Many thanks for your admirably detailed letter. The attitude you speak of, that of cursing the world and oneself, is, in a sense, the beginning of wisdom. Revolt is the first reaction of an intelligent man when he begins to understand the desperate nature of his situation in the world; and it is probably true to say that nothing great has ever been achieved except by a man in revolt against his situation. But revolt alone is not enough—it eventually contradicts itself. A man in blind revolt is like someone in a railway compartment trying to stop the train by pushing against the opposite seat with his feet: he may be strong enough to damage the compartment, but the damaged compartment will nevertheless continue to move with the train. Except for the arahat, we are all in this train of samsāra, and the problem is to stop the train whilst still travelling in it. Direct action, direct revolt, won't do; but something, certainly, must be done. That it is, in fact, possible to stop the train from within we know from the Buddha, who has himself done it:

I, monks, being myself subject to birth, decay, and death, having seen the misery of subjection to birth, decay, and death, went in search of the unborn, undecaying, undying, uttermost quietus of extinction (nibbāna), and I reached the unborn, undecaying, undying, uttermost quietus of extinction.
Revolt by all means, but let the weapons be intelligence and patience, not disorder and violence; and the first thing to do is to find out exactly what it is that you are revolting against. Perhaps you will come to see that what you are revolting against is avijjā.

An Uncertain Encounter

Were I to meet Professor Heisenberg (a very remote possibility) I imagine the conversation might run something like this.

Professor Heisenberg (pontifically): Ignorance is now included amongst the Laws of Science. The behaviour of an electron, for example, involves the Principle of Uncertainty.

Myself (incredulously): What? You surely don't mean objectively?

Prof. H. (a little surprised): Why not? An electron, we discover, is, by nature, uncertain. That is perfectly objective.

Myself (with heavy sarcasm): An electron really is uncertain! I suppose you are going to tell me that you can read an electron's mind.

Prof. H. (quite unmoved): Of course. How else should we know that it was uncertain?

Myself (completely taken aback): Read an electron's mind? How?

Prof. H. (expansively): Perfectly simple. The mind, as we all know, is the nervous system; and, as the latest and most scientific authorities assure us, we can always discover the state of the nervous system by observation and study of behaviour patterns. All we have to do, then, is to observe an electron and deduce from its behaviour how its nervous system is; and we have discovered, in fact, that it is indeterminate. We are thus able to say that an electron cannot make up its mind.

Myself (fascinated): Yes! Yes! Of course!

Prof. H. (with finality): So you see, an electron is uncertain, just as we may observe that Schmidt is phlegmatic or that Braun is choleric or that you, my dear friend, are, if I may be permitted to say so, a little psychopathic. And what could be more objective than that?
23 August 1957   

           (from letter to Ven. Nanamoli)
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