I enclose a trifle that I wrote in 1957 (to the Ven. Ñánamoli) and have just come across.[1] Perhaps it will slightly amuse you, perhaps not. Anyway, now that everybody is dialogging (a combination of 'dialogue' plus 'log-rolling') with everyone else, here is my contribution.

AN UNCERTAIN ENCOUNTER

Were I to meet Professor Heisenberg (a very remote possibility) I imagine the conversation might run something like this.
Professor Heisenberg (pontifically): Ignorance is now included amongst the Laws of Science. The behaviour of an electron, for example, involves the Principle of Uncertainty.
Myself (incredulously): What? You surely don't mean objectively?
Prof. H. (a little surprised): Why not? An electron, we discover, is, by nature, uncertain. That is perfectly objective.
Myself (with heavy sarcasm): An electron really is uncertain! I suppose you are going to tell me that you can read an electron's mind.
Prof. H. (quite unmoved): Of course. How else should we know that it was uncertain?
Myself (completely taken aback): Read an electron's mind? How?
Prof. H. (expansively): Perfectly simple. The mind, as we all know, is the nervous system; and, as the latest and most scientific authorities assure us, we can always discover the state of the nervous system by observation and study of behaviour patterns. All we have to do, then, is to observe an electron and deduce from its behaviour how its nervous system is; and we have discovered, in fact, that it is indeterminate. We are thus able to say that an electron cannot make up its mind.
Myself (fascinated): Yes! Yes! Of course!
Prof. H. (with finality): So you see, an electron is uncertain, just as we may observe that Schmidt is phlegmatic or that Braun is choleric or that you, my dear friend, are, if I may be permitted to say so, a little psychopathic. And what could be more objective than that?

23 August 1957              

Thank you for the return of the typescript of the Notes. I cannot say that I am much astonished by the opinion that the book would not be attractive to the University publishers. I am faintly amused by the 'expert's' complete failure to perceive what kind of book it is. How can he read my preface and then go on to suggest a 'major re-writing in conformity with modern standards of scholarship'? Yes, I know -- these people are like that. But they do shake one's faith in human nature, don't they?




[L. 144]   26 June 1965

I heard a few days ago that Ven. S. had asked one of the important pandita mahátheras of I forget which of the Sinhalese universities whether he had read the Notes. Yes, he had read them, but the author had evidently understood nothing of the Dhamma. Why? Because his explanation was not in accordance with the abhidhamma method. But on what particular point, for example, was the book wrong? That, it seemed, was not worth discussing. I don't appear to be in much danger of becoming a popular hero -- not amongst the Buddhists, anyway.

Nindanti tunhim ásínam, nindanti bahubháninam mitabháninam pi nindanti n'atthi loke anindito.   (Dh. 227)

You're blamed if you sit quiet, you're blamed if you say a lot, you're blamed if you say a little; there's no one in the world that's not blamed.

On the other hand,

Na cáhu na ca bhavissati na c'etarahi vijjati, ekantam nindito poso ekantam vá pasamsito.   (Dh. 228)

There never was, there will not be, nor is there now, a man that's wholly blamed or wholly praised.

And so I get a few kisses amongst the kicks. A Dr. James W. Gair of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, is presently (as they say) at Peradeniya doing research on the Sinhalese language. Pursuing his researches in Bundala the other day,[1] he was dragged by the village boys to my kuti where he introduced himself. He is faintly Anglican (so he told me) and has no particular interest in the Dhamma; but we got talking and I showed him the Notes. When he came to the last part, FUNDAMENTAL STRUCTURE (the noughts and crosses), he started reading and said, much to my astonishment, 'Ah! This is familiar -- we have something like it in Linguistics. Yes, "o o is one, and o x is two", I follow that. I'm going to have fun reading this.' 'I had fun writing it' I replied. And so we parted on the best of terms. Wasn't that nice?

I see what you mean about the Balfour/Willett book, and in fact I did not want to press it on you because I rather thought you might feel that way about it. Our temperaments are too different -- which, of course, you very well understand when you disapprove my preference for ideas over images. It is not easy for me to think mythically -- in terms, that is to say, of myths (in the good sense) -- and I always tend to ask myself 'Is it true as a matter of fact? Is such a thing actually possible?' whereas for you, as I understand you, the question is 'Is it a valid myth?' And so by a commodious vicus of recirculation, we come back to Balfour and Willett.[2] For me the question that this book raises (whether or not it provides the answer) is obviously 'Are these communications actually what they purport to be? Is rebirth (or personal survival of death) true as a matter of fact?' And, of course, this question is perfectly intelligible to me.

But to you, I rather imagine, this question is not intelligible: it is not the sort of question that can be raised at all -- or at least, it ought not to be raised. Re-birth, survival, yes, by all means, but as a metaphor for something else, perhaps for everything else (the continuation of the human race, of one's seed in one's progeny, of one's fame in the successive editions of one's books, of the traditions and culture of a people; the re-birth of the year at the winter solstice, of the foliage of a tree each spring, and of the tree itself in the germinating of its seeds -- your list will be far better than mine can ever hope to be).

Perhaps you will say (or am I misrepresenting you?) that the truths of religion are mythical truths, that they are not matters of fact; and if you do say this, I shall not contradict you. But then I shall have to say, with infinite regret, that if it is a religion you are after (in the sense of a 'valid myth'), then I have nothing to offer you, because the Dhamma is not a religion.[a]

In other words, before we can even begin to discuss the Dhamma we have to agree whether or not the question 'Is there re-birth?' can be raised at all, and if so in what sense. It is simply a matter of first securing our lines of communication. But I am not suggesting that you will want to do this. (What makes the situation all the more difficult is the popular and mistaken idea that the Buddha's Teaching 'explains re-birth'.)

So you think perhaps that I have my knife into Christianity -- or even into God? But really it's not true. After all, Christianity never did me very much harm, and I soon forgot it. I was brought up to be (I suppose) 'a Christian and a Gentleman', and I found it much easier to unlearn being a Christian -- but then I was not a Catholic (thank God!). Actually, I rather find myself at a loss when a question of God is raised: I feel that I am expected to say something (even if it is only goodbye), and I don't find anything to say. There is no shortage of epitaphs on God, and if I felt the need of one I could say, with Stendhal (la seule excuse de Dieu, c'est qu'il n'existe pas[3]) that God, if he existed, would have a lot to answer for; but even to feel the need to excuse him on the ground of his non-existence, the question of his existence would first have to raise itself. And for me the question does not raise itself.




[L. 145]   2 July 1965

Many thanks indeed for having the Balfour/Willett book bound for me. It has been done very adequately, and the book should last for a long time (though I expect you will be thinking that the sooner such abominable superstitions perish the better for all concerned).

About your query -- the 'Q.E.D.' at the end gives it rather a rhetorical air, and it looks as if it might have been aimed at me as a sockdologer. Let me see if there is anything left for me to say.

Query: If all things are adjudged as characterized by dukkha, who does the judging? And with reference to what criterion or norm? A subject (immortal soul) with reference to an objective sukha, no? Q.E.D.

the more or less conscious enlargement of an object, not in fact but as truth. The object is thus not altered in existence but qualified in idea.... For the object, merely as perceived, is not, as such, qualified as true. (PL, p. 626)

Of course, since knowledge is very commonly (Heidegger adds 'and superficially') defined in terms of 'a relation between subject and object', the question of the subject cannot simply be brushed aside -- no smoke without fire -- and we have to see (at least briefly) why it is so defined. Both Heidegger and Sartre follow Kant in saying that, properly speaking, there is no knowledge other than intuitive; and I agree. But what is intuition? From a puthujjana's point of view, it can be described as immediate contact between subject and object, between 'self' and the 'world' (for how this comes about, I must refer you to PHASSA). This, however, is not yet knowledge, for which a reflexive reduplication is needed; but when there is this reflexive reduplication we then have intuitive knowledge, which is (still for the puthujjana) immediate contact between knowing subject and known object. With the arahat, however, all question of subjectivity has subsided, and we are left simply with (the presence of) the known thing. (It is present, but no longer present 'to somebody'.) So much for judgement in general.

But now you say, 'If all things are characterized by dukkha....' This needs careful qualification. In the first place, the universal dukkha you refer to here is obviously not the dukkha of rheumatism or a toothache, which is by no means universal. It is, rather, the sankhára-dukkha (the unpleasure or suffering connected with determinations) of this Sutta passage:

There are, monk, three feelings stated by me: sukha feeling, dukkha feeling, neither-dukkha-nor-sukha feeling. These three feelings have been stated by me. But this, monk, has been stated by me: whatever is felt, that counts as dukkha. But that, monk, was said by me with reference just to the impermanence of determinations.... (Vedaná Samy. 11: iv,216)

The puthujjana's experience is (sankhára-)dukkha from top to bottom, and the consequence is that he has no way of knowing dukkha for himself; for however much he 'steps back' from himself in a reflexive effort he still takes dukkha with him. (I have discussed this question in terms of avijjá ('nescience') in A NOTE ON PATICCASAMUPPÁDA §§23 & 25, where I show that avijjá, which is dukkhe aññánam ('non-knowledge of dukkha'), has a hierarchical structure and breeds only itself.) The whole point is that the puthujjana's non-knowledge of dukkha is the dukkha that he has non-knowledge of;[a] and this dukkha that is at the same time non-knowledge of dukkha is the puthujjana's (mistaken) acceptance of what seems to be a 'self' or 'subject' or 'ego' at its face value (as nicca/sukha/attá, 'permanent/pleasant/self').

And how, then, does knowledge of dukkha come about? How it is with a Buddha I can't say (though it seems from the Suttas to be a matter of prodigiously intelligent trial-by-error over a long period); but in others it comes about by their hearing (as puthujjanas) the Buddha's Teaching, which goes against their whole way of thinking. They accept out of trust (saddhá) this teaching of anicca/dukkha/anattá; and it is this that, being accepted, becomes the criterion or norm with reference to which they eventually come to see for themselves that all things are dukkha -- for the puthujjana. But in seeing this they cease to be puthujjanas and, to the extent that they cease to be puthujjanas,[b] to that extent (sankhára-)dukkha ceases, and to that extent also they have in all their experience a 'built-in' criterion or norm by reference to which they make further progress. (The sekha -- no longer a puthujjana but not yet an arahat -- has a kind of 'double vision', one part unregenerate, the other regenerate.) As soon as one becomes a sotápanna one is possessed of aparapaccayá ñánam, or 'knowledge that does not depend upon anyone else': this knowledge is also said to be 'not shared by puthujjanas', and the man who has it has (except for accelerating his progress) no further need to hear the Teaching -- in a sense he is (in part) that Teaching.

So far, then, from its being a Subject (immortal soul) that judges 'all things are dukkha' with reference to an objective sukha, it is only with subsidence of (ideas of) subjectivity that there appears an (objective) sukha with reference to which the judgement 'all things are dukkha (for the commoner)' becomes possible at all.

Does this sort you out?

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Footnotes:

[144.a] I don't mean to say that the truths of Buddhism are necessarily matter-of-fact truths in an objective scientific sense: the Four Noble Truths are not even, properly speaking, propositions at all. (Cf. Heidegger's idea of 'truth' as the self-disclosure of a thing for what it really is.) [Back to text]

[145.a] In one Sutta (M. 44: i,303) it is said that neither-dukkha-nor-sukha feeling (i.e. in itself neutral) is dukkha when not known and sukha when known. [Back to text]

[145.b] Strictly, only those are puthujjanas who are wholly puthujjanas, who have nothing of the arahat at all in them. But on ceasing to be a puthujjana one is not at once an arahat; and we can perhaps describe the intermediate (three) stages as partly one and partly the other: thus the sotápanna would be three-quarters puthujjana and one-quarter arahat. [Back to text]















Editorial notes:

[142.1] just come across: Evidently, the Ven. Ñánavíra had been going through his papers. After his death, seven weeks later, those papers were found to be neatly stored away. Some were noted as having been written before 1960; on a few pages he noted sections which were no longer acceptable to him. Doubtlessly any papers he did not wish to be made public were destroyed during those final preparations for death. [Back to text]

[144.1] researches: They resulted in a grammar, Colloquial Sinhalese, published by his university. [Back to text]

[144.2] recirculation: The previous sentences were afterthoughts which, squeezed along the margins, took their reader on an excursion around all four edges of the paper and back to where they began. The 'commodius vicus' etc. alludes, of course, to the opening lines of Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Many (but not all) of the passages in the Letters which appear as footnotes were originally afterthoughts, though not usually so well-travelled. [Back to text]

[144.3] la seule...: 'the only excuse for God is that he does not exist.' (The Rebel, p. 58) [Back to text]