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.

Listening to Beethoven also is sensuality, but when you have said 'sex' you have said all. A man who can give up sex can give up Beethoven


I expect that the medicines will provide relief, at least for the time being. The misery of existence is that things are only temporary. If only we could, say, take a single dose of a drug that would ensure us an unlimited and unfailing supply of libido (with, of course, appropriate means of gratifying it) for all eternity, we should be happy. (The Muslims, I believe, are told that in Paradise a single embrace lasts for a thousand years. This is clearly an improvement on our terrestrial arrangements, but it is not the answer. A thousand years, eventually, come to an end. And then what?) Or again, if by a single dose of some other drug we could be absolutely cured of libido for all eternity (which is, in fact, nibbāna or extinction), then too we should be happy. But no. We have libido when we cannot satisfy it (when, of course, we should be better off without it), and when we want it it fails. Then comes death, painfully, and the comedy begins again.

 *

It is curious, is it not, that whereas, since Freud, the most extravagant fancies in the realm of love are considered to be perfectly normal (a person without them is regarded as a case for treatment), in the realm of death (the other great pole of human life) any strange fancies are still classed as 'morbid'. The Suttas reverse the situation: sensual thoughts are the thoughts of a sick man (sick with ignorance and craving), and the way to health is through thoughts of foulness and the diseases of the body, and of its death and decomposition. And not in an abstract scientific fashion either—one sees or imagines a rotting corpse, for example, and then pictures one's very own body in such a state.

*
In the 75th Sutta of the Majjhima Nikāya (M.i,506-8) the Buddha shows the vicious circle of sensual desire and its gratification in the simile of a man with a skin disease (kutthi—a leper?). Imagine a man with a fiercely itching skin disease who, to relieve the itching, scratches himself with his nails and roasts himself near a brazier. The more he does this the worse becomes his condition, but this scratching and roasting give him a certain satisfaction. In the same way, a man with finely itching sensual desire seeks relief from it in sensual gratification. The more he gratifies it the stronger becomes his desire, but in the gratification of his desire he finds a certain pleasure. Suppose, now, that the skin disease were cured; would that man continue to find satisfaction in scratching and roasting himself? By no means. So, too, a man who is cured of sensual desire (an arahat) will find no more pleasure in sensual gratification.

Let us extend the simile a little. You, as a doctor, know very well that to cure an itching skin disease the first thing to do is to prevent the patient from scratching and making it worse. Unless this can be done there is no hope of successfully treating the condition. But the patient will not forego the satisfaction of scratching unless he is made to understand that scratching aggravates the condition, and that there can be no cure unless he voluntarily restrains his desire to scratch, and puts up with the temporarily increased discomfort of unrelieved itching. And similarly, a person who desires a permanent cure from the torment of sensual desire must first be made to understand that he must put up with the temporarily increased discomfort of celibacy (as a bhikkhu) if the Buddha's treatment is to be successful. Here, again, the way out of the vicious circle is through an understanding of it and through disregard of the apparent worsening of the condition consequent upon self-restraint.

*
The question of the 'lovely young temptation' is, of course, the difficult one. But one has to make up one's mind about it if one is to live as a recluse. The Buddha is reported to have said (though I have never come across the passage) that if there were another thing such as sex (kāma)—i.e. if there were two such things—then it would not be possible to live the brahmacariya and put an end to suffering.

Although the Suttas give several ways of dealing with the 'lovely young temptation' when she comes toddling down the road, there is one (a kind of pincer movement) that I have sometimes found very useful. It is based on the episode of the Buddha and the Ven. Nanda Thera (which you can read at Udāna iii,2: 20-4). When the 'lovely young temptation' comes in sight, you say to yourself: 'Well, if I really must have sex, and cannot do without it altogether, the best plan is to restrain myself now and thereby to gain merit that, in my next life, will bring me much bigger and better sex than I can get here.' By the time you have considered this aspect of the question, the temptation has perhaps gone past and is out of sight round the next corner, and it is now too late to do anything about it. But you still have this unsatisfactory desire for sex. In order to get rid of this, you set to work to see that sex never lasts; that, in the long run, the misery involved outweighs the pleasure; and that final peace can only be obtained when all thought of sex has vanished. This procedure is often quite enough to put the question out of one's mind—until, of course, the next temptation comes along balancing her haunches! But, each time, there is a little progress, and it gradually becomes easier to keep one's peace of mind, even when a temptation actually appears.

*
As for the novels and drama, there is really a great deal to say, and at another time, I might take pleasure in saying it. But for the present I shall only remark that Huxley's 'Buddhism' in Island is in almost complete contradiction, point for point, with what the Buddha actually taught. In particular, there is absolutely no justification at all to be found in the Suttas for the idea that the way to salvation is through sex (however mystically conceived). The Buddha is quite explicit on this point—without giving up attachment (let alone sex) there is no putting an end to suffering. The view that 'there is no harm in sensuality' (M. 45: i,305) fills the charnel grounds (i.e. it leads to repeated birth and death). Durrell's attitude is better: for the artist, love is justified as providing the raw material of suffering out of which the artist produces his masterpiece. But the question still remains 'What is there to justify the artist?'

Certainly, one might reply that the artist is justified by the existence of suffering, of the limitations of the human condition; but the Buddha removes suffering, and the artist's position is undermined. Laclos[1] is really the only consistent one, since he offers no justification at all.

P.S. Huxley speaks of the pain of bereavement as right and proper, for if we did not feel it we should be less than human beings. How, then, can he approve the Buddha's Teaching, which leads to the end of suffering—to the end, that is, of 'sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair'? Just as the arahat has no need of art, so he is incapable of grief; it is all one and the same thing. But Huxley wants the Buddha without the arahat—impossible!

*

And so, too, the question of sex (about which, as you know, I feel rather strongly these days). How much I wish I could enter into the fun of the game with Durrell's unquestioning enthusiasm! What a fascinating experience to have been a sculptor of one of those incredible erotic groups on the outside of the Indian temples (why not on the outside of our English cathedrals to take the place of the figures destroyed by the Puritans?)—to recapture and perpetuate publicly in stone, by day, the intimate and fleeting carnal extasies of the night! But suppose one sees also the other side of the picture, what then? I don't mean death (whose presence, in any case, may only sharpen one's living desire) but the understanding that love (all brands) must be without significance (however passionately we may wish to believe otherwise) if life is pointless. The Buddha, at any rate, tells us that the only purpose of existence is to put an end to it. And how do we put an end to it?

Hitvā icchañ ca lobhañ ca,      
yattha satto puthujjano,
cakkhumā patipajjeyya
tareyya narakam imam.

Forsaking desire and lust
where the commoner is stuck
Let the man with eyes proceed
and get across this hell.

(Sn. 706: 137) And there is no way of compromise, in spite of Huxley and the mystics. Huxley wants the best of both worlds, maithuna and mescalin; and where the Hindus say, not altogether without reason, that the self is in the yoni, Huxley quotes a Tantric Buddhist text to the effect that Buddhahood is in the yoni, which is mere wishful thinking—how quickly we should all become Buddhas! And the mystics, what little I have read of them, seem to describe their union with the Divine in terms of copulation.

Augustine certainly knows that chambering and wantonness must be given up if any sort of mental calm is to be obtained, but the poor fellow sadly deceived himself when he imagined that, once given up, these things would never be with him again for all eternity. No doubt they were given up for his lifetime, and perhaps for some time after (where is he now?), but the root of sex is not dug up finally until the third stage of attainment on the Path to Awakening. Both the sotāpanna (stream-attainer, whose future human births are limited in number) and the sakadāgāmī (once-returner [scil. to human existence]) have, or may have, sexual appetite (and corresponding performance; for there is no question of impotence), and it is only the anāgāmī (non-returner) who is free of sensual cravings. Augustine, then, though temporarily victorious over the Bed, still had the root of desire within him, and his mystical experience was only possible because of this. No one who had attained any of the stages on the Buddha's Path could think of regarding sex or its mystical sublimations as something of value.

*

I have been sent Huxley's last novel -- Island. It is a most unsatisfactory book. Since Huxley had visited Ceylon shortly before writing the book, and since the inhabitants of the Island are Buddhists, it has been thought that the Island is Ceylon. But this is clearly a mistake. The Island is undoubtedly Bali (Huxley calls it Pala), both from its geographical and political environment, and the women wear nothing above the waist (which is -- or was -- the case in Ceylon, I believe, only with Rodiyas)[1]. Besides, the people are Mahāyāna Buddhists (Tantric to boot) with a strong admixture of Shiva worship. The book is a kind of Brave New World turned inside out -- it describes a Utopia of which he approves. It is based almost entirely on maithuna and mescalin (one of the characters quotes a Tantric Buddhist saying that Buddhahood is in the yoni -- a very convenient doctrine!), which in combination (so it seems) are capable of producing the Earthly Paradise. The awkward fact of rebirth is eliminated with the statement that the Buddha discouraged speculation on such questions (whereas, in fact, the Buddha said quite bluntly throughout the Suttas that there is rebirth: the speculation that the Buddha discouraged was whether the Tathāgata [or arahat] exists after death, which is quite another question).[a] And precisely, the worst feature of the book is the persistent misinterpretation (or even perversion) of the Buddha's Teaching.

It is probable that Huxley picked up a certain amount of information on the Dhamma while he was in Ceylon but, being antipathetic to Theravāda (this is evident in his earlier books), he has not scrupled to interpret his information to suit his own ideas. We find, for example, that according to Freudian doctrine Mucalinda Nāgarāja (Udāna 11: 10) is a phallic symbol, being a serpent. So 'meditating under the Mucalinda tree' means sexual intercourse. And this in complete defiance of the verses at the end of the Sutta:

Sukhā virāgatā loke
kāmānam samatikkamo
Asmimānassa yo vinayo
etam va paramam sukham.

Dispassion for worldly pleasure,
getting beyond sensuality,
putting away the conceit 'I am',
-- this indeed is the highest pleasure.[2]

In short, the book is a complete misrepresentation of the Buddha's Teaching in a popular form that is likely to be widely read. Huxley, of course, is sincere in his views and no doubt means well; but that does not make the book any the less unfortunate.
Footnotes:
[98.a] To ask these questions is to assume that before death at least the arahat does exist. But even in this very life there is, strictly, no arahat to be found.


Editorial notes:
[1] Rodiyas: Caste is not as important among Sinhalese as it is among Indians, but it exists. The Rodiyas are outcaste.
[2] Udāna 11: This verse might better be rendered:
Pleasurable is dispassion in the world,
The getting beyond sensuality.
But the putting away of the conceit 'I am'
-- this is the highest pleasure.
*
But in After Many A Summer, at least, Huxley does not speak in praise of sensuality (i.e. sex[1]); whereas in his most recent books it seems that the achievement of a satisfactory sexual relationship is exalted, along with chemical mysticism, as among the highest aims to be striven for. This idea, of course, is not so uncommon: there seems to be a widespread view, not in Ceylon only, that if a man does not become a monk—Buddhist or other—it is his duty to marry. This is quite mistaken. The Buddha's Teaching is perfectly definite—a satisfactory sexual relationship within the limits of the third precept (which, however, allows rather more latitude than is commonly supposed), though allowable for an upāsaka, comes a bad third. If you can't be a bhikkhu, be a brahmacārī upāsaka; if you can't manage that, then keep the third precept (preferably limiting yourself to your wife or wives). The Buddha condemns the notion N'atthi kāmesu doso—There's no harm in sensuality—(A. III,111: i,266; Ud. VI,8: 71)—as a wrong view that swells the charnel grounds, i.e. leads one to repeated births and deaths. To get out of samsāra, first this view must be given up, and then sensuality itself must be given up—an easy or difficult matter according to circumstances, but usually difficult.

[1] Of course, Listening to Beethoven also is sensuality, but when you have said 'sex' you have said all. A man who can give up sex can give up Beethoven.
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