Nanavira Thera on Bāhiya

Yes, the existentialist idiom is difficult, until you get the feel of it. The difficulty arises from the phenomenological method that I have just been talking about. The scientist (or scholar) becomes 'objective', puts himself right out of the picture (Kierkegaard is at his best when he describes this 'absent-minded' operation), and concerns himself only with abstract facts; the existentialist remains 'subjective' (not in the derogatory sense of being irresponsible), keeps himself in the picture, and describes concrete things (that is, things in relation to himself as he experiences them). This radical difference in method, naturally enough, is reflected in the kind of language used by the scientist on the one hand and the existentialist on the other—or rather, in the difference in the way they make use of language. I was struck, when I first read Sartre, by the strange sort of resemblance between certain of his expressions and some of the things said in the Suttas. Sartre, for example, has this:

...we defined the senses and the sense-organs in general as our being-in-the-world in so far as we have to be it in the form of being-in-the-midst-of-the-world. (B&N, p. 325)In the Suttas (e.g. Salāyatana Samy. 116: iv,95) we find:

The eye (ear, nose, tongue, body, mind) is that in the world by which one is a perceiver and conceiver of the world.

Now whatever the respective meanings of these two utterances[a] it is quite clear that despite the two thousand five hundred years that separate them, Sartre's sentence is closer in manner of expression (as well as in content) to the Sutta passage than it is to anything produced by a contemporary neuro-physiologist supposedly dealing with precisely the same subject—our sense organs and perception of the world. This remarkable similarity does not oblige us to conclude that Sartre has reached enlightenment, but simply that if we want to understand the Suttas the phenomenological approach is more promising than the objective scientific approach (which, as we all know, reigns over the world).

Although the existentialist philosophers may seem close to the Buddha's Teaching, I don't think it necessarily follows that they would accept it were they to study it. Some might, some might not. But what often happens is that after years of hard thinking, they come to feel that they have found the solution (even if the solution is that there is none), and they lie back resting on their reputation, or launch themselves into other activities (Marcel has become a Catholic, Sartre is politically active); and so they may feel disinclined to re-open an inquiry that they have already closed to their satisfaction (or dissatisfaction, as the case may be). Besides, it is not so easy to induce them to take up a study of the Dhamma. It is worse than useless to give them a copy of Buddhism in a Nutshell or a life subscription to the BPS, which make the Buddha's Teaching easy...by leaving out the difficulties. And even translations of the Suttas are not always adequate, and anyway, they don't practise samatha bhāvanā.[1]

I don't want to be dogmatic about the value of a familiarity with the existential doctrines; that is, for an understanding of the Dhamma. Of course, if one has a living teacher who has himself attained (and ideally, of course, the Buddha himself), then the essence of the Teaching can sometimes be conveyed in a few words. But if, as will be the case today, one has no such teacher, then one has to work out for oneself (and againstthe accepted Commentarial tradition) what the Suttas are getting at. And here, an acquaintance with some of these doctrines can be—and, in my case, has been—very useful. But the danger is, that one may adhere to one or other of these philosophers and fail to go beyond to the Buddha. This, certainly, is a very real risk—but the question is, is it a justifiable risk? It is better, anyway, to cling to Heidegger than it is to cling to Bertrand Russell. 

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You say, 'Questions that strike a Sartre or a Kierkegaard as obvious, urgent, and baffling may not have even occurred to Bāhiya Dārucīriya'. I am not so sure. I agree that a number of 'uneducated' people appear, in the Suttas, to have reached extinction. But I am not so sure that I would call them 'simple'. You suggest that Bāhiya may not have been a very complex person and that a previous 'Sartre' phase may not have been essential for him. Again I don't want to be dogmatic, but it seems to me that your portrait of him is oversimplified. For one thing, I regret to say, you have made something easy...by leaving out the difficulty. 

Your quotation of the brief instruction that the Buddha gave Bāhiya is quite in order as far as it goes; but—inadvertently, no doubt—you have only given part of it. Here is the passage in full (Udāna 10: 8 and cf. Salāyatana Samy. 95: iv,73):

Then, Bāhiya, you should train thus: 'In the seen there shall be just the seen; in the heard there shall be just the heard; in the sensed there shall be just the sensed; in the cognized there shall be just the cognized'—thus, Bāhiya, should you train yourself. When, Bāhiya, for you, in the seen there shall be just the seen...cognized, then, Bāhiya, you (will) not (be) that by which (tvam na tena); when, Bāhiya, you (shall) not (be) that by which, then, Bāhiya, you (shall) not (be) in that place (tvam na tattha); when, Bāhiya, you (shall) not (be) in that place, then, Bāhiya, you (will) neither (be) here nor yonder nor between the two: just this is the end of suffering.

This is a highly condensed statement, and for him simple. It is quite as tough a passage as anything you will find in Sartre. And, in fact, it is clearly enough connected with the passage that I have already quoted alongside a passage from Sartre: 'The eye (etc.) is that in the world by which one is a perceiver and conceiver of the world'.

Let us now try, with the help of Heidegger's indications,[2] to tie up these two Sutta passages.

(i) To begin with, 'I---here' is I as identical with my senses; 'here', therefore refers to my sense organs (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and also mind). The counterpart of 'here' is 'yonder', which refers to the various things in the world as sense-objects. 'Between the two' will then refer (though Heidegger makes no mention of this) to consciousness, contact, feeling, and so on, as being dependent upon sense organ and sense object—cakkhuñca paticca rūpe ca uppajjati cakkhuviññānam, tinnam sangati phasso, phassapaccayā vedanā, etc. (Salāyatana Samy. 107: iv,87).[4]

(ii) In the second place Heidegger says that 'here' and 'yonder' are possible only in a 'there'; in other words, that sense-organs and sense-objects, which are 'amidst-the-world', in Sartre's phrase, are possible only if there is a world for them to be 'amidst'. 'There', then, refers to the world. So the 'here' and 'yonder' of the Bāhiya Sutta correspond in the other Sutta to the 'eye (and so on)' as 'that in the world...'.

(iii) But Heidegger goes on to say that there is a 'there' only if there is an entity that has made a disclosure of spatiality as the being of the 'there'; and that being-there's existential spatiality is grounded in being-in-the-world. This simply means that, in the very act of being, I disclose a spatial world: my being is always in the form of a spatial being-there. (In spite of the Hindus and Hegel, there is no such thing as 'pure being'. All being is limited and particularized—if I am at all, I am in a spatial world.) In brief, there is only a 'there', a spatial world (for senses and objects to be 'amidst'), if I am there. Only so long as I am there shall I be 'in the form of being-amidst-the-world'—i.e. as sense-organs ('here') surrounded by sense-objects ('yonder').

(iv) But on what does this 'I am there' depend? 'I am there' means 'I am in the world'; and I am 'in the world' in the form of senses (as eye...mind). And Heidegger tells us that the 'here' (i.e. the senses) is always understood in relation to a 'yonder' ready-to-hand, i.e. something that is for some purpose (of mine). I, as my senses, 'am towards' this 'yonder'; I am 'a being that is de-severant, directional, and concernful'. I won't trouble you with details here, but what Heidegger means by this is more or less what the Venerable Ānanda Thera means when he said that 'The eye (and so on) is that...by which one is a perceiver and a conceiver of the world'. In other words, not only am I in the world, but I am also, as my senses, that by which there is a world in which I am. 'I am there' because 'I am that by which there is an I-am-there'; and consequently, when 'I shall not be that by which', then 'I shall not be there'. And when 'I shall not be there', then 'I shall neither be here nor yonder nor between the two'.

(v) And when shall we 'not be that by which'? This, Heidegger is not able to tell us. But the Buddha tells us: it is when, for us, in the seen there shall be just the seen, and so with the heard, the sensed, and the cognized. And when in the seen is there just the seen? When the seen is no longer seen as 'mine' (etam mama) or as 'I' (eso'ham asmi) or as 'my self' (eso me attā): in brief, when there is no longer, in connexion with the senses, the conceit 'I am', by which 'I am a conceiver of the world'.

So, although it would certainly be going too far to suggest that Bahiya had already undergone a course of existentialist philosophy, the fact remains that he was capable of understanding at once a statement that says more, and says it more briefly, than the nearest comparable statement either in Heidegger or Sartre. Bāhiya, I allow, may not have been a cultured or sophisticated man-of-the-world; but I see him as a very subtle thinker. Authenticity may be the answer, as you suggest; but an authentic man is not a simple person—he is self-transparent if you like, which is quite another matter.

Footnote:

[121.a] Where the Sutta says 'the eye is that in the world...', Sartre says that we (as our sense-organs) are 'amidst-the-world'; and where the Sutta says 'one is a perceiver and conceiver of the world', Sartre speaks of 'our being-in-the-world'.

Editorial notes:

[1] Samatha bhāvanā (development of calmness) is the counterpart of vipassanā bhāvanā(development of insight), with which the West is somewhat more familiar. The two together, along with development of faith (saddhā) and conduct (sīla) are four parts of the Dhamma that are compared (A. IX,4: iv,360) to the four feet of the quadruped.

[2] Heidegger: Apparently a portion of the letter immediately preceding this paragraph is missing. The context suggests that the missing portion may have involved discussion of B&T, pp. 169-72, particularly the passage on page 171:

The entity which is essentially constituted by Being-in-the-world is itself in every case its 'there'. According to the familiar signification of the word, the 'there' points to a 'here' and a 'yonder'. The 'here' of an 'I---here' is always understood in relation to a 'yonder' ready-to-hand, in the sense of a Being towards this 'yonder'—a Being which is de-severant, directional, and concernful. Dasein's existential spatiality, which thus determines its 'location', is itself grounded in Being-in-the-world. The "yonder" belongs definitely to something encountered within-the-world. 'Here' and 'yonder' are possible only in a 'there'—that is to say, only if there is an entity which has made a disclosure of spatiality as the Being of the 'there'. This entity carries in its ownmost Being the character of not being closed off. In the expression 'there' we have in view this essential disclosedness. By reason of this disclosedness, this entity (Dasein), together with the Being-there of the world, is 'there' for itself.