The draft of a letter by Ven. Ñāṇamoli.
Your (approx.) 2x6-1/2 pages of bludgeoning "joyfully" received (incidentally, the choice of the penultimate word was, by its exaggerated banality, intended, when used earlier, to convey "you can comment if you feel obliged"). The points you make are noted. But I now suspect there has been an outstanding failure to communicate in my writing recently words to the effect that the Netti was "better than I had previously thought" and so on. They were intended to apply within the limitations of a conception of the Netti as no more than what it is, namely a mere "commentator's grammar". It did not at all enter my mind (lack of foresight) that they might be taken to express a hailing of the Netti as the infallible newly discovered dispenser of short-cut solutions to all philosophical problems (yours or mine). And this, as I now gather, is how I have been taken and you taken in. Correct? No wonder you are disappointed, no wonder the bludgeonings; and so I fully apologize for whatever should be apologized for in this inadvertent and lamented miscommunication. Though when you say "It is like being absorbed in a slow and difficult chess problem and having a bystander come up and offer to show how one can get along much faster and more easily", the charmingly naive didactic reason for my sending it to you there implied was actually quite absent from my mind: it was sent simply because you asked for it to be sent (though I did wonder a bit why you should do so, but supposed you knew what you were about and why you wanted to read a translation of a commentator's grammar. But when you quote Mark Twain about "work" it is nice to think that you enjoyed at least that, though you thereby attribute to me far more esprit de sérieux than I can honestly lay claim to. Here are some stamps. Send it back if you like, or, if you like, bury both in the sand and I shall not be disturbed. Sorry you've been troubled.
Here are two extracts from the current "Maha Bodhi" for you: (1) "Once a sotāpanna, his way is certain: he will never more become Micchadiṭṭhi (a holder of wrong views) until he attains Nibbāna" (Ven. Shanti Bhadra, now in Berlin), and (2) "Walk up and down very slowly. Keep the remainder of the body still. The only movement is in the legs and feet" (Anoma Mahinda—now wearing Mahāyāna robes in Penang with the R. Stuart Clifton who waves razors over his pupils' heads). The best way to practise the latter way to the former goal might be to dress the body in a strait-jacket and hang it by the neck from a rafter by a rope—this would effectively keep it still while allowing the legs freedom to walk slowly up and down—ever more slowly—up and—down.
P.S. Mr. M. (who seems determined to "stamp" himself on one's memory—he sent me some more stamps the other day, with a two-page letter all about them) may be "not unintelligent" as you said earlier, but I wonder. One need go no further than the English dailies in order to pick up the now fashionable themes "the West has lost its faith" and "it is a fearful thing to be born in such conditions" (the lattter a rather flat combination of Hamlet and St. Paul)—no need to go prowling after Dostoievski. What might have shown a little intelligence, perhaps, would have been something to the effect that it is a fearful thing to be born at all in any condition (stated, however, I believe by Mme. du Leopardi and U Nu), but.... Mr. M., in the emotional tenseness of his tone, rather recalled Dennis (BBC), a reminder I can well dispense with. Mercifully he decided to spend the rest of his holiday in Kandy and not here, as he proposed doing. The mosquitos frightened him away. I am greatly indebted to the mosquitos. I must never forget how much I owe to mosquitos.
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