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.
*
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.
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.
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.
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.
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]
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.
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.