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.

Certainly, impermanence does not not refer to things regarded objectively

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.)

*

[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. 

[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.

[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.

[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.)

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