Mr. Baptist contends that the brahmaviháras are less elaborate than other forms of meditation, and the brevity of his instructions for their practice may seem to bear him out. But in fact he is mistaken. If instructions for the practice of ánápánasati are reduced to this one sentence "Fix your attention on the passage of the breath in and out of the nose", it might well be argued that ánápánasati is the simpler. And it is perhaps worthy of note that the detailed exposition of the brahmaviháras in the Visuddhi Magga is actually a little longer than the corresponding exposition of ánápánasati meditation (30 pages as opposed to 27 in the P.T.S. edition). Mr. Baptist's account of the brahmaviháras has in fact sacrificed precision to brevity; and his rather generalized instructions are too vague to be a satisfactory practical guide, especially for beginners, who need fairly detailed indications to get themselves started. Reference to Chapter IX of the Visuddhi Magga will make this point clear. But not only are these instructions of his inadequate: they are also positively misleading. Mr. Baptist says: "Then concentrate thoughts of goodwill on to yourself, saturating your whole being with thoughts of love and goodwill. The idea here being that it is possible to transmit thoughts of love to the outer world only if you yourself are full of love within. Thereafter concentrate your thoughts upon ideas of loving-kindness and imagine a ray of love going out from your heart (which is now full of love), and embracing all beings in the Eastern Quarter of the world." This suggests that we are to charge ourselves, like some kind of storage battery, with love; and then, being fully charged, to radiate it, as it were the light from a lighthouse, in various directions.
In the first place, the purpose of starting the meditation by thinking kindly thoughts towards oneself is certainly not in order to "saturate your whole being with thoughts of love". The Visuddhi Magga says: "He who cultivates the wish, 'May I be well!' appeals to himself as testimony that 'as I wish to be happy, have a distaste for misery, wish to live, do not wish to die, so other beings also wish for the same'". In other words, what you propose to wish for others you must first wish for yourself; for, if you wish for others what you do not sincerely wish for yourself, your thoughts cannot be entirely free from some trace of illwill. It is a safety measure to ensure that you really are wishing well, and not ill, to others.
In the second place, there is no question of actually broadcasting or transmitting thoughts of mettá like wireless or light waves (the phenomenon of telepathy has nothing to do with the physical propagation of waves). In the Suttas all four brahmaviháras are treated in the same way; and if we insist that mettá can be sent out in rays (which is perhaps conceivable by a stretch of imagination) then we must allow the same of upekhá (and a 'ray of indifference' is not conceivable), for the same word, pharati, is used of both. The Visuddhi Magga defines pharati as "to make an object of": and in fact the word really means no more than "to think about". In other words, instead of flashing all-embracing rays of love (or indifference, as the case may be) to the six points of space, we simply think about beings in these various directions and say to ourselves, "May they be well".
It should be noted that Mr. Baptist confines indifference to "indifference towards all evil beings". This is a curious limitation, without any apparent justification, and the Visuddhi Magga (quoting the Vibhanga) says: "As, on seeing a person neither lovable nor unlovable, he would be even-minded, so he considers (pharati) all beings with even-mindedness". Indifference is to be practised towards all beings, good or evil. Without our going into further detail, it may be said that the purpose of the brahmavihára meditation is not to benefit or improve other people by directing our mettá and so forth toward them (though some such effect is possible in certain cases) but, in the first place, to rid ourselves of illwill, cruelty, envy, and partiality, and in the second, to develop concentration so that insight may be successfully practised. So much for the brahmaviháras.
What about Mr. Baptist and ánápánasati? The Foreword (not written by Mr. Baptist) states that ánápánasati "entails a primary basis of an ascetical moral make-up" and "involves absolute mindfulness and control of breathing (our italics)." Mr. Baptist himself says not only that it is elaborate and tedious and exacts a great deal of time and energy (points we have already touched upon) but that "it is not easy to practise as it involves the leading of a very pure, celibate life, free from stress and strife". And in a letter to the Ceylon Observer (4th June 1955) he says: "To meditate, following the ánápánasati system, one should be a brahmachariya -- this is what elementary yoga teaches. Laymen can hardly be expected to lead brahmachari lives. Can they then be expected to practise this difficult form of meditation without grave danger to their health?"
This is largely nonsense. Ánápánasati does not involve control of breathing; it is no more elaborate or tedious than any other form of meditation (and probably less so); and though indeed some degree of síla is necessary -- as for all meditation --, it is not true that one must be a brahmachari to practise it -- there are many laymen, married and single, who have long practised ánápánasati and have derived much benefit from it without in any way injuring their health. Mr. Baptist takes elementary yoga as his authority; but does he not know that there is no ánápánasati in the yoga systems? The breathing exercises of yoga -- pranayama as they are called -- are quite a different affair, which do involve control of the breath and, for all we know, the most fearful bodily afflictions for any non-brahmachari who presumes to practise them. ("By the practice of Pranayama one is freed from all diseases. By mistaken course of Yoga, the Yogin brings upon himself all diseases" -- Hatha Yoga Pradipika, II, 16.) Ánápánasati consists in the paying of constant mental attention to the natural breath as it comes and goes; and whether we do ánápánasati or not we still continue to breathe in the same way. Where, then, is the threat to health?
In fairness to Mr. Baptist it must be said that he is not the first to tell us of the horrid effects of this kind of meditation -- we have been warned, before now, that the practice of ánápánasati leads to such diseases as diabetes and consumption. Let us end with the Buddha's own words:
"When one cultivates and makes much of the concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing, there is no wavering or shaking of body, no wavering or shaking of mind."
(Kindred Sayings, Vol V., p. 280)."Wherefore, monks, if a monk should desire: May neither my body nor my eyes be fatigued, and by not clinging may my mind be freed from the ásavas, -- he must give strict attention to this same intent concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing."
-- Ibid., p. 281."Monks, this intent concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing, if cultivated and made much of, is something peaceful and choice, something perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living too. Moreover it allays evil, unprofitable states that have arisen and makes them vanish in a moment."
-- Ibid., p. 285.
Ñánavíra Bhikkhu
In Mr. Egerton Baptist's reply (C. B. J. 15/9/55) to my review of his pamphlet he disagrees with my statement that telepathy has nothing to do with the physical propagation of waves. To support his point he speaks of the electroencephalograph, an instrument that measures the electrical rhythms of the brain. These rhythms or "brain waves" he maintains, are synonymous with "thought-waves". An eminent authority on electroencephalography, Dr. W. Grey Walter of the Burden Neurological Institue, Bristol, who has himself pioneered most of the developments in this branch of science in Great Britain during the last twenty years, and who is an editor of the International EEG Journal, is actually one of the sources for my assertion. On p. 175 of his book "The Living Brain" (Duckworth, 1953), he says that all investigations hitherto of the functioning of the brain have entirely failed to account for telepathy or allied phenomena. It has "often been suggested" he continues "that ... electrical sensitivity of the brain might be a means of communicating with some all-pervading influence. Quite apart from any philosophic objection there may be to such an argument, the actual scale and properties of the brain's electrical mechanisms offer no support for it". And he goes on to say that since neither distance nor intervening obstacles appear to make the slightest difference to the strength of messages received telepathically the phenomena cannot be explained by the laws of matter as we now formulate them. I should, perhaps, make it clear that I am not denying the effects, sometimes considerable, that thoughts of mettá have on other living beings: What I am denying is that such thoughts are transmitted by any wave mechanism known to modern science. To say that "brain waves" and "thought waves" are synonymous is to confuse mind and matter, náma and rúpa, two items that the Buddha takes good care to distinguish. Mr. Baptist also says that I and certain other monks living in my temple are of the opinion that the Venerable Buddhaghosa was a worldling. Though I said nothing of this in my review, Mr. Baptist is correctly informed. Our source for this opinion is the Venerable Buddhaghosa himself, who, at the conclusion of the Visuddhi Magga, says:
"By these, the merit and the deed, may I in my next birth in Távatimsa heaven delight in virtuous behaviour, not cleaving to the five delights of sense, but gaining the first fruit."If the Venerable Buddhaghosa aspires to become sotápanna in his next life, it does not seem unreasonable to assume he was a worldling in this; and since he aspires to rebirth in Távatimsa, it is quite possible that he had not even attained jhána here. But this is not to say that his writings are not an authority on the Buddha's teaching. They do not merely represent his own personal view, but the traditional view of the Mahávihára at Anurádhapura. This traditional view, though not infallible, must surely be allowed some credit. Since part of the material in Mr. Baptist's original pamphlet is based on the Visuddhi Magga, presumably he, too, holds that book as to some degree authoritative. The rest of Mr. Baptist's reply must take care of itself.
Ñánavíra Bhikkhu
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