[L. 35]   12 May 1962

Dear Mr. Wettimuny,

I was delighted to get your book[1] this afternoon, and perhaps even more with the graceful letter that accompanied it. Although we have, from time to time, discussed the Dhamma in the past, it was difficult from such fragmentary discussions to find out what exactly you understood by the Buddha's Teaching; but now that you have obliged yourself to set down your ideas all together in print, I hope to have a better chance. It is my own experience that there is nothing like sitting down and putting one's ideas on paper to clarify them, and, indeed, to find out what those ideas really are. I have a private dictum, 'Do not imagine that you understand something unless you can write it down'; and I have not hitherto found any exception to this principle. So, as you say, one writes by learning, and learns by writing.

What I hope to find, when I come to read the book, is that you have formed a single, articulated, consistent, whole; a whole such that no one part can be modified without affecting the rest. It is not so important that it should be correct[a] -- that can only come later --, but unless one's thinking is all-of-a-piece there is, properly speaking, no thinking at all. A person who simply makes a collection -- however vast -- of ideas, and does not perceive that they are at variance with one another, has actually no ideas of his own; and if one attempts to instruct him (which is to say, to alter him) one merely finds that one is adding to the junk-heap of assorted notions without having any other effect whatsoever. As Kierkegaard has said, 'Only the truth that edifies is truth for you.' (CUP, p. 226) Nothing that one can say to these collectors of ideas is truth for them. What is wanted is a man who will argue a single point, and go on arguing it until the matter is clear to him, because he sees that everything else depends upon it. With such a person communication (i.e., of truth that edifies) can take place.




[L. 36]   29 June 1962

I have finished the book, and, as I hoped, I have found that it gives me a fairly coherent idea of your view of the Dhamma and enables me to see in what respects it differs from mine. The most I can say in a letter, without writing at inordinate length, is to indicate a fundamental point of difference between our respective views, and then to consider very briefly what consequences are entailed.

On p. 302 you say, 'The Arahat Grasps only towards the end of all Grasping'. With this I do not agree. There is no grasping (upádána) whatsoever in the arahat. The puthujjana is describable in terms of pañc'upádánakkhandhá, but the arahat (while he still lives) only in terms of pañcakkhandhá. Upádána has already ceased.

There are four kinds of upádána -- káma, ditthi, sílabbata, and attaváda --, and the arahat has none (see Majjhima 11: i,67). The expression in the Suttas for the attainment of arahatship is anupádáya ásavehi cittam vimucci.[1] The term sa-upádisesa-nibbánadhátu, which applies to the living arahat, you take (p. 299) as 'Nibbána with the Grasping Groups remaining'. But this, in fact, has nothing to do with upádána. Upádisesa means simply 'stuff remaining' or 'residue'. In Majjhima 10: i,62 the presence of upádisesa is what distinguishes the anágámí from the arahat, and this is clearly not the same precise thing as what distinguishes the living arahat (sa-upádisesa-nibbánadhátu) from the dead arahat (an-upádisesa-nibbánadhátu). Upádisesa is therefore unspecified residue, which with the living arahat is pañcakkhandhá. The arahat says pañcakkhandhá pariññátá titthanti chinnamúlaká (Theragátha 120),[2] and the múla (or root) that is chinna (or cut) is upádána. This means that there can still be rúpa, vedaná, saññá, sankhárá, and viññána without upádána.

This statement alone, if it is correct, is enough to invalidate the account on p. 149 (and elsewhere) of life as a process of grasping -- i.e., a flux, a continuous becoming. For this reason I expect that you will be inclined to reject it as mistaken. Nevertheless, I must point out that the two doctrines upon which your account of grasping seems principally to rely -- namely, the simile of the flame (p. 146) and the celebrated expression 'na ca so na ca añño' (p. 149), both of which you attribute to the Buddha -- are neither of them to be found in the Suttas. They occur for the first time in the Milindapañha, and there is no evidence at all that they were ever taught by the Buddha.

You will see, of course, that if we reject your account of grasping as a process, we must return to the notion of entities, and with this to the notion of a thing's self-identity (i.e., for so long as an entity endures it continues to be 'the self-same thing'). And would this not be a return to attaváda? The answer is, No. With the question of a thing's self-identity (which presents no difficulty if carefully handled) the Buddha's Teaching of anattá has nothing whatsoever to do. Anattá is purely concerned with 'self' as subject ('I'). And this is a matter of considerably greater difficulty than is generally supposed.

In brief, then, your book is dealing with a false problem; and the solution proposed, however ingenious, is actually beside the point -- it is not an answer (either right or wrong) to the problem of dukkha, which is strictly a subjective problem.

Perhaps this response to your request for criticism may seem unexpectedly blunt; but where the Dhamma is concerned 'polite' replies designed only to avoid causing possible displeasure by avoiding the issue serve no useful purpose at all and make confusion worse confounded. Since I think you are a person who understands this, I have made no attempt to conceal my thought.




[L. 37]   8 July 1962

Thank you for your letter. I am glad to find that you have not misunderstood mine, and that you apparently see that the principal point of disagreement between us is a matter of some consequence.

You say: 'But if the idea of Grasping is not applicable to the living Arahat when, for example, he is taking food, -- then I am confronted with a genuine difficulty. In other words, if one cannot say that when the Arahat is taking food, he is (not) taking hold in some fashion or other, then I am faced with the difficulty of finding or comprehending what basically is the difference between life-action and other action, as of physical inanimate things'.

The first remark that must be made is that anyone who is a puthujjana ought to find himself confronted with a difficulty when he considers the Buddha's Teaching. The reason for this is quite simply that when a puthujjana does come to understand the Buddha's Teaching he thereby ceases to be a puthujjana. The second remark (which, however, will only displace your difficulty from one point to another, and not remove it) is that all conscious action is intentional (i.e., purposive, teleological). This is as true for the arahat as it is for the puthujjana. The puthujjana has sankhár'upádánakkhandha and the arahat has sankhárakkhandha. Sankhára, in the context of the pañcakkhandhá, has been defined by the Buddha (in Khandha Samy. 56: iii,60) as cetaná or intention.

Intentionality as a necessary characteristic of all consciousness is well recognized by the phenomenological (or existential) school of philosophy (have a look at the article 'Phenomenology' in the Encyclopaedia Britannica), and though the subject is not particularly easy it presents no inherent difficulties. But in order to understand the nature of intention it is absolutely necessary to return to the notion of 'entities', and to consider the structure of their temporary persistence, which is 'Invariance under Transformation'. This principle occurs in quantum mechanics and in relativity theory, and in the Suttas it makes its appearance as uppádo paññáyati; vayo paññáyati; thitassa aññathattam paññáyati, three characteristics that apply to all the pañcakkhandhá (see Khandha Samy. 37: iii,38). Intentionality is the essential difference between life-action and action of inanimate things.

But now this difficulty arises. What, precisely, is upádána (grasping, or as I prefer, holding) if it is not synonymous with cetaná (intention)? This, and not any other, is the fundamental question raised by the Buddha's Teaching; and it is extremely difficult to see the answer (though it can be stated without difficulty). The answer is, essentially, that all notions of subjectivity, of the existence of a subject (to whom objects are present), all notions of 'I' and 'mine', are upádána. Can there, then, be intentional conscious action -- such as eating food -- without the notion 'It is I who am acting, who am eating this food'? The answer is, Yes. The arahat intentionally eats food, but the eating is quite unaccompanied by any thought of a subject who is eating the food. For all non-arahats such thoughts (in varying degrees, of course) do arise. The arahat remains an individual (i.e. distinct from other individuals) but is no longer a person (i.e. a somebody, a self, a subject). This is not -- as you might perhaps be tempted to think -- a distinction without a difference. It is a genuine distinction, a very difficult distinction, but a distinction that must be made.[1]

On the question of anicca/dukkha/anattá it is necessary, I am afraid, to be dogmatic. The aniccatá or impermanence spoken of by the Buddha in the context of this triad is by no means simply the impermanence that everybody can see around him at any moment of his life; it is something very much more subtle. The puthujjana, it must be stated definitely, does not have aniccasaññá, does not have dukkhasaññá, does not have anattasaññá. These three things stand and fall together, and nobody who still has attavádupádána (i.e. nobody short of the sotápanna) perceives aniccatá in the essential sense of the term.

For this reason I consider that any 'appreciation of Buddhism by nuclear physicists' on the grounds of similarity of views about aniccatá to be a misconception. It is worth noting that Oppenheimer's dictum,[2] which threatens to become celebrated, is based on a misunderstanding. The impossibility of making a definite assertion about an electron has nothing to do with the impossibility of making a definite assertion about 'self'. The electron, in quantum theory, is defined in terms of probabilities, and a definite assertion about what is essentially indefinite (or rather, about an 'indefiniteness') cannot be made. But attá is not an indefiniteness; it is a deception, and a deception (a mirage, for example) can be as definite as you please -- the only thing is, that it is not what one takes it for. To make any assertion, positive or negative, about attá is to accept the false coin at its face value. If you will re-read the Vacchagotta Sutta (Avyákata Samy. 8: iv,395-7), you will see that the Buddha refrains both from asserting and from denying the existence of attá for this very reason. (In this connection, your implication that the Buddha asserted that there is no self requires modification. What the Buddha said was 'sabbe dhammá anattá' -- no thing is self --, which is not quite the same. 'Sabbe dhammá anattá' means 'if you look for a self you will not find one', which means 'self is a mirage, a deception'. It does not mean that the mirage, as such, does not exist.)

I should perhaps say, in order to forestall possible misunderstandings, that I consider Dahlke's statement, 'Consciousness and its supporting points are not opposites, but transitions, one the form of development of the other, in which sankháras represent that transition-moment in which thinking as vedaná and saññá, in the glow of friction, is on the point of breaking out into viññána', to be wholly mistaken. This is not 'paticca-sam' at all. Perhaps you will have already gathered that I should disagree with this from my last letter.




[L. 38]   18 July 1962

That the puthujjana does not see aniccatá is evident from the fact that the formula, 'Whatever has the nature of arising, all that has the nature of ceasing', which is clearly enough the definition of aniccatá, is used only in connection with the sotápanna's attainment: Tassa...vítamalam dhammacakkhum udapádi. Yam kiñci samudayadhammam, sabbam tam nirodhadhamman ti.[1] Aniccatá is seen with the sotápanna's dhammacakkhu, or eye of the dhamma. I am glad, nevertheless, that you are managing to turn your mind towards aniccatá at times, though of course you will not really see it until you know yourself to be a sotápanna.

Your book as it stands has the merit of being to a great extent consistent (quite apart from whether or not it is correct). This is perhaps due in part to the fact that you are, in your own words, 'standing on Dahlke's shoulders'; and Dahlke, undeniably, is consistent (though I admit I have not read him for many years). Unfortunately, though he is consistent, I consider him to be mistaken; and, in particular, I do not see that my ideas on intentionality can in any way be reconciled with Dahlke's views.

What I feel, then, is this: that so long as you are concerned with making corrections and modifications to your book in preparation for a second edition it would be worse than useless for you to embark on a study of what I (or anyone else) have to say on the subject of intentionality. In the first place, intentionality cannot be introduced into your book without bringing with it profound inconsistencies (I have already said that the entity, and therefore the concept, must be reinstated before intentionality can be understood; and this would be in direct conflict with your Chapter II). In the second place, so long as you are occupied with your book you are committed to Dahlke's views (otherwise you would scrap it), and any attempt to reconcile intentionality with Dahlke in your own mind would result in confusion. For these reasons I think it would be better for you to finish revising your book and to have the second edition published (since this is your intention) before investigating intentionality. The subject, in any case, is not to be rushed.[2]

Returning to the beginning of your letter. You say of the arahat, 'To him now everything is: "This is not mine, this is not I, this is not my self"' (p. 301). But this describes the sekha (sotápanna, sakadágámí, anágámí), not the asekha (arahat). For the sekha, thoughts of 'I' and 'mine' still arise, but he knows and sees that they are mistaken, and therefore he is one who says, 'This is not mine, this is not I, this is not my self'. The asekha or arahat, on the other hand, does not have thoughts of 'I' and 'mine', and consequently he has already, while still living, come to an end of saying 'This is not mine, this is not I, this is not myself.' The puthujjana thinks: 'This is mine...'; the sekha thinks: 'This is not mine...'; and the asekha thinks neither.

Next section

Back to Clearing the Path - Contents

Back to Ñánavíra Thera Dhamma Page

Footnote:

[35.a] Nobody, after all, who has not reached the path can afford to assume that he is right about the Buddha's Teaching. [Back to text]















Editorial notes:

[35.1] your book: Buddhism and its Relation to Religion and Science. See Mr. Wettimuny's two subsequent books, listed in Acknowledgments. [Back to text]

[36.1] anupádáya...: 'freed in mind by not holding to the cankers' [Back to text]

[36.2] pañcakkhandhá...: 'The five aggregates, being completely known, stand with the root cut off.' [Back to text]

[37.1] a difficult distinction: As his letters to the Ven. Ñánamoli Thera make clear, this distinction was the Ven. Ñánavíra Thera's last major insight prior to his attainment of sotápatti. Although certainly this particular perception need not be pivotal for all who achieve the Path, that it was so for him is one reason for the strong emphasis the author lays on this point in the Notes as well as in various letters. [Back to text]

[37.2] Oppenheimer's dictum:

If we ask, for instance, whether the position of the electron remains the same, we must say 'no'; if we ask whether the electron's position changes with time, we must say 'no'; if we ask whether the electron is at rest, we must say 'no'; if we ask whether it is in motion, we must say 'no'. The Buddha has given such answers when interrogated as to the conditions of a man's self after death; but they are not familiar answers for the tradition of seventeenth and eighteenth-century science. (Science and the Common Understanding, pp. 42-3, quoted on pp. 49-50 of Mr. Wettimuny's book.) [Back to text]

[38.2] not to be rushed: Mr. Wettimuny abandoned his plans for a second edition. His two subsequent books were both dedicated to the Ven. Ñánavíra Thera. [Back to text]