For several reasons I should prefer you not to discuss my situation with anyone else, at least for the present (though I shall not prohibit you).

In the first place, I do not think there is any great urgency in the matter. As I think I told you, it is improbable that I shall decide to kill myself (unless the situation takes an unexpected turn for the worse) so long as there is the business of shepherding the Notes through the press to be done. (This does not necessarily mean, of course, that I am determined to kill myself the moment that they are safely in print.) So you can probably count on a breathing-space in which nothing very much will happen. Incidentally, I very rarely act on impulse, and it is most unlikely that I shall end my life in a sudden fit of depression. If I should decide upon it (and it still remains only a possibility), it would be as the result of deliberation; and I should do it only after careful preparation.

In the second place, I hope to be seeing Dr. de Silva personally in the course of the next two or three months, and I had rather discuss the situation (from the medical point of view) fully with him before anything is decided.

Do not think that I regard suicide as praiseworthy -- that there can easily be an element of weakness in it, I am the first to admit (though the Stoics regarded it as a courageous act) --, but I certainly regard it as preferable to a number of other possibilities. (I would a hundred times rather have it said of the Notes that the author killed himself as a bhikkhu than that he disrobed; for bhikkhus have become arahats in the act of suicide, but it is not recorded that anyone became arahat in the act of disrobing.)

By all means let the devas prevent it -- let them bring about some improvement in my health, some easing of the situation, and all may be well; or let them send sudden death, an elephant, a polonga (there are plenty here), or simply a heart attack, and again the horrid deed of suicide is averted. But in the meantime the situation remains.




[L. 50]   19 May 1963

Your question about satisampajañña. Observing the particular 'doing' or 'feeling' is reflexive experience. The 'doing' or 'feeling' itself (whether it is observed or not) is immediate experience. But since one obviously cannot observe a 'doing' or a 'feeling' unless that 'doing' or 'feeling' is at the same time present, there is no reflexive experience (at least in the strict sense used here) that does not contain or involve immediate experience. Reflexive experience is a complex structure of which immediate experience is a less complex part (it is possible that I use the term 'reflexive consciousness' a little ambiguously -- i.e. either to denote reflexive experience as a whole or to distinguish the purely reflexive part of reflexive experience from the immediate part).

Yes: observing the 'general nature' of an experience is reflexion (though there are also other kinds of reflexion). No: in reflexively observing the 'general nature' of an experience you have not 'left out the immediate experience'; you have merely 'put the immediate experience in brackets' -- that is to say, by an effort of will you have disregarded the individual peculiarities of the experience and paid attention to the general characteristics (just as you might disregard a witness' stammer when he is giving evidence and pay attention to the words he is uttering). You simply consider the immediate experience as 'an example of experience in general'; but this does not in any way abolish the immediate experience (any more than your disregarding the stammer of the witness stops his stammering).

A sekha (bhikkhu or layman), as you rightly say, is a sotápanna, a sakadágámí, or an anágámí, and the word 'sekha' means 'one who is training (scil. to become arahat)'. If he is sotápanna he has at most seven more human existences -- he cannot take an eighth human birth.[1] But if (as a bhikkhu in good health) he exerts himself now in the practice of meditation he may become sakadágámí, anágámí, or even arahat, in this very life. In this case he either reduces or completely cancels the number of fresh existences (as man or deva) he will have to undergo. If, however, he spends his time doing jobs of work, talking, or sleeping, he may die still as a sotápanna and have to endure up to seven more human existences (not to speak of heavenly existences). In this sense, therefore, these things are obstacles for the sekha: they prevent him from hastening his arrival at arahattá, but they cannot prevent his ultimate arrival (see 'The Mirror of the Dhamma', BPS Wheel 54, p. 39, verse 9).[2]

I am delighted to hear that you are shocked to learn from the Buddha that a sekha bhikkhu can be fond of work, talk, or sleep. (I make no apology for speaking bluntly since (i) if I do not do it nobody else will, and (ii) as I have already told you, time may be short.)

Quite in general, I find that the Buddhists of Ceylon are remarkably complacent at being the preservers and inheritors of the Buddha's Teaching, and remarkably ignorant of what the Buddha actually taught. Except by a few learned theras (who are dying out), the contents of the Suttas are practically unknown. This fact, combined with the great traditional reverence for the Dhamma as the National Heritage, has turned the Buddha's Teaching into an immensely valuable antique Object of Veneration, with a large placard in front, 'DO NOT TOUCH'. In other words, the Dhamma in Ceylon is now totally divorced from reality (if you want statistical evidence, tell me how many English-educated graduates of the University of Ceylon have thought it worthwhile to become bhikkhus[3]). It is simply taken for granted (by bhikkhus and laymen alike) that there are not, and cannot possibly be, any sekha bhikkhus (or laymen) actually walking about in Ceylon today. People can no longer imagine what kind of a creature a sotapánna might conceivably be, and in consequence superstitiously credit him with every kind of perfection -- but deny him the possibility of existence.

I venture to think that if you actually read through the whole of the Vinaya and the Suttas you would be aghast at some of the things a real live sotápanna is capable of. As a bhikkhu he is capable of suicide (but so also is an arahat -- I have already quoted examples); he is capable of breaking all the lesser Vinaya rules (M. 48: i,323-5; A. III,85: i,231-2); he is capable of disrobing on account of sensual desires (e.g. the Ven. Citta Hatthisáriputta -- A. VI,60: iii,392-9); he is capable (to some degree) of anger, ill-will, jealousy, stinginess, deceit, craftiness, shamelessness, and brazenness (A. II,16: i,96). As a layman he is capable (contrary to popular belief) of breaking any or all of the five precepts (though as soon as he has done so he recognizes his fault and repairs the breach, unlike the puthujjana who is content to leave the precepts broken).

There are some things in the Suttas that have so much shocked the Commentator that he has been obliged to provide patently false explanations (I am thinking in particular of the arahat's suicide in M. 144: iii,266 and in the Saláyatana Samy. 87: iv,55-60 and of a drunken sotápanna in the Sotápatti Samy. 24: v,375-7). What the sotápanna is absolutely incapable of doing is the following (M. 115: iii,64-5): --

(i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v) (vi) (vii) (viii) (ix)

To take any determination (sankhára) as permanent, To take any determination as pleasant, To take any thing (dhamma) as self, To kill his mother, To kill his father, To kill an arahat, Maliciously to shed a Buddha's blood, To split the Sangha, To follow any teacher other than the Buddha.

All these things a puthujjana can do.

Why am I glad that you are shocked to learn that a sekha bhikkhu can be fond of talk (and worse)? Because it gives me the opportunity of insisting that unless you bring the sekha down to earth the Buddha's Teaching can never be a reality for you. So long as you are content to put the sotápanna on a pedestal well out of reach, it can never possibly occur to you that it is your duty to become sotápanna yourself (or at least to make the attempt) here and now in this very life; for you will simply take it as axiomatic that you cannot succeed. As Kierkegaard puts it,

Whatever is great in the sphere of the universally human must...not be communicated as a subject for admiration, but as an ethical requirement. (CUP, p. 320)

Let me illustrate the matter in a different way. It is possible that you were living as a young man in India in the Buddha's day, and that at the same time there was a young girl of a neighbouring family who had been with her parents to hear the Buddha teach. And she may have understood the Buddha's Teaching and become sotápanna. And perhaps she might have been given to you in marriage. And you, being a puthujjana, would not know that she was a sekha (for remember, a puthujjana cannot recognize an ariya -- an ariya can only be recognized by another ariya). But even though she was sotápanna she might have loved you, and loved being loved by you, and loved bearing your children, and enjoyed dressing beautifully and entertaining guests and going to entertainments, and even been pleased at the admiration of other men. And she might have taken a pride in working to keep your house in order, and enjoyed talking to you and to your friends and relations. But every now and again, when she was alone, she would have called to mind her sotápanna's understanding of the true nature of things and been secretly ashamed and disgusted at still finding delight in all these satisfactions (which she would see as essentially dukkha). But, being busy with her duties and pleasures as your wife, she would not have had the time to do much practice, and would have had to be content with the thought that she had only seven more human births to endure at the most.

Now suppose that one day you had gone to see the Buddha, and he had told you that your wife was not a puthujjana like yourself, but an ariya, one of the Elect -- would you have been content to put her out of reach on a pedestal (where she would, no doubt, have been very unhappy), saying to yourself 'Ah, that is too difficult an attainment for a humble person like me'? Or would not rather your masculine pride have been stung to the quick and be smarting at the thought that your devoted and submissive wife should be 'one advanced in the Dhamma', while you, the lord and master of the household, remained an ordinary person? I think, perhaps, that you would have made an effort at least to become the equal of your wife.

It is possible that you may have been disturbed by my recent letters in which I have informed you of my situation. I do not mean only by the content (i.e. that it is possible that I may take my life), but also by the style. You may have felt that I have stated the facts in a callous way, that I do not take the matter seriously enough, that I am indifferent to other people's feelings, and that perhaps even some of my remarks are almost offensive. Let me assure you that I have not the slightest desire to offend you or anyone else, and if I have seemed offensive that I am sorry for it. But also let me say that my style is deliberate and is not unconnected with the foregoing remarks about the present total divorce of the Dhamma from reality. The point is this: for me the Dhamma is real, and it is the only thing that I take seriously: if I cannot practise the Dhamma as I wish, I have no further desire to live. Though I say it myself, it seems to me that this attitude is a necessary corrective to the prevalent blindly complacent view of the Dhamma as something to be taken for granted -- that is to say, as a dead letter --; and I regard it almost as a duty to reflect this attitude in my writing, even at the risk of giving offence. (For most Buddhists in Ceylon -- I will not say for you -- there are many things that they take far more seriously than the Dhamma, and when I show too plainly that I regard these as worthless trifles, offence is easily taken.)

I do not know how you will receive this letter. It is easy to make mistakes and to miscalculate the effect of what one says. In any case, please accept my assurances that it is written with the best of intentions and with the desire to communicate to you something that I regard as being of paramount importance.




[L. 51]   29 May 1963

As regards my views on the Abhidhamma Pitaka, for my general attitude see Preface (a). More particularly, I consider that none of the A.P. is the Buddha's word, and furthermore, that it is a positively misleading compilation, often inconsistent with the Suttas. This does not mean, however, that I regard every single statement in it as false -- the short work, the Puggala Paññatti, may well be trustworthy in parts. But I must confess that most of my acquaintance with the A.P. is at second hand. I have never, myself, found anything in it of the slightest value to me, and I normally advise people to leave it entirely alone. If you press me, I might express myself more emphatically on the uselessness and misleadingness of the A.P., but since I do not think you are violently enamoured of it, perhaps I have said enough.




[L. 52]   11 June 1963

Mr. Perera came this evening and showed me a money order that you had sent him asking him to buy me a knife to replace the missing one. If I had even remotely thought that you were going to do this, I should by no means have sent you the postcard.

What happened was this. When you and your party first arrived the knife was borrowed to cut up some oranges and was then returned to me. Then you all went down to your car, leaving me to take my dána. Shortly afterwards, the boy from the village whom you brought with you came and asked me for the knife. Assuming that you had sent him in order to borrow it again, I gave it to him and thought no more about it. When I did not find it after your departure I thought that, inadvertently, you had probably taken it with you. Hence the postcard. But it may be that the boy wanted it for himself and took this opportunity of asking for it. My command of Sinhala, however, is by no means equal to the task of questioning him about it, even if I felt inclined to do so (which I don't). The village boys frequently ask me for things, and I can never make out whether they want them on loan or as a gift; but once I have given something, even on loan, I find it distasteful to press for its return. Indeed, I now feel rather ashamed at having sent you the postcard at all. In any case, very much merit to you.

When you were here, you remarked that I say much more about reflexion in the Notes than is to be found in the Suttas. This, I think, is rather deceptive. Certainly I discuss it more explicitly than the Suttas; but it has to be remembered that every time the Suttas mention sati, or mindfulness, they are speaking of reflexion; and out of the thirty-seven bodhipakkhiyá dhammá, no less than eight are sati (in one form or another -- four satipatthána, one satindriya, one satibala, one satisambojjhangha, one sammásati [magganga]).

Most of the Suttas were addressed to monks, not laymen (see the Anáthapindikováda Sutta, late in the Majjhima,[1] where Anáthapindika bursts into tears); and monks, in the Buddha's day, were familiar with reflexion through their practice of samádhi, or mental concentration (there is no concentration without mindfulness), and they did not need to have the matter explained to them (a swimming instructor can talk more about swimming than a fish, but there is no doubt that a fish can swim better).

But times have changed: people no longer practise mental concentration (not even bhikkhus); on the other hand they now read books, which they did not in the Buddha's day. Formerly, people accepted on trust that the practice of concentration and reflexion was possible and had beneficial results, and without more ado they set themselves to practise. Now, however, people want to understand all about things before they actually do them -- a change of attitude for which the invention of printing is responsible. (This new attitude has its advantages and its disadvantages. On the one hand, there is now no Buddha to give infallible guidance, and it is necessary to use one's intelligence and think out matters for oneself if one is to discover the right path; but on the other hand, to think out matters for oneself takes time, and this means that one may easily put off starting the actual practice until it is too late in life to make the necessary progress.)

If people today (I am thinking more particularly of Europeans or those with a European education) are going to be got to practise reflexion (and thence concentration) they will ask for information about it first; and it is rather with this in mind that I have discussed the matter so explicitly in the Notes. (One of the principal reasons for including FUNDAMENTAL STRUCTURE, which is not directly Dhamma, is the fact that it offers a formal justification for the assumption that reflexion is at least possible. Without such intellectual justification -- which, incidentally, requires some actual experience of reflexion [not necessarily done in awareness of the fact][a] to grasp -- many people will not even make the attempt to see if they can do it.)

I am quite prepared to admit that this explicit treatment may perhaps actually hold up certain people, who would get along faster without it -- people, that is to say, with good saddhá in the Buddha, and who are prepared to sit down at once and practise. From this point of view it will be seen that, far from being an advance on the Suttas (as one might hastily think upon observing that the Suttas omit it), this explicit treatment is really a step backwards: a formal discussion of what the Suttas take for granted as already understood is a retreat to a more elementary stage (this should be clear from the fact that the existential philosophers understand and practise reflexion, but do not understand the essence of the Buddha's Teaching -- the Four Noble Truths).

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Footnotes:

[52.a] If this were not so, it would fail to be a justification, since the form of such a communication must exemplify the content, or quidquid cognoscitur, per modum cognoscentis cognoscitur. (See FUNDAMENTAL STRUCTURE [g].) [Back to text]















Editorial notes:

[50.1] human births: Let alone human births, the Suttas seem to indicate that a sotápanna cannot take an eighth birth of any sort, even in the devaloka. See A. III,86: i,233. [Back to text]

[50.2] Mirror of the Dhamma: 'Those who comprehend clearly the Noble Truths, well taught by Him of wisdom deep, do not, however exceeding heedless they may be, undergo an eighth birth. Verily, in the Sangha is this precious jewel -- by this truth may there be happiness!' [Back to text]

[50.3] statistical evidence: This remark would have had particular significance for Mr. Samaratunga, inasmuch as his own brother (the 'Ven. Thera' referred to in certain other letters) created a stir in Colombo a decade earlier when, after having completed his own university studies, he thought it worthwhile to become a bhikkhu and did so. [Back to text]

[52.1] late in the Majjhima: M. 143: iii,258-63. [Back to text]