The question of self-identity of things

Attached to ANICCA - impermanence in Dhamma  (philosophical considerations)


The question of self-identity arises either when a thing is seen from two points of view at once (as in reflexion,b for example; or when it is at the same time the object of two different senses—I am now both looking at my pen and touching it with my fingers, and I might wonder if it is the same pen in the two simultaneous experiences [see Rupa]), or when a thing is seen to endure in time, when the question may be asked if it continues to be the same thing (the answer being, that a thing at any one given level of generality is the invariant of a transformation—see Anicca [a] & Fundamental Structure—, and that ‘to remain the same’ means just this).c With the question of a thing’s self-identity (which presents no particular difficulty) the Buddha’s Teaching of anattā has nothing whatsoever to do: anattā is purely concerned with ‘self’ as subject. (See Paticcasamuppāda [c].)
***
You ask whether aniccatā (or impermanence) in the Dhamma does not refer to things regarded objectively rather than subjectively. Certainly, aniccatā does not not refer to things regarded objectively (note the double negative); and there are, no doubt, passages in the Suttas where this meaning is intended (or at least not excluded). It is clear enough that a person regarding any thing as objectively permanent (as the Christians, for example, regard God or heaven or hell) cannot even begin to understand the Buddha's Teaching. An aspiring Buddhist must first of all understand that there is no single thing (objectively speaking) that lasts for ever.

But if aniccatā means no more than this, we soon run into difficulties; for modern physical science, which is as objective as can be, says the same thing—indeed, it goes further and says that everything is constantly changing. And this is precisely the point of view of our modern commentators. The Buddha, as you may know, has said, Yad aniccam tam dukkham; yam dukkham tad anattā ('What is impermanent is suffering; what is suffering is not-self'); and I was told that one gentleman several years ago argued from this that since a stone is impermanent it must therefore experience suffering. And not only he, but also most of the Buddhist world agree that since a stone is impermanent—i.e. in perpetual flux (according to the scientific concept)—it has no lasting self-identity; that is to say, it is anattā or not-self. The notion that a stone feels pain will probably find few supporters outside Jain circles; but this objective interpretation of the Buddha's Teaching of anattā is firmly established.

'But what' perhaps you may ask 'is wrong with this?' In the first place, it implies that modern science has caught up with the Buddha's Teaching (which, presumably, we can now afford to throw overboard, since science is bound to make further progress)—see, in this connexion, note (j) in the Preface of Notes, beginning 'It is all the fashion...'. In the second place, it involves the self-contradictory notion of universal flux—remember the disciple of Heraclitus, who said that one cannot cross the same river even once (meaning that if everything is in movement there is no movement at all).[a] In the third place, if aniccatā refers only to things regarded objectively and not subjectively (as you suggest), the subject is ipso facto left out of account, and the only meaning that is left for attā or 'self' is the self-identity of the object. But—as I point out in the admittedly very difficult article ATTĀ—the Dhamma is concerned purely and simply with 'self' as subject ('I', 'mine'), which is the very thing that you propose to omit by being objective. The fact is, that the triad, anicca/dukkha/anattā has no intelligible application if applied objectively to things. The objective application of aniccatā is valid in the exact measure that objectivity is valid—that is to say, on a very coarse and limited level only. Objectivity is an abstraction or rationalization from subjectivity—even the scientist when he is engaged on his experiments is at that time subjective, but when he has finished his series of experiments he eliminates the subjectivity (himself) and is left with the objective result. This means that though there can be no objectivity without an underlying subjectivity, there can quite possibly be subjectivity without objectivity; and the objective aniccatā is only distantly related to the much finer and more subtle subjective aniccatā. It must be remembered that it is only the ariya, and not the puthujjana, who perceives pure subjective aniccatā (it is in seeing subjective aniccatā that the puthujjana becomes ariya; and at that time he is wholly subjective—the coarse objective perception of aniccatā has been left far behind)—see, in this connexion, PARAMATTHA SACCA §4 (I think). Objective aniccatā can be found outside the Buddha's Teaching, but not subjective aniccatā.[b]

Let us, however, consider your particular example—a person of whom you are fond. Suppose it is your son; and suppose (as indeed we may hope) that he has a long life ahead of him and that he arrives at death (which he cannot avoid) as an old man, many years after your own death. Subjectively speaking from your point of view, he is impermanent on account of the fact that you yourself die before him and thereby your experience of him is cut off. More strictly speaking, he is impermanent for you on account of the fact that even in this life your experience of him is not continuous—you only see him from time to time. Objectively speaking, according to your suggestion, he is impermanent because he himself will die in due course, and you will not survive to witness his death. But if this is to be completely objective (as far as complete objectivity is possible) the last part of this statement is irrelevant. To be completely objective we must say:

All men are mortal.
Lionel Samaratunga's son is a man.
Therefore Lionel Samaratunga's son is mortal.

So stated, it is quite generally true, and is the concern of no-one in particular. It is so generally true that it would serve in a textbook of logic as an example of a syllogism in Barbara[2] (though usually, instead of Lionel Samaratunga's son, it is Socrates whose mortality is logically demonstrated).[c]
 
But how many students of logic are going to shed tears when they read that Lionel Samaratunga's son is destined to die? How many have so much as heard of Lionel Samaratunga, let alone of his son? (And anyway, how many students of logic shed a tear even over the death of Socrates, of whom they may perhaps have heard?) But if you were to come across this syllogism unexpectedly, it is not impossible that you might feel emotionally moved (as perhaps at this very moment you may be feeling a little uncomfortable at my having chosen an example so near home). And why should this be so? Because you are fond of Lionel Samaratunga's son and cannot regard this syllogism in Barbara, which speaks of his mortality, quite so objectively as a student of logic. In other words, as soon as feeling comes in at the door objectivity flies out the window. Feeling, being private and not public, is subjective and not objective (see my letter to Dr. de Silva discussing Prof. Jefferson's article[3]). And the Buddha has said (A. III,61: i,176) that it is 'to one who feels' that he teaches the Four Noble Truths. So, then, the Dhamma must essentially refer to a subjective aniccatā—i.e. one that entails dukkha—and not, in any fundamental sense, to an objective aniccatā, which we can leave to students of logic and their professors. (Feeling is not a logical category at all.)
'But how' you might be wondering 'can the death of my son be a subjective matter for me, supposing (as is likely) that I die first?' At this point I am glad to be able to quote the late Venerable Ñānamoli Thera (Pathways, p. 36):

Consciousness without an object is impossible—not conceivable—and objects without consciousness, when talked about, are only a verbal abstraction; one cannot talk or think about objects that have no relation to consciousness. The two are inseparable and it is only a verbal abstraction to talk about them separately (legitimate of course in a limited sphere).

The very fact that you are able to think the death of your son makes it an object of consciousness (and therefore subjective)—it is an image or a series of images, and images are the objects of mind-consciousness (manoviññāna). So however objectively you think you are thinking your son's death, the whole thought is within subjectivity. Even though it may be highly improbable that you will actually be present at your son's death, you are nevertheless present in imagination whenever you think it—you imagine your son an old man lying sick on his deathbed, and you yourself are watching the scene (still in imagination) from some definite point of view (standing at the foot of the bed, for example). At once the perception of your son's impermanence is there (an imaginary perception, of course); but if your imagination is vivid, and you are strongly attached to your son, and you are perhaps fatigued after a trying day's work, this may be enough to bring real tears to your eyes, even though the entire scene is enacted in the realm of the imaginary. (I know, for my own part, that I am far more strongly moved by episodes in books than by those in real life, which usually leave me cold. This, of course, is what the author of the book is aiming at when he uses what Kierkegaard calls 'the foreshortened perspective of the aesthetic', which leaves out unromantic details—the hero's interview with his bank manager about his overdraft; the heroine's visit to the dentist to have two decayed teeth stopped—in order to heighten the reader's emotional tension. My emotional reaction is entirely in the sphere of the imaginary; for what is the real in this case?—a number of marks in black printer's ink on a few white sheets of paper.[d])
 
To sum up. The Dhamma does indeed permit you to regard the material object before you as something that will perish at some future time; but this is not so purely objective a matter as you might think (the purer the objectivity, the more meagre the real content; and, vice versa, the reality of the material object before you imposes a limit on the degree of objectivity with which you can regard it). The fact that the mere thought of somebody's or something's eventual decay (about which you will perhaps know nothing when it actually takes place) is capable of arousing feelings of one sort or another is evidence for this.[e] But in any case, as one progresses in meditation one advances from the coarser to the finer, and the objective (speculative or rational) aniccatā is the first thing to be eliminated. After that, one gradually reduces mixed subjective-and-objective thoughts or imaginings or memories about past and future aniccatā. And finally, one is wholly concentrated on perception of aniccatā in the present experience; and this is purely subjective. Only when this has been achieved is it possible to extend the same pure subjectivity to past and future (this is called dhammanvaye ñānam, to which I make references in NA CA SO and PATICCASAMUPPĀDA [a]; this, properly speaking, is beyond the range of the puthujjana.

Footnotes:
[53.a] I have made a point, in the Notes, of objecting to this notion; and one of the reasons why I am anxious that the note on fundamental structure should not be excluded is that it offers a quite different, and essentially subjective (or reflexive) approach to the philosophical problem of change and time. If, as you said, you have managed to gather something from the second part of FUNDAMENTAL STRUCTURE, you will perhaps be aware that the objective notion of universal flux is hardly adequate—that the problem of impermanence cannot be dealt with objectively.

[53.b] Two points. (i) The word 'subjective' has the same ambiguity as the word 'self': it is used both for the reflexive attitude (or, at the minimum, assertion of the individual point of view) and for the subject ('I', 'myself'). As pointed out in ATTĀ, the puthujjana is not able to dissociate these two things, but the sekha sees that in the arahat the latter (the conceit 'I am') has come to an end while the former (the individual point of view, with the possibility of reflexion) still remains. (Kierkegaard actually identifies reflexion with selfhood.)

     (ii) The Notes are concerned only with the essential application of the Buddha's Teaching, and consequently there is no mention of objective aniccatā (or of other things on the same level). This is by design, not by accident. Most people, as soon as they arrive at the objective perception of aniccatā, are quite satisfied that they have now understood the Buddha's Teaching, and they do not see that there is anything further to be done.

The Notes are intended to be difficult—to challenge the complacency of these people and make them really think for themselves (instead of simply agreeing with what they have read in some book or other and imagining that this constitutes thought). It is hardly to be expected at this rate that the Notes will ever be popular.

[53.c] Actually, to have a syllogism in Barbara, we must be still more general and say: 'All men are mortal. All Lionel Samaratunga's sons are men. Therefore all Lionel Samaratunga's sons are mortal'. In this way it is not assumed that Lionel Samaratunga necessarily has any sons: all that is asserted is that if he has any sons, they are mortal. We could even go further and leave out all mention of Lionel Samaratunga, but the syllogism then becomes so general as to have very little content. Every increase in objectivity takes us further from reality.

[53.d] Incidentally, when an apparently aesthetic writer does not use the foreshortened perspective he at once becomes an ethical or moral writer. James Joyce's Ulysses is an outstanding example. Though the book was once banned for obscenity, it is nevertheless profoundly moral. The Ven. Soma Thera, when he read it, was inspired with a strong disgust with life and desire for solitude. The book is about seven hundred pages, and takes about as long to read as the total period of time covered by the action of the book—eighteen hours.

[53.e] Does a judge feel nothing at the thought of the impending dissolution (which he will not witness) of the material object before him, if that object happens to be a guilty murderer he has just sentenced to death? Justice Amory, I believe, used to treat himself to muffins for tea on such occasions. Did he eat them objectively, I wonder. (The fact that one can feel pleasure at the perception of the impermanence of something one dislikes shows that the Buddha's yad aniccam tam dukkham is a very much more subtle affair.)

***
I can’t tell you very much about the Eleatics—the Elastics, if you prefer—, except that (according to Kierkegaard) they held the doctrine that ‘everything is and nothing comes into being’. Parmenides, I think, was an Eleatic, and you will see his views on pp. 14-15 of Russell’s M&L. The doctrine of the Eleatics is the opposite of Heraclitus and his flux: but as K. points out, both are speculative views, abstracting from existence where change and unchange are combined (and so back to Bradley!).

As to Achilles and the tortoise, the problem as stated by Russell on p. 88 makes the assumption that all ‘places’ are the same size. But if Achilles is going faster than the tortoise each ‘place’ that he goes to must be correspondingly larger (i.e. longer) than the tortoise’s ‘places’.

There is thus no paradox. But there is also the assumption that one can be in a ‘place’ in a ‘point-instant’ of time—i.e. no time at all. This is really the root of the trouble, both for Zeno and for Russell—they assume that time (or being, or existence) is made up of instants of no time, which is a misunderstanding. However many instants of no time you add together (or put contiguously) you still get no time. So Russell, seeing this, says (p. 82) ‘there is no such thing as the next moment’, which means that though his moments are ‘in time’ they are not ‘part of time’. But he does not go on to explain what ‘time’ is.

The fact is, that one cannot use the word ‘be’ in connexion with a point-instant of time, and one cannot say that Achilles, or the Arrow, ‘is’ in a particular place at each ‘moment’ (understood as a point-instant).

(The solution to the problem of time, as I suggest in Fundamental Structure, lies in a hierarchy of ‘moments’, each understood as a ‘unit of time’, and each with a sub-structure of a plurality of similar moments but of a lesser order.) But as to the problem of Achilles and the tortoise, all we need to say is that during each second of time both Achilles and the tortoise are within the boundaries of a certain extent or strip of ground, but since Achilles is moving faster than the tortoise his successive strips of ground (each occupied for one second) are longer than the tortoise’s. So Achilles catches the tortoise. But note that since we decide upon one second of time (or whatever it may actually be) as the limit to the fineness of our perception, we are unable to find out what Achilles or the tortoise is doing within each second. We know that during any given second Achilles is occupying a certain strip of ground (he is in that strip), but we are not entitled to say whether he is moving or stationary. (This does not say what movement is—which needs a more elaborate discussion—, but it does solve Zeno’s problem, or at least indicates the solution.)

As a solution to impermanence you suggest that we might forgo ‘an impermanent use of what is impermanent’. Impossible! We are making impermanent use of what is impermanent all the time—and this is as true for the arahat as it is for the puthujjana. So long as there is consciousness at all there is the passage of time, and the passage of time consists in the use of things, whether we like it or not. The eating of food, the breathing of breaths, the thinking of thoughts, the dreaming of dreams—all are impermanent use of what is impermanent.

Only in nirodhasamāpatti does this lapse for any living being.
In the last Sutta of the Majjhima (M. 152: iii,298-9) the desperate expedient is suggested of ‘not seeing forms with the eye, not hearing sounds with the ear’, but the Buddha ridicules this, saying that this is already achieved by a blind and deaf man. He goes on to indicate upekhā, indifference, as the proper way. The fault does not lie in the impermanence (which is inevitable), but in attachment to (and repulsion from) the impermanent. Get rid of attachment (and repulsion) and you get rid of the suffering of impermanence. The arahat makes impermanent use of the impermanent, but with indifference, and the only suffering he has is bodily pain or discomfort when it arises (and that, too, finally ceases when his body breaks up).

A disagreement between living Balfour and dead Gurney

Attached to Beyond sakkāyadithi or you are not the person

I have just been sent a book from England that might interest you. It is Lord Balfour’s A Study of the Psychological Aspects of Mrs Willett’s Mediumship, and of the Statement of the Communicators Concerning Process. I do not think that you have any doubts about re-birth, but this book seems to me to be quite exceptionally good evidence for it; and the various philosophical problems discussed (between the living and the dead) are themselves of no little interest.

There is, in particular, a disagreement between Balfour (living) and Gurney (dead) about the possibility of there being a split within one and the same person. This disagreement can only be resolved when the distinction between the notion of a person (sakkāya, attā) and that of an individual (puggala) becomes clear. (This distinction, as you will remember, is discussed in the Notes.) Balfour denies that a person, a self, can be split without ipso facto becoming two persons, two selves (i.e. two quite different people): Gurney affirms it. Balfour is wrong for the right reason: Gurney is right for the wrong reason.*

* Balfour; Gurney: On page 269 of the book the Ven. Nanavira noted, in the margin: All the muddle of this chapter comes of the puthujjana’s failure to distinguish personality from individuality. Personality as ‘self’ is indivisible. Individuality is as divisible as you please; that is, within the individual. The word individual does not exclude internal divisions; it simply means that you cannot treat these internal divisions as a collection of individuals. ‘Individual’ is opposed to ‘class’.) And on page 308 there is the marginal note: From a puthujjana’s point of view, Balfour’s objections are valid—‘self’ cannot be divided into separate ‘selves’…. This paradox cannot be resolved in the sphere of the puthujjana. If Gurney is right, that is only because he has, in fact, failed to appreciate Balfour’s dilemma….

***
"You say," the doctor remarked unrelentingly, "that Peggy Lou, Peggy Ann, Mary, and the others couldn't be the same person. But they can be. Vicky, don't you see that they could be different aspects of the same person?"

"No, Dr. Wilbur," Vicky said thoughtfully, shaking her head. "I don't see. You, you're just you. You're Dr. Wilbur and no one else."

"Yes?" the doctor asked.

"And I'm just Vicky. There's nobody else here. See." Vicky rose from the couch, paced the room, and asked, "Now do you believe me?"

Vicky sat down again, smiled at the doctor, and remarked, "That settles the question. There's no one else here. You're just Dr. Wilbur, and I'm just Vicky."

"Vicky," the doctor replied, "we haven't settled anything. Let's be honest with each other."

"But, Dr. Wilbur," Vicky insisted, "we most certainly have. We've settled the large, philosophical question of who am I? I am I. You are you. I think; therefore I am. There's a Latin phrase for it: cogito ergo sum. Yes, that's it."

"We've settled nothing," the doctor reminded Vicky. "We haven't established the relationship among Sybil, Peggy Lou, Peggy Ann, Mary and the others. What ...?"

"Questions, questions, questions," Vicky interrupted.
"I'd like to ask a question, too. Why do you have to ask all these questions?"

After rejecting the logical conclusion toward which Dr. Wilbur had been trying to lead her, Vicky contradicted the earlier contention that the doctor and she were alone, for she said, "Now, Dr. Wilbur, Mary would like to meet you. She wants to participate in our analysis, and I think we should let her."
"Our analysis?" Dr. Wilbur echoed. "How can it be "our" if you girls are not the same person?"

Vicky chuckled. "I suppose," she said with what seemed like deliberate ambiguity, "you might call it group therapy."

"You agreed you were sisters." Vicky was quick. "Family therapy, then, if you insist. Thanks for the correction."

Then, as surely as if she had physically left the room, Vicky was gone. A voice that definitely was not Vicky's remarked politely, "I'm glad to meet you, Dr. Wilbur."

"You're Mary?" the doctor asked. "Mary Lucinda Saunders Dorsett," the voice replied.

It was not the voice of a woman of the world like Vicky, nor of an angry child like Peggy Lou. The accent was unmistakably midwestern, soft, low, and somber.

SYBIL
By
Flora Rheta Schreiber
***
Vicki is one of multiple personalities (sakkāya) in one individual (puggala) know objectively by other individuals as Sybil.

We can see that there is something wrong, there is a mental problem here, since we as puthujjanas used to the idea one individual (puggala) = one personality (sakkāya). So the case of Sybil is diagnosed as multiple personality disorder in puthujjana medicine.

When the treatment is successful and other personalities are dissolved, certain individual (puggala) know as Sybil, who sees herself as a person (sakkāya) is recognised by medicine as more or less healthy.

In Dhamma medicine however an individual with one personality is still an unhealthy state. Certainty of being (bhava) - cogito ergo sum - is delusion and in need of treatment.  The true health comes only when we have the case of an individual without any personality. Arahat can be seen as Mr Nobody.

Puthujjana as an individual has more or less precise self-image of "what Iam" which is sakkāyadithi, and most likely will see an arahat as some special (holy, perfect) person, since it is inconceivable for him, that an individual can function quite well without "I am". That's why some "teachers" insist that there is a difference between living arahat and the dead one, and in fact that bhavanirodho, cessation of being happens only after the death of an arahat. Or that arahat still suffers since he is living in the world.

But the notion of external world in which puthujjana lives is as much dependently arisen on ignorance as he himself, or his being. To be sure, it doesn't mean that the material - external - world where he lives is an illusion. It merely means that when an interpretation of an experience in terms of self and the world is removed and consciousness functions without ignorance - (the subject) - related to self idea of external world is not present for the good reason that there is nothing external in relation to consciousness, all experience is in the field of consciousness.

**
NM : To destroy the false, you must question your most inveterate beliefs. Of these the idea that you are the body is the worst. With the body comes the world, with the world — God, who is supposed to have created the world and thus it starts — fears, religions, prayers, sacrifices, all sorts of systems — all to protect and support the child-man, frightened out of his wits by monsters of his own making. Realise that what you are cannot be born nor die and with the fear* gone all suffering ends.

*The absence of fear in the Dhamma is not the result of some stoic training, so despite of all circumstances one - as a person - is able to remain unmoved and at peace, but the result of seeing things as they are, namely that there are absolutely no reasons for the arising of fear.

Reviews of Ven Nanavira's writings

 REVIEW OF 'NOTES ON DHAMMA'

by John Stella

Nowadays we often find the Middle Way as expounded by the Buddha confused with ‘moderation’: hence, involvement in worldly pursuits, even those of pleasure, money-making and fame (perhaps tempered by occasional retreats, pilgrimages, or an hour or so of meditation) are compatible with the Dhamma as long as they are not ‘extreme’. Consequently, the Middle Way ­all too often degenerates into the Easy Way; and many books on Buddhism—a term our present author disliked—are dedicated to making the Dhamma as easy as possible to understand and thus practicable by the largest possible number.

Opposed to this popular literature, which will surely not satisfy the truly religious mind, we are fortunate to have the writings of Venerable Ñāņavīra Thera,i who vehemently criticized all attempts to simplify the Buddha’s Teaching, whether in theory or practice. His Notes on Dhamma has been acclaimed as ‘the most important book of the century’ for its revolutionary and uncompromising existential interpretation of the Suttas, in which the author constantly reminds us, as the Buddha warned Ananda, that the Dhamma is ‘deep, profound and difficult to see’—an Aryan discipline, not for the many but for the few. Its tone was described by one of its original readers as ‘arrogant, scathing and condescending’. In departure from popular custom, the puthujjana reader is ‘treated as if he had no opinion worth consulting’ and so will find himself directly and personally challenged to adopt the viewpoint of the author, a sotāpanna, one who has attained sammādiṭṭhi, orRight View.ii

Moreover, Ven. Ñāņavīra has caused great scandal in Buddhist circles for having reduced ‘with a few strokes of the pen … the three baskets to two’. He maintained that the age-old Commentaries and Abhidhamma, disinterested professional philosophers and scholar-monks armed with ‘tidy charts’ containing conventional and facile explications of paṭiccasamuppāda, kamma and rebirth,iii have done a disservice to anyone who seriously intends to put the Buddha’s teaching into practice; for much of what they say (aside from their Pali grammars, dictionaries and concordances) is either downright misleading or ‘objective’, sub specie æterni, and therefore not the concern of anyone in particular.

Many of us, before encountering this present volume, thought we understood ‘dependent origination’, kamma and rebirth, having been taught the spurious simile of the flame or absurd notions such as ‘neither he nor another is reborn’. Awed by centuries of tradition, both clergy and laity have recited these elementary formulae and allowed unresolved contradictions to pass under the guise of “mysticism”. Conversely, our author debunks these convenient and long-held fallacies, and insists that if we are at all serious we must learn Pali, study the Suttas and adhere rigorously to the Laws of Thought. Moreover, he is adamant that we puthujjanas admit both our ignorance and inauthenticity, and stop fooling ourselves by believing we understand what in fact we do not understand. Ven. Ñāņavīra’s demands may make readers squirm in their easy chairs, but as he once wrote to his physician, quoting Kierkegaard, ‘The very maximum of what one human being can do for another … is to inspire him with concern and unrest’.

For this reason the Notes will undermine the comfortable position of many contemporary Buddhists who, having never studied the Suttas, blithely remark, ‘I just practise’. As if one could practise the Dhamma without comprehending it; or worse, as if the Dhamma were shallow, superficial and obvious instead of deep, profound and difficult to see. And if we are to take the Buddha at his word, the Dhamma must be our chief, nay, our only concern.iv Any other concern is meaningless, for the only worthwhile goal for the puthujjana’s farcical existence—as our author bluntly describes it—is to cease being a puthujjana. And that, as he was wont to say, needs hard work.

Those few who are prepared to study and practise the Dhamma afresh, putting aside both the encrustation of centuries and jejune New Age “dharma”, will experience a revolution, a metanoia, as they read this book. Herein they will find the essentials of the Buddha’s Teaching as they have never heretofore been explained. Not, of course that our author’s philosophical commentary on the Suttas sets out to render them any easier;v rather, they are rendered more rewarding via the scrutiny of a powerful intellect possessing the ‘clear and stainless Eye of the Dhamma’: by one ‘attained to view’ and fully percipient of the truth of anicca.

Another consideration, only slightly less important for those of us who strive to understand the Suttas in a world far removed from that in which they were composed, is Ven. Ñāņavīra’s English background and education, which facilitated an approach to the Dhamma in a Western mode. Some consider this a disadvantage: there are those who believe that the Dhamma is the sole property of Asia, or more curiously that in their country alone is Buddhism truly understood.vi Moreover, critics of our present volume, many of whom are Westerners themselves, have censured Ven. Ñāņavīra for his existentialism and neglected the selections from Bradley, Camus, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Sartre and others he used to illustrate the Notes. But as we read in Letter 107:

 

This criticism, however, supposes that we are, in fact, able to approach the Canon with a perfectly virgin mind, equipped only with a knowledge of Pali and a sound training in logic. But this is precisely what we cannot do. Each of us, at every moment, has the whole of his past behind him; and it is in the light of his past (or his background or his presuppositions) that he interprets what is now presented to him and gives it its meaning. Without such a background nothing would ever appear to us with any meaning at all … Certainly we can, to some extent, deduce from the Canon its meaning; but unless we first introduced our own ideas we should never find that the Canon had any meaning to be deduced.

This is precisely the case with Notes on Dhamma. Heavily reliant on twentieth-century Western philosophy and literature, it boldly introduces existentialist ideas into the Canon, and the meaning to be deduced from it becomes readily apparent. Ven. Ñāņavīra quickly cautions us that the Existentialists are in no wise a substitute for the Buddha, for whatever their merits, they found ‘No Exit’vii to the dilemmas they posed and consequently remained puthujjanas. Nevertheless, he learned from them that one must take a ‘vertical view, straight down into the abyss of his own personal existence’ in order to progress in the Dhamma. He relentlessly asserts that meaning of the Canon relates to me, to my problems, my frustrations, my sorrows, and their resolution—and nothing else. He regarded the ‘horizontal’ or impartial view, so often taken by post-canonical texts, as a kaṇha dhamma: a ‘dark teaching’, not leading to awakening, or to borrow an existentialist idiom, yet another act of ‘bad faith’. Hence the author’s motive for reducing the three baskets to two.

So at last, we have an original work on the Dhamma, not just a rehash of the Visudhimagga or the Abhidhamma; one which does not catalogue 52 types of consciousness, nor speculate on how many thought-moments occur per second.viii At last, we have an author who instead discards all such ‘dead matter’ extraneous to the luminous teaching of the Suttas, which reveals the Exit from anguish and discontent. This I consider one of the most valuable contributions of the Notes, and one must keep it in mind at all times while attempting to follow the line of reasoning in this admittedly difficult book.ix

In other words, as one follows each Note, including the lengthy discussion on paṭiccasamuppāda, the argument hinges on these questions: Is the Dhamma objective, a treatise on cause-and-effect, as many would have it? Or is it essentially subjective, concerning a present, personal and vital problem, i.e. the Care and Anxiety (Heidegger’s Sorge) experienced right at this moment, for which I alone am responsible?

If the Dhamma is objective, the tilakkaṇa (anicca, dukkha, anattā) can be observed as external phenomena by any puthujjana. He is told, for example, that hair eventually turns grey and that a chariot, (perhaps a car or a computer is substituted), is merely a collection of components, which may be disassembled. Further, he is reminded, as modern physics has asserted, that the molecules of the car’s solid and liquid components are in ‘constant motion’ or ‘flux’. Once he assents to this, it can be demonstrated to him that because the car is subject to change, it has ‘no self’, and ‘in the highest sense’ does not exist.x By this nifty logic, the car standing before him disappears, and our pupil may now relinquish his misguided attachment to it. Summarily cured of avijjā, he perceives anicca and anattā, core elements of the Buddha’s Teaching.

Notice, however, the conspicuous absence of dukkha in the equation, and as our author demurs, ‘the problem has been solved by leaving it out’. Why should I or anyone suffer because objects are in flux? Certainly not because various molecules move within an assembly of parts, or that a strand of proteins changes colour. Is it not for the reason that as a puthujjana, I cling to attā, a notion of ‘self’, which determines those phenomena as mine?xi That ‘self’, in the act of appropriation, takes on the guise of a persona of a drama wherein I, the protagonist, affect and am affected by a world rife with change. That any car whatsoever is a collection of parts is of no consequence; but when this one belongs to me it becomes an immediate concern, because at any moment one or more of its components may wear out or malfunction; and if so, I shall not be able to get around, it will cost me so many thousand rupees to repair it, I shall have work overtime to come up with the money, etc. Similarly, those grey hairs on my head are not mere strands of protein, but harbingers of my body’s decline; now women will no longer find me attractive and I shall be deprived of sensual pleasure. And even if the car is in perfect condition today, there remains the troublesome possibility of a break down tomorrow, and although my hair at present may be coal-black, there remains the certainty that to my dismay it will someday turn grey or fall out. This too, as the Suttas say, is dukkha.xii

These brief observations alone should demonstrate that for a puthujjana Care and Anxiety lurk in each moment; and impermanence, with its ever-present menace to “my self” (read: an illusory sense of mastery over circumstances), necessarily implies suffering as a structural principle of my existence. Consequently, as Ven. Ñāņavīra contends in Letter 53, only subjective aniccatā, inseparable from dukkha, is relevant to the Buddha’s Teaching; hence,the tilakkaņa triad ‘has no intelligible application if applied objectively to things’.

So, as we go through the Notes, we shall see that the author’s ‘subjective’ viewpoint in no way intends an abrogation of hard thinking or hard work, and that an objective analysis of the Dhamma, no matter how “logical”, fails to rise above the mundane. If anicca concerns things, we should be better equipped with a microscope than with wisdom to observe it; if paṭiccasamuppāda deals with cause-and-effect, explains kamma and vipāka, and may be ‘portrayed diagrammatically on one very large sheet of paper’xiii as it is so often done, then it should not take an arahant to comprehend it. Yet the Buddha declares in the Nidana Saṃyutta that he experienced a “breakthrough” when he realized the inner workings of paṭiccasamuppāda. We have been told that the revolutionary idea comprises the knowledge that one stage in this so-called cycle precedes another, that ignorance in the past leads to birth, ageing and death taking place over three lifetimes. But even supposing we accept this explanation, can this knowledge be described as lokuttara, supermundane, difficult to fathom?

Our author contends that ‘dependent origination’ is a structural, rather than temporal principle. As he states in his shorter note, “Any interpretation of paţiccasamuppāda that involves time is an attempt to resolve the present problem by referring to past or future, and is therefore necessarily mistaken.” Our present, personal and vital problem, which cannot be resolved in previous or successive incarnations, concerns the notion of an ‘extra-temporal changeless “self”’, whose pleasurable and worthwhile existence is assumed a priori, and yet to whom the miseries of birth, ageing and death, sorrow and lamentation apply (§10). Taṇhā, upādāna, bhava and all the other aspects of the series, with their concomitant dukkha, arise because in the puthujjana a persona ‘presses for recognition’ and seeks (in vain) its fulfilment in experience. And as a persona, he cannot help but act out his role, at the same time reinforcing his self-identification, thereby perpetuating a drama where his antagonist, Sorge, confronts him in every scene.

Ven. Ñāņavīra’s crucial distinction between ‘individual’ and ‘person’ shows us the nature of the Buddha’s truly genuine breakthrough: for the ‘person’, events happen to and for ‘me’, they are ‘mine’. Hence for him all ‘contact’ (phassa), assumes a ‘self’; it occurs between ‘me and things’, while for the individual, i.e. the arahant, there is also contact, but merely between the eye and visual objects, the ear and sounds, etc. The same with ‘name-and-form’ (nāmarūpa) and ‘consciousness’ (viññāṇa), which have one significance for the puthujjana, engrossed in the incidents of pleasure and displeasure, gain and loss, fame and disrepute, and quite another for the ariyasāvaka, who is not. This provides the rationale for the possibility—indeed, the responsibility—of bringing contact, name-and-form and consciousness to an end in the present. To do so one must ‘stop’: cease to act, walk off the stage, and leave the theatre. The ariyasāvaka, having observed the tilakkaṇa as inherent in every dhamma, is no longer entertainedxiv by the drama.

As outlined above, the subjective or existential approach of Notes on Dhamma may appear to render the Buddha’s Teaching more obscure and more difficult to practise. Yet upon reflection it will become clear that other books have hoodwinked us by making the Dhamma look simple. If phassa can be compared, as in the Milindapañhā, to the contact between two cymbals, and such a key concept as nāmarūpa defined as ‘mind-and-matter’ or as George Grimm’s ‘mind-body machine’, then we hardly need the wisdom of a Buddha to enlighten us.xv Moreover, in this case nirodho, or the cessation of all elements of paṭiccasamuppāda would be impossible, and a living arahant a contradiction in terms: for no one still walking and breathing could do away with the mind-body machine.

Of course, the Teaching is atakkāvacara, and no matter how learned a puthujjana may be, only by developing sīla, samādhi and paññā can he become an Aryan. Indeed, as our author argues, avijjā is not ‘a purely verbal misunderstanding’, and Right View is not achieved through an informed choice. Yet he also argues that one cannot truly develop sīla, samādhi and paññā if he ‘just practises’ while misinformed of what the practice is all about; or while under the spell of modern mysticism, which tells him the chair upon which he sits does not exist; or while seduced by “Buddhism without beliefs”, whereby he may comfortably ‘seek refuge in distractions’ and in the Dhamma at the same time.

To our benefit, Ven. Ñāņavīra Thera has in great measure ‘cleared the path’ of the above-mentioned superficial notions of paṭiccasamuppāda and its constituent terms, as well as numerous other fatuous misconceptions. We may now proceed along the Way unimpeded by the ‘dead matter’ which has littered it for so long.

NOTES:

i Born in 1920, the only child of wealthy British parents, Harold Edward Musson graduated from Cambridge University, where he received First Class Honours in Modern Languages. Abandoning his ‘prospects’ and inheritance, he ordained as a bhikkhu in 1950 in Ceylon, where he remained until his death in 1965. For a thorough understanding of his revolutionary approach to the Dhamma, I consider it absolutely imperative to read this book alongside his collected letters (Volume II of our present edition). Another important text, based on Ven. Nāņavīra’s writings, is Ven. Bodhesako’s Change (Colombo: Karunaratne and Sons, 1991). Those with access to the internet may find it and other material related to the life and work of our author by viewing the Nāņavīra Thera Dhamma Page at http:/www. geocities.com/Athens/9366.

ii See especially Letters to Mrs. Irene Quittner for initial reaction to Notes on Dhamma, which was at first circulated privately in a cyclostyled or mimeographed version. Together with the author’s collected Letters (1960–1965) it was later published in Clearing the Path (Colombo: Path Press, 1987), now out of print.

iii See Shorter Notes for Ven. Ñāņavīra’s critique of the inconsistencies of the ‘Na ca so na ca añño’ argument of the Milindapañha, ‘a particularly misleading book’.

iv Compare Kierkegaard, quoted in Letter 119: ‘Because for him [the authentic man] the ethical is absolutely important, differing in this from men in general, for whom so many things are important, aye, nearly everything, but nothing absolutely important.’

v In fact, our author went so far as to assert that only an arahant could master the Suttas, and perhaps not all of them.

vi I myself have heard this asserted in each of the three major Theravāda countries: Thailand, Burma and Sri Lanka.

vii From the title of one of Sartre’s most famous plays (in the original French, Huis Clos).

viii Medieval scholastic philosophy has long been an object of satire for speculating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. For some reason similar irrelevancies such as those mentioned are still taken seriously in Buddhist discussions.

ix Even the author admitted (Letter 4) that he, too, sometimes found it difficult.

x See the Note on Paramatta Sacca, §§8–10 for a fuller critique of this false teaching.

xi See “A Note on Paţiccasamuppāda” §§11–15 for Ven. Ñāņavīra’s lengthy and innovative treatment of saņkhārā and cetanā. His unique translation of the former term as ‘determination’ demonstrates how the subject designates and appropriates its object (thereby fostering attavāda). Compare the following from Arthur Schopenhauer: ‘This point, indeed, is essentially and of necessity the subjective, our own consciousness. For this alone is and remains that which is immediate; everything else, be it what it may, is first mediated and conditioned by consciousness, and therefore dependent on it.’ The World as Will and Representation vol. II, New York: Dover, 1969), p. 4.

xii Compare the following passage by the novelist Alberto Moravia: ‘The normal state of affairs in life did not consist of my designs for happiness, but rather the opposite: that is, of all its things, its eventualities, fortuitous and rebellious against plans and projects, revealing themselves to be defective and unforeseeable, bringing disappointment and sorrow.’ La romana (Milano: Bompiani, 1947, p. 142). My translation.

xiii See Letter 149.

xiv In broadest sense of the word, from the Latin inter+tenere: i.e. to hold or divert one’s attention or interest, and to hold back, detain (e.g., in samsāra).

xv As Ven. Ñāņavīra emphasizes, ‘The passage at Dīgha ii,2 <D.ii,62-3> … rules out the facile and slipshod interpretation of nāmarūpa as “mind-&-matter”.’ In his Note on Nāma he gives a more profound interpretation of ‘the designation of a phenomenon’ or ‘the form or guise’ adopted by behaviour (rūpa). For greater clarification of the complex implications of this Sutta term, refer also to Shorter Notes on Cetanā, Phassa, Rūpa and Viññāņa.

REVIEW OF VEN. ÑĀNAVĪRA' LETTERS AFTER 1960
by John Stella

Among the Letters of Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera we may distinguish several literary techniques, perhaps more than his editor Ven. Bodhesako recognized. First, as he noted, they have much in common with the epistolary tradition in which ‘serious philosophical and literary discussion was conducted on a personal basis within a small circle of thinkers’. Especially with Ven. Ñāṇamoli Thera and his publisher, Judge Lionel Samaratunga, our author exchanged letters at a rapid pace, dealing with topics such as Existentialism, literature, the Laws of Thought, quantum physics and their relevance to the Dhamma. They often contained diagrams, equations and lengthy quotations in Pali and French.

Secondly, several of the Letters comprise ‘thinly disguised essays in a wholly modern tradition’, on issues such as the crucial distinctions between change and flux in Letter 8, and between positive and negative thinkers in Letters 22 and 27; on the nature of addiction in Letter 13; and on the merits of the existentialists in Letter 121.

Thirdly, Ven. Ñāṇavīra himself describes the Letters as ‘something of a commentary on the Notes’. His habit of cross-referencing in his book persists in his correspondence, as he often refers his readers to “Note X, Paragraph Y” of the text to sustain his argument. Hence it is that we may often come to a clearer understanding of the Notes via a study of the Letters, especially since the prose therein is not so dense.

Fourthly, those dealing with ‘the tragic, the comic and the personal’ii do not so much belong to the modern tradition, but rather reflect the style and content of the voluminous works of Michel de Montaigne.iii As do the Essais of the 16th century French classicist, Ven. Ñāṇavīra’s Letters offer his readers an astonishingly candid and variegated portrait of a solitary genius. One expression of that portrait shows a mind able to articulate conspicuously the thinking process, while another reveals a unique method of literary criticism, analyzing works by Dostoievsky, Huxley, Kafka, Joyce and Sterne to express the Dhamma in a Western idiom. At the same time it depicts the day-to-day life of one striving to follow the Buddha’s Teaching to the utmost, since for him the Dhamma was the only thing he took seriously. On the other hand, he was not insensitive to the comic aspects of a formerly well-to-do Englishman residing in a hut at the edge of a Ceylonese jungle, visited by elephants, snakes and tarantulas, and by curious people who were unsure whether he was a saint or a madman.

Yet again in the spirit of Montaigne who, according to Professor Frame, ‘combined insatiable curiosity about himself with remarkable detachment’, Ven. Ñāṇavīra’s aim ‘is not confession but communication’.iv Despite the ‘perverse complexities’ of his situation, he refuses to attach importance to it: more inclined to indulge in “black humour” than to lapse into self-pity or egotism, he relates his bouts with chronic intestinal disorders, satyriasis and despondency with what may be termed “forthright nonchalance”. In this way, the self-portrait remains at all times ‘incidental to the ideas’.

Finally, among the correspondence readers will find valuable advice for understanding and practising the Dhamma, gleaned from the author’s profound and comprehensive knowledge of the Suttas and his meditative experience. They may want to pay particular attention to his remarks on sati and on mettā bhāvanā, which he rightly describes as ‘notoriously easy to misconceive’.

Let us consider these perspectives in some detail. As authorial commentaries, the Letters call for close, serious study, on the level demanded by the Notes. It is worth mentioning that critics who have rejected the reasoning of “A Note on Paţiccasamuppāda” have never taken the Shorter Notes or the Letters into account. But the whole of what comprised Clearing the Path is more than the sum of its parts. As Ven. Ñāṇavīra writes in Letter 75, they are ‘like so many beads inter-connected with numbers of threads, in a kind of three-dimensional network’ which cannot be taken in isolation. Also, as he acknowledges, his formal publications exhibit his peculiar gift for ‘sweating down’ an idea: therefore, much of the illustration and elaboration of his arguments will be found amidst the ‘serious philosophical discussion’ conducted with his correspondents. Most readers of Notes will find comments in the Letters essential to comprehending intricate entries such as those on Attā, Dhamma, Sańkhāra and Fundamental Structure.

Just as essential are the long essays, which not only resolve individual queries regarding Sutta passages, the nature of change or the anatomy of consciousness, but also give us insight into the workings of Ven. Ñāṇavīra’s mind as we try to adopt his point of view. His method may be described simply, even if its implementation is complex. As demonstrated in the Foreword to the Notes, the approach always consists of taking a subjective view, at once remaining faithful to our own experience and adhering to the Laws of Thought. For example, in letters 6–8 our author denies the assertion that continuous change is ‘a matter of observation’. He argues instead that what we normally do is to apply an abstract notion we have learnt about theoretically to our concrete experience. Unfortunately, this tendency has become habitual in our thinking, for it is easier to accept someone else’s theory than to test it ourselves. As these letters demonstrate, no one has ever really observed continuous change or flux; nevertheless, many take it for granted, without pausing to consider the rather obvious fact that the exclusion of sameness or stasis renders meaningless the notion of change.

In contrast, Ven. Ñāṇavīra does not allow himself the leisure of lazy thinking, and those who indulge in it are exposed to the glare of his intellect’s ‘powerful searchlight’—be they his own correspondents, or well-known professional scholars such as Rhys Davids, Wijesekara, Jayatilleke and Burtt, who, despite their wealth of facts about Buddhism, hopelessly misconstrue the Buddha’s Teaching. Like so many, they write about Buddhist practices and ethics from an objective or historical perspective, and it apparently never occurs to them to apply those ethics to themselves as existing human beings and practise the Dhamma for real. But ethics, particularly for a religious mind, is clearly about what I should do, not about what Caesar or King Bimbisâra did. As Ven. Ñāṇavīra points out, history is accidental to ethics; otherwise, the term becomes relative to time and place, thus losing its meaning altogether. Moreover, the academic study of Buddhist ethics is a contradiction in terms, since the texts under discussion proclaim that one must not study the Suttas to become ‘full of lore’, but solely for the purpose of release. In order to write about Buddhism from a historical or scholarly perspective, this fact must be neatly put aside.

Ven. Ñāṇavīra extends his capacity for exposing inauthenticity into the realm of literary criticism, and as we mentioned in the Foreword to the first volume, his ability to express Dhamma in a Western mode is especially valuable for modern readers. The reason is evident. Nowadays, the majority of the literate population of the world, even in Asia, have been to some extent Westernized, and share at least in part our author’s background. This is manifest in Ven. Ñāṇavīra’s discussion of European plays and novels with Sri Lankan correspondents, who were familiar with the texts. And even supposing we have not heard Mozart’s operas, read Beckett, Kafka, Shakespeare or Sartre, their ways of thinking and their characters have been so deeply ingrained in our minds that unless we are expert Indologists, we most often communicate using their vocabulary, not the Buddha’s. It is pointless to pretend otherwise. We routinely describe someone as a Don Juan or a Shylock, describe our frustration in terms of waiting for Godot, or suffer like Roquentin from “alienation” and “ennui”.

Like it or not, such is our background, and as Ven. Ñāṇavīra demonstrates in Letter 107, we cannot approach the Dhamma as if it were not. Therefore, when he draws on serious works of fiction to elucidate the Notes or the Suttas, it should not be startling, or misinterpreted as an attempt to water down the Dhamma for Western tastes.v For as Professor Mario Olivieri points out, ‘Only when our internal awareness becomes resilient and concentrated enough will we no longer need the sensory support of metaphors and symbols.’vi Therefore, as long as we remain puthujjanas, we shall need to utilize every means conducive to our comprehension of what is ‘deep, profound and difficult to see’. Finally, the virtue of a familiar symbol or character is that the mind can immediately, without thinking, visualize many aspects of a complex notion at once.

For example, upon reading the existentialists, we come across references to l’homme moyen sensuel, the average sensual man who in “bad faith” dodges responsibility for his actions. These words may leave only a faint impression on our consciousness, but when in selected works of literature the concept of bad faith is vividly dramatized, an indelible image is etched in our memory. And especially after reading Letters 59, 62, 68 and 69 dealing with Kafka’s The Trial, the image of the protagonist Joseph K. will signify l’homme moyen sensuel and all he represents, as he is suddenly forced to reflect on the gratuitous nature of his existence. According to Ven. Ñāṇavīra’s innovative analysis of the novel, this incident constitutes his ‘arrest’, i.e. when he is challenged to give an account of himself and is unable to do so. Of course, Joseph K.’s immediate reaction is to absolve himself: ‘Above all, if he were to achieve anything, it was essential that he should eliminate from his mind the idea of possible guilt.’vii Indeed, if one is to “make good” in this world, he must continually avoid self-examination; otherwise, he will lose his ambition and neglect his affairs. Hence, Joseph K. complains his arrest occurs at a bad time, when he is under too much pressure at the Bank to busy himself about the charges against him. Yet he also rightly realizes that ‘If he were to put up a thoroughgoing defence—and any other would be a waste of time—to put up a thoroughgoing defence, did that not involve cutting himself off from every other activity?’viii

In these crucial passages we may identify Joseph K. as a quintessential puthujjana, despite his occasional instances of reflexion. To recall our definition of ethics, he knows full well what he should do: he should at once cut himself off from every other activity and live authentically, which would truly constitute a thoroughgoing defense. But, like a typical commoner, he does in fact waste his time and energy, whether on troublesome intrigues at work or on pleasurable diversions, both of which serve to take his mind off the alarming apprehension of existential guilt. Moreover, Joseph K.’s urge to ‘snatch at the world with twenty hands’ takes on a darker meaning as upādāna, while his attempts to acquit himself of the charges are in bad faith, since they are accompanied by procrastination, self-serving assurances and dalliances with women.

As with existentialist philosophy, serious fiction cannot substitute for the Suttas; however, ‘at least for one accustomed to Western ideas’ its symbolism may likewise provide ‘a more direct and fundamental approach to things than that of empirical science’ which dominates contemporary discourse. Therefore, a ‘Ñāṇavīrist’ interpretation of The Trial and other works will go a long way towards revolutionizing our way of reading and thinking.

For instance, let us apply what we have learnt from our author to a work composed by one of the Buddha’s contemporaries, in order to better understand a critical Pali concept. Probably the most famous ancient Greek tragedy is Oedipus Tyrannus, also known as Oedipus Rex.ix It dramatizes the downfall of the protagonist, a foundling, who by virtue of his acumen rose to power in the city of Thebes. Abandoned on a mountain by his father King Laïus, who was warned by the god Apollo that his son would kill him, he was saved from death by a shepherd, then adopted and raised kindly by Polybus and Merope, king and queen of Corinth. But upon hearing the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother, he flees Corinth. On his journey he quarrels with and kills a man who blocks his way. He then travels to Thebes, which at the time was being harassed by the Sphinx, a monster who posed a riddle to passers-by and devoured all who could not answer it. Oedipus solves the riddle, thus freeing Thebes, and in reward is made its ruler and given in marriage to its widowed queen Jocasta, by whom he has four children. Subsequently, Thebes is ravaged by famine and plague, and according to the Delphic Oracle, these calamities will persist until the slayer of King Laïus, Jocasta’s first husband, is banished from the Boeotian capital. Oedipus is charged with finding and punishing the offender. Tiresias, a blind seer, comes forward and hints that the tyrant himself is the one responsible for the city’s plight. Oedipus becomes enraged, refuses to admit guilt and accuses others of plotting against him. However, ensuing evidence confirms his true parents are Laïus and Jocasta, not Polybus and Merope, and that the stranger he murdered was his own father. At last, the protagonist is forced to admit to himself and others that he is guilty of parricide and incest. Upon these revelations, Jocasta hangs herself in the palace, and out of grief and remorse, Oedipus puts out his eyes.

Many who have never seen or read the play by Sophocles are familiar with Sigmund Freud’s famous analysis of it, the basis for his controversial theory known as the ‘Oedipus complex’, explained in The Interpretation of Dreams (V, D). For the Austrian psychologist, the drama represents a latent sexual attraction on the part of every male child to his mother, accompanied by jealousy and antipathy towards his father.x Hence the universal appeal of the tragedy since, according to Freud, we all share the guilt of Oedipus: ‘His destiny moves us only because it might have been ours—because the oracle laid the same curse upon us before our birth as upon him.’

Freud’s reading of the play has been widely accepted. It does merit consideration, especially for perceiving that Sophocles dramatizes a latent guilt in all of us. However, the major drawback of his theory is that a crucial component of it—the contention that everyone undergoes an Oedipus complex in his early years—is purely speculative. While it is possible I was once infatuated with my mother, I do not recall my infancy; so I must rely on a psychologist, who in turn does not remember his, to tell me about it: because, according to Freud, memories of incestuous desire are “repressed”, i.e. buried in the unconscious. This fails to meet the criteria of Ven. Ñāṇavīra’s method, in which all assertions about human experience must be immediately verifiable. Even if I could recall events of a repressed past, even of a past life, I would remain in doubt: for as our author avers in “A Note on Paţiccasamuppāda” §7, ‘memory is not on the same level of certainty as present reflexive experience’. Therefore, we must go beyond the incest taboo in order to explain why ‘the oracle laid the same curse upon us as upon him’.xi

Let us see if we can arrive at a more satisfactory interpretation of the myth. The Italian novelist and essayist Alberto Moravia raises some crucial questions about the great Sophoclean tragedy which are seldom, if ever, addressed.xii While allowing that myths portray improbable events, he says it is reasonable to assume they still have realistic elements to them. So, for him it is striking that throughout their long marriage, Oedipus and Jocasta apparently never spoke of King Laïus, in whose palace they sleep; or, assuming they did, why does Oedipus—married to an older widow, and knowing full well the prophecies of the oracle—never suspect that those prophecies have come true? From his arrival in Thebes through the epidemic of the plague, he remains strangely ignorant or unaware of who he is and what he is doing. For as we recall, he is renowned for his intelligence, having solved the Sphinx’s riddle.

The only plausible explanation is that the protagonist makes himself deaf and blind to his own guilt, ignoring or repressing, if you will, the obvious connection between what he knows and what he fears. Thus, his is a studied, intentional ignorance with moral implications, unlike a mere lack of knowledge.

There is no riddle to his motives. Clearly, Oedipus continues to act in bad faith because it suits him. He prefers to remain in the dark because in so doing he may unabashedly prolong his enjoyment of power and pleasure: for only as long as he conceals the facts from himself and others may he maintain the position he usurped from his father, as ruler over Thebes by day and lover of Jocasta by night.

Hence, for Moravia the story of Oedipus is not one of illicit love and failed ambition, which, though powerful, would lack universal relevance. More profoundly, it is the tragedy par excellence of ‘wilful, presumptuous, cowardly and wicked ignorance’, which is ‘the origin of all evils’. Therefore, in the standard “recognition scene” of Greek drama, in which the identity of someone previously unknown is at last revealed to the protagonist, Oedipus is compelled, like Joseph K., to arrest himself. The charge is neither parricide nor incest, but rather that of closing his eyes to his own self-deception; his past crimes are not so grievous as his refusal to admit them, nor so despicable as his ongoing indulgence in greed and sensuality, facilitated by remaining conveniently unknowing and ‘unseeing’. Thus his comeuppance is not death or castration, but self-induced blindness.

In sum, we have witnessed the ultimate drama of crucial aspects of taṇhā and avijjā. As Ven. Ñāṇavīra writes in Letter 149, ‘Avijjā functions automatically, but conceals this fact from itself. Avijjā is an automatically functioning blindness to its automatic functioning.’ This wilful ignorance is the “tragic flaw” of Oedipus, Joseph K., and of every puthujjana. It conspires with us as we routinely and intentionally compromise ourselves in countless ways in the pursuit of self-gratification by yielding to our desires, furthering our ambitions, justifying our anger and excusing our indolence. Yet by a manoeuvre of the mind so vividly portrayed in both ancient and modern “fiction”, we summarily vindicate ourselves of our misdeeds by staging a mock trial. As we recall from “A Note on Paţiccasamuppāda” §25, ‘Avijjā is the Judge as well as the Accused, and the verdict is always “Not Guilty”.’xiii

This ‘Ñāṇavīrist’ interpretation enjoys the certainty of present reflexive experience and provides us a vivid illustration of ‘the origin of all evils’. Now, no one need resort to theories about infantile libido or undergo hypnosis to determine whether or not he shares the guilt of Oedipus. Let him merely observe the ‘automatic function’ at work in his own actions and reactions as he goes about his daily affairs. If he is honest with himself when asking the pointed questions of Letter 2 (‘What am I doing/thinking right at this moment?’), the answer will be as evident as a sensation of heat or cold. When challenged to give an account of himself, he will instinctively wink at the prospect of culpability.xiv

In contrast, Ven. Ñāṇavīra’s letters reveal an unblinking, reptilian eye, constantly examining the ethics of his motives and his behaviour. Unlike that of Oedipus and Joseph K., his gaze is never averted; nothing is concealed. Four centuries elapsed since a man had last offered such a forthright and comprehensive account of himself—to the point that our author’s frankness has provoked as great a scandal as his convictions.

Critics have been appalled by the correspondence with his physician and his publisher wherein he contemplates putting an end to his life. They have used it as a weapon to attack him personally and to discredit his Notes on Dhamma. Supposedly, one who could commit such a desperate act was surely non compos mentis and could not possibly perceive the Dhamma correctly: those ‘morbid’ thoughts prove his ideas are flawed, or worse, deluded. But such specious reasoning should really be an object of satire. Had Shakespeare taken his life, would his plays be a whit less meaningful? Should we dismiss the dialogues of Socrates because he drank poison? And what about the arahants mentioned in the Suttas who ‘used the knife’? Did they not comprehend the Buddha’s Teaching?

Clearly, the real question is whether Ven. Ñāṇavīra’s ideas on Dhamma hold up to scrutiny. It is a pity to spend even a few words refuting ad hominem arguments, but as he would say, although the ‘seasoned thinker’ will be wise to them, they could deceive readers unacquainted with logical fallacies.

Nevertheless, the suicide issue must be confronted. One naturally winces as our author nonchalantly explores the ways and means to cut short a life so endowed with genius. His insights are so acute that we who have learnt from him naturally wish he had enjoyed Montaigne’s longevity and written enough essays to fill three volumes. But we must proceed slowly. Ven. Ñāṇavīra plainly tells us why he no longer wanted to live. First of all, he suffered from great physical distress: in addition to amoebiasis, the gut-wrenching bowel disorder he discusses in detail, he was afflicted by diarrhea, insomnia, bursitis and damage to his sciatic nerve from sitting cross-legged all night on hard floors.xv His doctors could not cure him, and during the last years of his life he endured constant and severe pain.

Ven. Ñāṇavīra obviously had a strong personality, certainly tough enough to endure the aforementioned torments in themselves. Yet as his letters reveal, his ailments inhibited to an intolerable extent his ability to meditate and thus progress further towards arahattā, the only thing that really mattered to him. This last point must be kept in mind. He could have disrobed, of course, or carried on as a scholar-monk. But he did not become a bhikkhu in order to publish articles or spend his days on correspondence.xvi And since, as he saw it, the unswerving pursuit of nibbāna was the only justifiable purpose of his existence, he could not in good faith return to lay life. With no hope of ever again practising intense concentration, he was in effect condemned to serving a life sentence, which after long deliberation he decided to terminate.

Nowhere in the letters does he commend suicide. Indeed, it would have been a severe infraction against the Vinaya to do so. For a puthujjana, the consequences of suicide could be grave: as the Buddha warns in the Samyuttanikāya, most beings regress to a lower state after death. But as a sotāpanna our author ran no such risk; he was assured fortunate rebirths of a limited number before attaining release. That assurance must have also influenced his decision.

Lastly, some have unjustly charged our author with a nasty disposition, which they have mistakenly inferred from the sometimes acerbic tone of the Notes. For example, one samanera gave away his copy of Clearing the Path because he had become ‘very harsh’ after reading it. Surely because he had read it wrongly. On numerous occasions Ven. Ñāṇavīra stated that he had no wish to irritate anybody. On the other hand, he realized that a meek demur to the prevailing catechism resounded by Buddhist Orthodoxy would have had the effect of a whisper amidst a wrangle in an aeroplane hangar: it would not have been worth his breath. As he explained to Mrs. Quittner, ‘People will listen, but only if the unfamiliar is uttered loudly and firmly enough to inspire them with courage to think against tradition.’xvii

It was inevitable that an iconoclast such as Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera should be controversial, and that the Establishment would enlist its champions to shout him down. All have failed, and to date none of them has ever been accused of writing ‘the most important book of the century’.

i The Introduction to Ven. Ñāṇavīra’s Collected Letters and the Preface to his Notes on Dhamma are written on the invitation by the chief dāyaka, who has decided to republish these writings in two volumes in the hope that more persons will benefit from our author’s understanding of the Dhamma. The original 750 copies of Clearing the Path are now sold out, although a corrupted version of it missing some sections has appeared in Thailand. Our present edition is complete, and includes a selection of Letters not previously published (See Appendix).
ii From the title of the selection printed by the Buddhist Publication Society.
iii Although Ven. Ñāṇavīra does not refer directly to Montaigne (1533–1592), it is highly likely that as a student of French literature, before or during his stay at Cambridge, he encountered a writer of Montaigne’s standing.
iv See the Introduction to Montaigne’s Essays and Selected Writings, translated and edited by Donald M. Frame (New York: St. Martin’s, 1963).
v In addition, note that the Buddha himself stated an infinite number of similes were available to express his Teaching.
vi Come in uno specchio (Perugia: Guerra, 1999), p. 8 (my translation).

vii The Trial, translated by Willa and Edwin Muir (New York: Knopf, 1937), p. 160 (italics mine).
viii Ibid., p. 168.
ix Some recent scholarship has estimated that the Buddha lived from about 480–400 BC, roughly coinciding with the life span of the tragedian Sophocles (496–406 BC).
x Similarly, females would feel attraction to their fathers and antipathy toward their mothers, known as an “Elektra complex”.

xi There are other reasons as well. For instance, the incest taboo is not universal, as we know from the history of ancient Egypt, where the royal line was preserved through intermarriage. In addition, the theory does not explain why other events causing intense psychological trauma are not repressed.

xii See L’attenzione (Milano: Bompiani, 1965) pp. 86–89.

xiii In the end, Oedipus and Joseph K. acknowledge their guilt, and ‘this is the furthest that anyone can go—in the direction of understanding, that is—without the Buddha’s Teaching’ (Letter 68); hence, the protagonists do not thereby remove avijjā altogether, since, as Ven. Ñāṇavīra noted, avijjā is comprised of more than intentional ignorance.
xiv Perhaps a recollection of our appraisals of Oedipus and Joseph K. may serve as a strong deterrent to indulge likewise in mauvais foi.

xv For an account of his illness by one physician who treated him, see Dr Kingsley Heendeniya, A Gist of Dhamma (Dehiwala: Buddhist Cultural Centre, 2001) pp. 4–5.

xvi Sadly, it is due to his acute suffering that this volume exists: for had Ven. Ñāṇavīra enjoyed good health he would not have taken on the project of publishing Notes on Dhamma or engaged in lengthy correspondence. See Letters 39 and 43.

xvii See also Letter 76.

A Critical Examination of Bhikkhu Bodhi's Critical Examination of Ñanavra Thera’ s “A Note on Paticcasamuppada”

INTRODUCTION

It is good to notice that Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi is very independent intellectually, and he doesn't hesitate to criticise even the Lord Buddha and Suttas:

Here what he writes in the commentary to Brahmajala DN 1:

Just as a fisherman casting his net over a small pond can be sure that all fish of a certain size will be caught within the net, so, the Buddha declares, whatever thinkers speculate about the past or the future can with certainty be found within the net of his teaching.

Whether the sutta, in its present form, really does succeed in matching this claim is difficult to assess. On reflection it seems that many views from the history of philosophy and theology can be called to mind which resist being neatly classified into the scheme the sutta sets up, while other views can be found which agree in their basic credo with those cited in the sutta but appear to spring from causes other than the limited number that the sutta states they can all be ultimately traced to. Some of these will be noted when we turn to a separate discussion of the individual views.

While some scholars may admire such intellectual independence, average Tathagata's disciple will rather attribute it to lack of knowledge of the Four Noble Truths which knowledge includes recognition that "ultimately the number of views" spring from indeed very limited number of causes, namely one: sakkāyadiṭṭhi.

“As to the various views that arise in the world, householder, ‘The world is eternal’ …—these as well as the sixty-two speculative views mentioned in the Brahmajāla: when there is personality view, these views come to be; when there is no identity view, these views do not come to be.”
SN 41: 3

Generally Lord Buddha was quite sceptical about intellectual independence of his disciples, and discourage it:

“Bhikkhus, for a faithful disciple who is intent on fathoming the Teacher’s Dispensation, it is natural that he conduct himself thus: ‘The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple; the Blessed One knows, I do not know.’"
MN 70

So what it is, that Venerable Bodhi, doesn't know? In his Critical Examination, Venerable Bodhi admits that he doesn't understand suffering:

An unbiased and complete survey of the Nikāyas, however, would reveal that the problem of dukkha to which the Buddha’ s Teaching is addressed is not primarily existential anxiety , nor even the distorted sense of self of which such anxiety may be symptomatic. The primary problem of dukkha with which the Buddha is concerned, in its most comprehensive and fundamental dimensions, is the problem of our bondage to samsāra—the round of repeated birth, aging, and death.

An unbiased and complete survey of the Nikāyas, however, reveals that "the distorted sense of self" is precisely the very problem of dukkha, not understood by the puthujjana.

“This world, Kaccāna, is for the most part shackled by engagement, clinging, and adherence. But this one [with right view] does not become engaged and cling through that engagement and clinging, mental standpoint, adherence, underlying tendency; he does not take a stand about ‘my self.’ He has no perplexity or doubt that what arises is only suffering arising, what ceases is only suffering ceasing. His knowledge about this is independent of others. It is in this way, Kaccāna, that there is right view. SN 12: 15

Since Bhikkhu Bodhi so openly admits here his lack of understanding what constitutes suffering in Dhamma, our Critical Examination could stop here. It is so, because it is not scholarly paper, and the only aim of it is to encourage reader to develop faith in Venerable Nanavira's writings. However let's us point out one more obvious contradiction of Dhamma, in Bhikkhu Bodhi's "examination".

Bhikkhu Bodhi:

While the two triads are expressed in Páli by the same three compounds—kāyasankhāra, vacīsankhāra, cittasankhāra—Ven. Ñánavīra overlooks a fact of prime importance for determining their meaning: namely , that in the Suttas the contexts in which the two triads appear are always kept rigorously separate. The definition of the three sankhārā found in the Cúllavedalla Sutta, and elsewhere in the Canon (at S IV 293), does not occur in the context of PS nor in a context that even touches on PS. This particular definition of the three types of sankhārā—kāyasankhāra, vacīsankhāra, cittasankhāra—always occurs in the course of a discussion on the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling (saññávedayita-nirodha). It is intended to prepare the way for an explanation of the order in which the three types of sankhārā cease when a monk enters the attainment of cessation.

Do we understand Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi properly? Is he really trying to teach us that cessation of sankharas isn't related to dependent arising? Even if so, there is no reason why we should not prefer Suttas, which indeed teach us that there is direct relationship between stilling of all sankharas and the cessation of dependent arising.

It is hard for such a generation to see this truth, that is to say, specific conditionality, dependent arising. And it is hard to see this truth, that is to say, stilling of all sankhaeas, relinquishing of the essentials of existence, exhaustion of craving, fading of lust, cessation, Nibbāna. MN 26

Or even more direct affirmation of strict relationship between the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling and nibbana or cessation of dependent arising:

But the Blessed One has said: “Whatever is felt is included in suffering.” Now with reference to what was this stated by the Blessed One?’”

“Good, good, bhikkhu! These three feelings have been spoken of by me: pleasant feeling, painful feeling, neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling. These three feelings have been spoken of by me. And I have also said: ‘Whatever is felt is included in suffering.’ That has been stated by me with reference to the impermanence of sankharas. That has been stated by me with reference to sankharas being subject to destruction … to sankharas being subject to vanishing … to sankharas being subject to fading away … to sankharas being subject to cessation … to sankharas being subject to change.

“Then, bhikkhu, I have also taught the successive cessation of sankharas. For one who has attained the first jhāna, speech has ceased. For one who has attained the second jhāna, thought and examination have ceased. For one who has attained the third jhāna, rapture has ceased. For one who has attained the fourth jhāna, in-breathing and out-breathing have ceased. For one who has attained the base of the infinity of space, the perception of form has ceased. For one who has attained the base of the infinity of consciousness, the perception pertaining to the base of the infinity of space has ceased. For one who has attained the base of nothingness, the perception pertaining to the base of the infinity of consciousness has ceased. For one who has attained the base of neither-perception-nor-nonperception, the perception pertaining to the base of nothingness has ceased. For one who has attained the cessation of perception and feeling, perception and feeling have ceased. For a bhikkhu whose taints are destroyed, lust has ceased, hatred has ceased, delusion has ceased.
“Then, bhikkhu, I have also taught the successive subsiding of sankharas.

So much for Bhikkhu Bodhi's understanding of Dhamma. Unfortunately in the case of sankharas, Bhikkhu Bodhi fails even on the level of objective scholarship. In his commentary to MN 9 he writes about kāyasankhāra, vacīsankhāra, cittasankhāra:

In the context of the doctrine of dependent origination, formations (sankhārā) are wholesome and unwholesome volitions, or, in short, kamma. The bodily formation is volition that is expressed through the body, the verbal formation volition that is expressed by speech, and the mental formation volition that remains internal without coming to bodily or verbal expression.

But he does so without giving the Pali names of these sankharas, so the reader is likely to be measled taking venerable translator opinion which contradicts Sutta definition of these sankharas as valid, reliable and trustworthy. Bhikkhu Bodhi thinks, that he is wiser than Suttas, and refuses to follow simple logic that if kāyasankhāra, vacīsankhāra, cittasankhāra appear in the context of the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling and as well in the context of dependent arising it must mean that there is a vital connection between these two subjects. But as a scholar he should at least to provide the Pali names of these sankharas, so reader can think for himself.

In his commentary to SN 12 : 2 Bhikkhu Bodhi writes

This triad of saṅkhārā should not be confused with the triad discussed at 41:6 (IV 293,14-28, also at MN I 301,17-29). I have added “volitional” to the present set to distinguish them from the other, though the Pāli terms are identical. The latter triad is always introduced in relation to the cessation of perception and feeling and is never brought into connection with dependent origination.

So Pali terms are identical but since "terms are identical" distinction between kāyasankhāra, vacīsankhāra, cittasankhāra and kāyasankhāra, vacīsankhāra, cittasankhāra quite obviously exist in Venerable's translator mind, and is determined by his (mis)understanding of Dhamma. Perhaps "confusing" kāyasankhāra, vacīsankhāra, cittasankhāra for just kāyasankhāra, vacīsankhāra, cittasankhāra as Suttas define them, would contradict Bhikku's Bodhi view, so we read prohibitive "should not". But perhaps it would be much easier just to give up our own view, if it is in direction contradiction with Suttas, than to adjust Suttas to our own view? In Dhamma we call it abandoning of ditthiupadana. 

It looks like Bhikkhu Bodhi in his eagerness to criticise what he doesn't understand, has forgotten that Pali scholarship has some specific qualityies absent in other forms of scholarship:

“Bhikkhus, there was once a foolish Magadhan cowherd who, in the last month of the rainy season, in the autumn, without examining the near shore or the further shore of the river Ganges, drove his cattle across to the other shore in the Videhan country at a place that had no ford. Then the cattle bunched together in mid-stream in the river Ganges, and they met with calamity and disaster. Why was that? Because that foolish Magadhan cowherd, in the last month of the rainy season, in the autumn, without examining the near shore or the further shore of the river Ganges, drove his cattle across to the other shore in the Videhan country at a place that had no ford.

“So too, bhikkhus, as to those recluses and brahmins who are unskilled in this world and the other world, unskilled in Māra’s realm and what is outside Māra’s realm, unskilled in the realm of Death and what is outside the realm of Death—it will lead to the harm and suffering for a long time of those who think they should listen to them and place faith in them". MN 34