cetaná (though not on the same level) are related, and cetaná (for me) is "intention" -- i.e. the act or process or phenomenon of intending, which I understand as the having of a purpose (the essence of teleology). Thus we have yañca ceteti yañca pakappeti, "what one intends, what one plans...", where ceteti and pakappeti are almost synonymous (they are not, however, simply teleological -- as in the arahat --, since the meaning is intending or planning as mine, pour-mien). Citta is not so much the process of intending ("intention"), as what is intended (cf. "it is my mind to do so-and-so"), and this can be expressed by the word "intent", which henceforward shall be my translation of citta. But for you, so long as you have "choice" for cetaná and "intention" for sankappa, this solution won't do. (N.B. "Choice" is ambiguous -- it can be the act of choosing, what is chosen, or what there is to choose between [or amongst]: none of these is my cetaná, though the last is closest.) I suggest, then, the word "purpose" (sarágañ cittam, "lustful purpose"; cittavisuddhi, "purification of purpose"; cetosamatha, "quieting of purpose"; cittasankhárá, "purpose-determinations"; etc.). [I might use "purpose" for sankappa.]
[EL. 152a, the draft of a letter by Ven.
Ñánamoli] 3.iv.1959
Your (approx.) 2x6-1/2 pages of bludgeoning "joyfully" received (incidentally, the choice of the penultimate word was, by its exaggerated banality, intended, when used earlier, to convey "you can comment if you feel obliged"). The points you make are noted. But I now suspect there has been an outstanding failure to communicate in my writing recently words to the effect that the Netti was "better than I had previously thought" and so on. They were intended to apply within the limitations of a conception of the Netti as no more than what it is, namely a mere "commentator's grammar". It did not at all enter my mind (lack of foresight) that they might be taken to express a hailing of the Netti as the infallible newly discovered dispenser of short-cut solutions to all philosophical problems (yours or mine). And this, as I now gather, is how I have been taken and you taken in. Correct? No wonder you are disappointed, no wonder the bludgeonings; and so I fully apologize for whatever should be apologized for in this inadvertent and lamented miscommunication. Though when you say "It is like being absorbed in a slow and difficult chess problem and having a bystander come up and offer to show how one can get along much faster and more easily", the charmingly naive didactic reason for my sending it to you there implied was actually quite absent from my mind: it was sent simply because you asked for it to be sent (though I did wonder a bit why you should do so, but supposed you knew what you were about and why you wanted to read a translation of a commentator's grammar. But when you quote Mark Twain about "work" it is nice to think that you enjoyed at least that, though you thereby attribute to me far more esprit de sérieux than I can honestly lay claim to. Here are some stamps. Send it back if you like, or, if you like, bury both in the sand and I shall not be disturbed. Sorry you've been troubled.
Here are two extracts from the current "Maha Bodhi" for you: (1) "Once a sotápanna, his way is certain: he will never more become Micchaditthi (a holder of wrong views) until he attains Nibbána" (Ven. Shanti Bhadra, now in Berlin), and (2) "Walk up and down very slowly. Keep the remainder of the body still. The only movement is in the legs and feet" (Anoma Mahinda -- now wearing Maháyána robes in Penang with the R. Stuart Clifton who waves razors over his pupils' heads). The best way to practise the latter way to the former goal might be to dress the body in a strait-jacket and hang it by the neck from a rafter by a rope -- this would effectively keep it still while allowing the legs freedom to walk slowly up and down -- ever more slowly -- up and -- down.
P.S. Mr. M. (who seems determined to "stamp" himself on one's memory -- he sent me some more stamps the other day, with a two-page letter all about them) may be "not unintelligent" as you said earlier, but I wonder. One need go no further than the English dailies in order to pick up the now fashionable themes "the West has lost its faith" and "it is a fearful thing to be born in such conditions" (the lattter a rather flat combination of Hamlet and St. Paul) -- no need to go prowling after Dostoievski. What might have shown a little intelligence, perhaps, would have been something to the effect that it is a fearful thing to be born at all in any condition (stated, however, I believe by Mme. du Leopardi and U Nu), but.... Mr. M., in the emotional tenseness of his tone, rather recalled Dennis (BBC), a reminder I can well dispense with. Mercifully he decided to spend the rest of his holiday in Kandy and not here, as he proposed doing. The mosquitos frightened him away. I am greatly indebted to the mosquitos. I must never forget how much I owe to mosquitos.
[EL. 153] 3.iv.1959
Many thanks for your letter and for the Netti introduction. I enclose a few comments on same.
In my comments to the main body of the Netti, which you should have by now received, I have been rather disparaging about it, which might seem to contrast with your description of it as an "admirable work". But I am concerned only to comment on it as a help to the understanding of the Suttas, and I have to confess that I find it an anti-help. If you ignore this aspect, which is the only serious aspect, and regard the Netti in itself as a method applicable to scriptures in general (with the exception of the Suttas, which is the only set of scriptures it claims to deal with) then the work may indeed be described as admirable (draughts is an admirable game, but not if you are trying to play chess). It is neat, precise, methodical, uncontradictory, readable, etc. etc. etc. But -- it is essentially, in Kierkegaard's terms, comic. (Remember the praise K. gives Hegel as a comic writer; and the reproach, the main reproach, that Hegel being a comic writer, claims to be a serious writer.) The Netti is also, of course, of immense value to the Pali scholar, showing the source of much of the Commentarial machinery. When I expressed doubts whether the Netti deserved the efforts you have expended on it, I was thinking rather in terms of comedy and seriousness -- as a work of vast interest in its own particular, comic, field, it is, indeed, a work of first importance. Upon receipt of the necessary stamps (which I think you vaguely promised) I shall return the Netti and Introduction. It came for 75 cents.
You object to my definition of "self" as a kind of ajjhattika námarúpa on the grounds that námarúpa is "findable" whereas "self" is not, and (presumably) that one cannot define what is not findable in terms of what is. You go on to say that for you "self" can be workably defined as "contradiction". Now without saying that I understand this in quite the same way as you do, I do not disagree with this definition. But the point is this. Is a contradiction "findable" or not? In other words, are there such things as contradictions? Quite obviously the answer is yes (otherwise one should never talk about them at all). But if there are contradictions then they are necessarily námarúpa (saha viññánena), since all that is is námarúpa (and its presence or existence, "is-ness", is viññána). And this being so, the contradiction (whether all contradiction or one particular contradiction) that is attá is also námarúpa. But how can a contradiction be námarúpa -- or rather, how can námarúpa be a contradiction? Answer: by not being findable. And that, precisely, is what ajjhattika námarúpa is. All námarúpa without exception is bahiddhá, but being so is not contradictory (the arahat is not contradictory). It becomes contradictory by appearing as mine, and thus pointing to something else (which must also be námarúpa, since there is nothing else for it to be) that does not appear, namely, I or attá, which is thus non-findable or ajjhattika námarúpa. Self-identification consists in identifying this with some objective phenomenon (námarúpa) or its existence (viññána). I say all this, not because you will necessarily agree with it, but rather to show that what I said was at least consistent. I presume you admit that námarúpa void of I or mine -- i.e. the arahat -- is not contradictory: which is perhaps why it is wrong to say, in one sense, that an arahat exists. Unfindable námarúpa is clearly the árammana of unfindable self-consciousness. Note that I do not define attá as the árammana of viññána (i.e. as = námarúpa), but of "ajjhattika viññána" (which = "ajjhattika námarúpa").
(Incidentally, you object -- by italicizing -- to my statement that I identify attá with "I". But this was said simply to answer to your question in your previous letter, "Do you state that 'I' [and 'me'] and 'self' are identical or different?". I was only answering your question in your terms, and not by any means denying the profound contradictions in the process of identification. Not do I define "attá" as "I", which you seem to be assuming. Nor do I say that attá is identical with "I" rather than "me". Perhaps you forgot you asked this question in the first place?)....
P. ii -- M. 99 is a Subha Sutta, though not perhaps the one intended.
Note 5 -- Both Patisambhidá and Niddesa are attributed to the Ven. Sáriputta Thera, I believe. If so, insert "both" in your note.
P. iv -- The second sentence of the second para. is a little ambiguous with the word "different (differences)" used twice. Next sentence: "The purpose for which the modes are intended" -- does one intend a thing for a purpose? And what is this purpose? -- The sentence seems to need a little revision.
Next para. -- "and all that goes with them" -- what is this? The commentaries? If so, the Netti does not itself claim to be applicable to the Commentaries.
P. vii -- For "viz. 'hardness of earth'" read "e.g. 'hardness of earth'".
P. xii, para. 2 -- You seem to use the word "tipitaka" a synonymous with Sutta (and Vinaya), but if you do not, then the Abhidhamma Pitaka needs special comment. N.B. Is there any reference to the Abhidhamma Pitaka in the Netti? (P. xviii -- I see there is.)
P. xii -- Is there no alternative to "songs", which suggest singing (forbidden by the Vinaya), and even hymn-singing?
P. xix -- The word "rewrite" is rather unpleasant. Won't "paraphrase", or some other word do?
P. xxi -- "the indiscriminate use of the word khandha --(the five or the three)": I don't understand. There is Sutta usage of khandha for síla, samádhi, paññá (M.i, 301).
Note 36 -- Are you sure that the Ven. Kaccáyanagotta was not the same as the Ven. Kaccáyana (Kaccána, Mahákaccána)? The Buddha calls Vacchagotta "Vaccha", and he calls the Ven. Kaccáyanagotta "Kaccáyana" (S. II,ii,5).
P. xxxiii -- End of second para. -- You have a fused participle here.
P. xxxiv -- Also from the Sutta it is clear he lived in Avanti (Udána v,6). "As expounder of the Buddha's utterances, he presumably had a method for doing so..." This seems to imply that he applied a rule of thumb to the Suttas in order to expand them, that the process of expansion was to some degree mechanical. But it is by no means necessary to have a formal method in order to expand a statement: if one has a full and profound knowledge of a subject (as the Ven. Thera had of the Dhamma), then one can expand a brief statement without any application of a method; it is simply a matter of recognizing what is being talked about and then of describing the same thing in greater detail and perhaps different words. A formal method is used, like mathematics or scientific formulae, when one does not wish to think. While, however, very much averse to the suggestion that the Ven. Thera had a method that might have been discussed at the First Council, I find it most probable that as soon as a Method was invented it should have been fathered on him. The introduction of a method reduces the Dhamma to the status of a natural science: it is not a natural science (which is a collection of facts gradually accumulated by successive research workers and stored in books), but ñánadassana, or knowledge, by seeing for oneself, of the nature of facts.
The word "maybe" has an odd flavour -- American? I should have preferred "perhaps" in this context.
Might not the "quotation" in the Pe. from the Sumangalavilásiní be taken as evidence that it was composed after the Ven. Buddhaghosa Thera's time? There is no knowing to what lengths rival authorities will go in order to disprove one another.
P. xxxvi -- I didn't know you had a porpose -- do you keep it in the lake? And feed it with Surveys, which apparently satisfy it?
[EL. 154] 7.iv.1959
Here are two more criticisms of the Introduction to The Guide. The first is about style, and is a minor point. I note that you use the word "then" quite frequently as a conjunction to introduce fresh subject matter (e.g. p. i -- "Then the work has a commentary..."): used in this way the word has a rather colloquial flavour -- it is rather as if what follows is really an afterthought, having no particular connexion with what has gone before, and when you have series of them (pp. xx-xxi there are three in four sentences) the result reads rather like an auctioneer's catalogue and gives the general impression that what you have written has just been thrown together haphazard and not carefully thought out. This may be all very well in a serious talk on the Home Service, where it is necessary to conceal the fact (discreditable to the average Home Service Englishman) that you have been thinking; but on the Third Programme you are expected to think, and your translation is Third Programme or nothing. The second point concerns pages xxiv and xxv. You say (on p. xxv) that the fact that the mistakes in the Petakopadesa appear in all editions "clamours for comment". You then offer the simple explanation that all the present editions no doubt have a common ancestor containing all the mistakes. This is far too dramatic. If you build up keen expectation of a really astounding solution ("I think I am the first...etc. etc.") with the word "clamours for comment" (which, anyway, are unpleasantly reminiscent of Muddled Man's "Everyone is crying out of the Dhamma"), then you have no business at all to disappoint your audience with a solution that will already have occured to the least of them (everyone who reads the translation will be perfectly familiar with the phenomenon of reduplication of errors in ancient scriptures that have been handed down by copying -- Europeans, because they will be only scholars who will read it, and Orientals because they are acquainted with ola leaves). I suggest you cut out the words "a fact that clamours for comment", and continue, "The explanation is no doubt simple. It may be assumed that...", and omit "This is indeed not at all improbable" (since it is obvious). On the other hand, you much too modestly pass over (on p. xxiv) a fact that really does "clamour for comment" (though I prefer some other expression), namely the intrusion of the section of Sumangalavilásiní without anyone's noticing it hitherto. I suggest that perhaps a sub-acid comment would be entirely in place, rather on these lines. That such an intrusion should have passed unnoticed is an extraordinary piece of professional incompetence on the part of the European scholar who edited the work (who did?), and a miserable failure of the much vaunted "critical approach" of European scholarship. It is perhaps understandable, however, inasmuch as the European Scholar is not "infinitely interested" in the contents of the work (he is not a Buddhist) but is merely concerned to produce as accurate a transcription of the text as possible. The Burmese editors, insofar as they are scholars, come in for the same criticism, but it might also have been expected that they (presumably being Buddhists) should have been familiar with the text of the Sumangalavilásiní, or at least able to recognize a slice of commentary when they saw it (the European scholar has more excuses). But the really dumbfounding and numbing thing is that a Commentator should have succeeded in expounding the meaning of the work in detail without noticing that the text contained a well-defined lump of extraneous matter. (Perhaps he simply applied the Netti method without bothering to think -- a purely automatic application of a rule-of-thumb. The Ven. Nárada Thera had, I believe, a reputation for some degree of attainment, if I am thinking of the same person; but if the Pe. commentary is as inadequate as you suggest -- I suppose you did check that he failed to spot the intruder -- he can hardly be allowed an equal reputation as an expounder of texts.) Scholastic ability is not an indispensable requirement in a Venerable Thera, but a capacity to discern what is nonsense in a Buddhist text most certainly is, particularly if he sets out to be a Commentator (I suppose that the intruding passage from the S'vilásiní does not happen, by some freak of chance, to make good sense when read together with the surrounding Pe. text?)
Many thanks for yours of the 3rd, just received, with stamps. Actually you did not miscommunicate. I asked for the Netti because I was curious to know what was in it, and not at all because you had given me to understand (which you had not) that it was a marvelous new short-cut to wisdom. My curiosity is now satisfied, and I enjoyed both reading your translation and bludgeoning it -- even if you had inadvertently omitted your invitation to comment on it, I should hardly have denied myself the pleasure. But I did not set out to review the translation (you didn't ask me to), or even to say what I approved in it: I bludgeoned because it is a pleasure to do so, and also in case you wanted to make use of any of my bludgeoning to alter anything before it is printed (if it is printed). It is I who have been guilty of miscommunication, if anything -- you are not the bystander who offers to help me in my chess problem (by sending me your translation); the Netti is the bystander and the Suttas are the chess problem (I have never at any time really suspected anything else, and I asked for the Netti -- amongst other reasons -- just to make sure). Your apology "sorry you've been troubled", is quite out of place: if you have taken my bludgeoning as an expression of displeasure and disappointment, then it is for me to apologize -- I experienced neither displeasure nor disappointment, on the contrary I had the profound satisfaction of proving myself right and the pleasure of being a little didactic about it in my comments. Thank you for sending it -- I shall not say no to a complimentary copy if ever it sees the light of day in print (not so much to be instructed by it as to be reminded of what I am now beginning to suspect, namely, that the Buddha deliberately taught the Dhamma in such a way that it is impossible to apply any method to it, thereby turning it into a System -- a System can be accepted or rejected at will, but not the Dhamma).
The Mahábodhi extracts are most pleasing. If you were to raise the rear wheel clear of the ground would not a bicycle almost answer Mahinda's purpose?
I have to admit that a more lengthy acquaintance (by exchange of letters) with Mr. M. forces me to admit I was wrong. Mr. M. is not intelligent -- he is an emotional nuisance. He has now left for England and does not expect ever to return. We must be grateful for small mercies. You must, however, make allowances for me: the only person I usually get to talk to here is Mr. P., and anyone who succeeds in completing his sentences in conversation with me necessarily appears, by comparison, to be above the average in intelligence.
Scientists insist upon objectivity, and they identify this with no-point-of-view. To have a point of view is, for a scientist, to be subjective, to take himself as the reference point. This, I now see, is a mistake. When you have entirely got rid of asmimána you have not got rid of a point of view. The arahat "has" (or "is") a point of view since there still remain the five indriyas (eye, etc.). I have for long been confusing attá with "point of view". Attá, certainly, is the point of view from which the world (loka) is seen; but removal of this duality does not entail removal of things, at least not all at once.
[EL. 155] 18.iv.1959
Thank you for your (undated -- postmark 15th?) letter. You got the Netti translation back, I suppose?
It is quite true that Hegel is so immensely comic because of the ridiculous presumption of what he sets out to do, and that Duroiselle[1] is hardly comic at all as a professed grammarian -- indeed I should say that since Duroiselle precisely achieves his aim he is not at all comic. It may be said that insofar as the author of the Netti desired to formulate a grammar for methodical treatment of a body of obscure texts he was quite within his rights and not at all comic. But as soon as one understands what precisely that body of obscure texts was -- namely, the necessary instructions for putting an end to the entire universe (what Hegel fondly imagined he was describing in his System) -- the Netti becomes prodigiously comic (or, perhaps, in view of the huge rigid commentarial edifice of half-truths, so terribly misleading, to which it has given rise, prodigiously tragic -- the only tragedy is to miss -- or misunderstand -- the Dhamma.) The author of the Netti no doubt did not understand what the texts were that he was dealing with, and he has not, therefore, Hegel's presumption. But the comedy of the Netti is in the disproportion between the author's modest pretentions -- a mere commentator's grammar -- and the size of the task he set himself. (Like a man wanting to steal a yard of wire for some trivial purpose, who climbs a pylon, wire-cutters in hand, and proposes to remove three feet of high-tension cable). If the Netti is a failure it is not comic, but if the author thought he had succeeded, then it is very comic indeed (though, as I say, the author was unfortunate in happening to choose the tipitaka, whereas Hegel was just presumptuous). And any reader of the Netti who regards it as successful at once becomes a comic reader. (There are, no doubt, those who regard it -- or rather, "who will regard it", since hardly anyone seems to have read it yet -- as neither a failure nor a success, but rather as an interesting early experiment in textual criticism; but such people can hardly be said to exist at all -- perhaps they are the true comedians.) Unlike Duroiselle, who deals only with the language of the texts, the Netti tries to formulate a rule for dealing with the interpretation, which is quite another kettle of fish.
You say rather quaintly that you have a rule that in the early stages of introduction-writing "all opinion must must be expressed only as praise". I do not say that it is impossible (since some people are remarkably adroit in this matter), but surely there must be great difficulties in the way of expressing adverse opinion ("This is a real horror") only as praise (perhaps "This admirable object-lesson in distorted thinking and muddle-headedness..." would do?)? But perhaps this is not quite what you meant? The rule itself sounds quite sound, since it is so much harder to praise than to condemn, and in the exhilaration of condemnation -- bashing and hammering -- (particularly of something to which one has devoted hours of patient labour) the praise may be forgotten.
I am not at all grateful to you for sending me the "theme and variations" from Huxley's "Centuries" (N.B. What is this? A new book? A novel? An anthology? Or what? Tell me more.), since it will probably echo around my empty head for days just as another bit of nonsense does (which I think you introduced me to): -- A. Hairily Toteson, A Mayorally Toteson (A. MaryLee Toteson), A Kiddlry Tripotes,[2] (what a fine pseudonym one of these would make!).
I offer you a translation of bhávaná that is both shorter and even more literal than "maintaining in being". We are inclined to translate causatives into English by "make" ("making become") or "cause to...", both of which are awkward. But we forget there is a simpler way with the word "have" ("have him go to the post-office"), which gives "having be" for bhávaná. In the Suttas I think the word is never used absolutely (i.e. without the object stated), so it will always be of the form "to have [it] be". In the Comy. you do seem to get it absolutely, "to have be", but this is really no odder than "to maintain in being", and elegance counts far less in Comy. translations. And "having be" has the advantage, which should commend it to you, of throwing the emphasis on the word "be", whereas the emphasis in "maintaining in being" is indeterminate.
I project (as an occupation perhaps "for a rainy day" -- of which we seem to be getting about half-a-dozen a year) a short treatise on Viññána-Citta-Mano-Náma (Consciousness/Cognition-Intent-Mind-Name), for which the accepted (dictionary) definitions would be useful. Would you, then, send me what the C.O.D. has to say on each of these words? (Plus "purpose", "thinking", and ïmagination"?)
Mr. P. has built (has had built) another cistern. This is of stone, with capacity about eighty gallons, and leaks as the other used to. Quite heavy rains came, as before, one day too soon to catch it in the cistern. If you want it to rain at Hambantota, build a cistern, but keep something else handy to catch the rain in.
There seems to be a tendency for "educated" (University Degree) Sinhalese Buddhists to interpret the Dhamma in terms of Forces. Dr. O. (who is clearly a better physician than physicist) asked me "but surely kamma is a force?", and today some civil servant from Hambantota came and told me that attá is a force and thoughts are forces. Furthermore, by meditation one brings the attá to such a pitch that it explodes and that is the end of being. "But what" I asked "do you mean by a force?" "Something like electricity" he replied. This sort of thing is far more stultifying than all Mr. P.'s forgetfulness and simplicity. How pernicious a little scientific learning can be!
I also met (while bathing in the field) two Englishmen who have been in Ceylon doing underwater photography and writing books about it. (Seeing me, they stopped their car and got out.) One of them is interested in space-travel, but since he is now getting too old for travelling in space (but I thought it made you younger) he has turned to underwater photography (what is the connexion?). Apart from the Ven. C. Thera, he is the first such enthusiast I have met, but is doubtless typical of millions of others in the world today.
I was asked what the Buddha had to say about space-travel, and I managed to remember Rohitassa Devaputta (in A.IV and elsewhere) who space-travelled for a hundred years without coming to the end of the world. The Buddha told him that it is not by going that one comes to the end of the world, as doubtless you will remember. This rather fascinated them; but I fear that the Buddha's "end of the world" remained a mystery. The would-be-space-traveller is also, it seems, a bit of a philosopher -- he has even written a book of philosophical essays, now in the press. What is his philosophy? Answer: we only have to wait another hundred thousand years before we shall have met (through space-travel) beings far, far more intelligent than any we know of, who will tell us all the answers. What faith in Science! What hopes for the future! What confidence that by going the end of the world will be reached! After the encounter I felt rather as if I had read all the scientific articles in fifty London Observers.[3]
Weather is dampish and Aprilish. Not very unpleasant, but unpleasant. We could do with a little more honest rain. How are your mangoes this year? we have no palu fruit at all, which means no noisy palu-fruit-gathering parties (either of village boys or monkeys), which is a relief.
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[155.1] Chas. Duroiselle wrote, in the 1890's, what was probably the first English-language Pali grammar. [Back to text]
[155.2] I.e. "A hare will eats oats and a mare will eat oats and a kid will eat ripe oats." [Back to text]
[155.3] These Englishmen are probably Mike Wilson and Arthur C. Clarke. [Back to text]