Many thanks for your letter and for the Netti introduction. I enclose a few comments on same.
In my comments to the main body of the Netti, which you should have by now received, I have been rather disparaging about it, which might seem to contrast with your description of it as an "admirable work". But I am concerned only to comment on it as a help to the understanding of the Suttas, and I have to confess that I find it an anti-help. If you ignore this aspect, which is the only serious aspect, and regard the Netti in itself as a method applicable to scriptures in general (with the exception of the Suttas, which is the only set of scriptures it claims to deal with) then the work may indeed be described as admirable (draughts is an admirable game, but not if you are trying to play chess). It is neat, precise, methodical, uncontradictory, readable, etc. etc. etc. But—it is essentially, in Kierkegaard's terms, comic. (Remember the praise K. gives Hegel as a comic writer; and the reproach, the main reproach, that Hegel being a comic writer, claims to be a serious writer.) The Netti is also, of course, of immense value to the Pali scholar, showing the source of much of the Commentarial machinery. When I expressed doubts whether the Netti deserved the efforts you have expended on it, I was thinking rather in terms of comedy and seriousness—as a work of vast interest in its own particular, comic, field, it is, indeed, a work of first importance. Upon receipt of the necessary stamps (which I think you vaguely promised) I shall return the Netti and Introduction. It came for 75 cents.
You object to my definition of "self" as a kind of ajjhattika nāmarūpa on the grounds that nāmarūpa is "findable" whereas "self" is not, and (presumably) that one cannot define what is not findable in terms of what is. You go on to say that for you "self" can be workably defined as "contradiction". Now without saying that I understand this in quite the same way as you do, I do not disagree with this definition. But the point is this. Is a contradiction "findable" or not? In other words, are there such things as contradictions? Quite obviously the answer is yes (otherwise one should never talk about them at all). But if there are contradictions then they are necessarily nāmarūpa (saha viññāṇena), since all that is is nāmarūpa (and its presence or existence, "is-ness", is viññāṇa). And this being so, the contradiction (whether all contradiction or one particular contradiction) that is attā is also nāmarūpa. But how can a contradiction be nāmarūpa—or rather, how can nāmarūpa be a contradiction? Answer: by not being findable. And that, precisely, is what ajjhattika nāmarūpa is. All nāmarūpa without exception is bahiddhā, but being so is not contradictory (the arahat is not contradictory). It becomes contradictory by appearing as mine, and thus pointing to something else (which must also be nāmarūpa, since there is nothing else for it to be) that does not appear, namely, I or attā, which is thus non-findable or ajjhattika nāmarūpa. Self-identification consists in identifying this with some objective phenomenon (nāmarūpa) or its existence (viññāṇa). I say all this, not because you will necessarily agree with it, but rather to show that what I said was at least consistent. I presume you admit that nāmarūpa void of I or mine—i.e. the arahat—is not contradictory: which is perhaps why it is wrong to say, in one sense, that an arahat exists. Unfindable nāmarūpa is clearly the ārammaṇa of unfindable self-consciousness. Note that I do not define attā as the ārammaṇa of viññāṇa (i.e. as = nāmarūpa), but of "ajjhattika viññāṇa" (which = "ajjhattika nāmarūpa").
(Incidentally, you object—by italicizing—to my statement that I identify attā with "I". But this was said simply to answer to your question in your previous letter, "Do you state that 'I' [and 'me'] and 'self' are identical or different?". I was only answering your question in your terms, and not by any means denying the profound contradictions in the process of identification. Not do I define "attā" as "I", which you seem to be assuming. Nor do I say that attā is identical with "I" rather than "me". Perhaps you forgot you asked this question in the first place?)....
P. ii—M. 99 is a Subha Sutta, though not perhaps the one intended.
Note 5—Both Paṭisambhidā and Niddesa are attributed to the Ven. Sāriputta Thera, I believe. If so, insert "both" in your note.
P. iv—The second sentence of the second para. is a little ambiguous with the word "different (differences)" used twice. Next sentence: "The purpose for which the modes are intended"—does one intend a thing for a purpose? And what is this purpose?—The sentence seems to need a little revision.
Next para.—"and all that goes with them"—what is this? The commentaries? If so, the Netti does not itself claim to be applicable to the Commentaries.
P. vii—For "viz. 'hardness of earth'" read "e.g. 'hardness of earth'".
P. xii, para. 2—You seem to use the word "tipiṭaka" a synonymous with Sutta (and Vinaya), but if you do not, then the Abhidhamma Piṭaka needs special comment. N.B. Is there any reference to the Abhidhamma Piṭaka in the Netti? (P. xviii—I see there is.)
P. xii—Is there no alternative to "songs", which suggest singing (forbidden by the Vinaya), and even hymn-singing?
P. xix—The word "rewrite" is rather unpleasant. Won't "paraphrase", or some other word do?
P. xxi—"the indiscriminate use of the word khandha—(the five or the three)": I don't understand. There is Sutta usage of khandha for sīla, samādhi, paññā (M.i, 301).
Note 36—Are you sure that the Ven. Kaccāyanagotta was not the same as the Ven. Kaccāyana (Kaccāna, Mahākaccāna)? The Buddha calls Vacchagotta "Vaccha", and he calls the Ven. Kaccāyanagotta "Kaccāyana" (S. II,ii,5).
P. xxxiii—End of second para.—You have a fused participle here.
P. xxxiv—Also from the Sutta it is clear he lived in Avanti (Udāna v,6). "As expounder of the Buddha's utterances, he presumably had a method for doing so..." This seems to imply that he applied a rule of thumb to the Suttas in order to expand them, that the process of expansion was to some degree mechanical. But it is by no means necessary to have a formal method in order to expand a statement: if one has a full and profound knowledge of a subject (as the Ven. Thera had of the Dhamma), then one can expand a brief statement without any application of a method; it is simply a matter of recognizing what is being talked about and then of describing the same thing in greater detail and perhaps different words. A formal method is used, like mathematics or scientific formulae, when one does not wish to think. While, however, very much averse to the suggestion that the Ven. Thera had a method that might have been discussed at the First Council, I find it most probable that as soon as a Method was invented it should have been fathered on him. The introduction of a method reduces the Dhamma to the status of a natural science: it is not a natural science (which is a collection of facts gradually accumulated by successive research workers and stored in books), but ñāṇadassana, or knowledge, by seeing for oneself, of the nature of facts.
The word "maybe" has an odd flavour—American? I should have preferred "perhaps" in this context.
Might not the "quotation" in the Pe. from the Sumangalavilāsinī be taken as evidence that it was composed after the Ven. Buddhaghosa Thera's time? There is no knowing to what lengths rival authorities will go in order to disprove one another.
P. xxxvi—I didn't know you had a porpose—do you keep it in the lake? And feed it with Surveys, which apparently satisfy it?
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