Stringhoppers and Rabbitholes

The End

2008-12-05T06:25:00.001Z

(What I wonder, were his thoughts and impressions training up the subcontinent to his Himalayan destiny? Once again making his Indian rounds? Or had he somehow broken the circle in his own mind? Were the sights -- and insights -- somehow fresh, touched with some wonder and grace? When came the first pain, the first premonition of something very wrong, the realization of dying? Were some last thoughts cast to California? wafted to the Sooke hills? At least that was not the end of his journey, even with the last period in this book. I doubt if that would have been news to him.

Finally, what is a father, a friend, a brother in Dhamma, to say? Perhaps, no more than the Pali word evaṃ: it is as it is. The Buddha said, 'Be lamps unto yourselves, and work out your salvation with diligence.' The Buddha was called Tathāgata: He who has come and gone. None but a Buddha wholly comes and goes. Robert Smith devoted his life to homing on that wholeness. May ours be as well. Perhaps, this is ending in the middle as well. -- Hūm)

The End

Sooke, B.C. -- December, 1989

Letter 4.40

2008-12-04T06:32:00.001Z

(Shortly after Bob's death in Nepal, a Sri Lankan journalist, Maureen Seneviratne, published an article about him: COMPUTER MONK REMEMBERED. -- Hūm)

'...Ven. Bodhesako will no more walk the roads and paths of Ambegoda, a village near Bandarawela on the Welimada Road. Every morning the monk descended from the hillock where he lived on his round to collect his alms-food for the day. He walked the gravel roads barefoot, his begging bowl in a sling... Still, American remained the Samanera till his last days. You could see it from his gait. His feet carried his stocky body at a speed higher than an Asian monk on his begging tour ever would develop. So he returned with his bowl carefully but efficiently carried. For who has an eye for it, even the way he wore the monk's garb was not fully Eastern. A misfit in a Sinhalese village? Had the villagers known that the only piece of furniture in the monk's room, apart from bed, bookshelf, table and chair, was a word-processor, they might have been stingy with their alms!...

I had a long interview with him on the spacious verandah of the hundred years old bungalow of Hubert and Connie Congreave at Wye Estate...

Once, he said, he had possessed everything (in a material sense) he had wanted and had never been satisfied. It was for 'layman's reasons' he had 'gone forth' and thus he had found out the 'monk's reasons' for being a monk. He had had like many others to shed 'all romantic and flowery ideas' of being a monk and face and understand the 'true reasons'. He had used the Teachings as 'the raft for crossing a river' as the Buddha had said. Now he was still learning to use the 'raft'...

'Peace can only start with and within the individual,' I remember he told me, adding that Buddhism was not out to change the world, but the individual -- give him right knowledge and understanding -- and every individual transformed goes to make a better world, he said. Self-understanding alone would lead him to the inner peace that can exist for an individual even in the midst of strife and conflict...

...Ven. Bodhesako died in Nepal, close to his favorite temple, on a meditation pilgrimage, shortly before he would have attended the 80th anniversary celebration of his father in California. I imagine that Robert Smith -- for that was his name from birth in Detroit, Michigan US.A. -- had grown his hair and donned civilian clothes fitting the California climate for the occasion. But perhaps also he would not have done so. What does it matter? Would he have gone a-begging in California?... One can take for granted that such musings were thought unnecessary and even irrelevant by Sadhu, as the monk was called at Wye Estate...

..This computer-word processor was Sadhu's pride and worry. If anything in his life has been illustrative of the basic truth -- not only of Buddhism -- that all is transient and therefore needs to be handled properly, it was this electronic machine.

It took Sadhu almost the time he needed to learn how to meditate to find out the refinements he could utilize to print his book. Or was this his way to meditate? Surely he should not be considered to be a Western Buddhist for the sole fact that he worked a word-processor. For him it was nothing more than the stylus monks at Aluvihara near Dambulla cave temple even today use to print the ancient texts onto ola leaves. They also need ink. Who thinks of a word-processor as a higher being should never buy a newspaper either. For Sadhu probably handling this machine was of the same quality as being aware of one's breath in meditation.

And how it tested his patience! Not only because finding out its skills and moods was almost as volatile an exercise as scrutinising one's subconscience. It also liked breaking down...

...No, Robert Smith was not a Western Buddhist because he handled this intricate machine nor was he a Sinhala Buddhist because he walked Ambegoda's gravel roads barefoot. He remained American to the hilt. American stamped by the revolutionary 60's and the meditative 70's. His way of Buddhism was as contemporary as that of the Buddha himself in his days. For everybody has to go it on his own or her own, here and now.

Then why stayed Sadhu in Sri Lanka and why on Wye Estate? Because he found his Sangha there. Hospitality received from Hubert and Connie Congreave in an annex of their own house was their permanent dāna to him and his computer. Connie provided him with tea, gently placed outside his normally closed door. Sadhu had his perfect solitude woven into a relaxed but intimate relationship with the elderly couple. Would Robert Smith have found such a setting in his home country? The sensitivity for each other's privacy and need for communication developed in the 'Wye Hermitage' can be called unmatched and reason for Sadhu to settle down there. For though he died in Nepal on his way to America, Hubert Congreave meanwhile was doing up Sadhu's simple abode to have it ready for his return. For days they could hardly believe that he would never return. They would have believed any villager saying that he had been seen on his swift morning round. However, that is what Robert Smith would never do... He was a man of consequence. Someone who can handle a computer in a contemplative way also knows how to switch off.

A Western Buddhist by historic conditioning, lives among Christians. Different from what Eastern Buddhists might think, that can be an inspiration. Both ways, of course. That is what made Wye Estate Sadhu's Sangha. All inhabitants are Christians. To their company the Buddhist monk Robert Smith wanted to return. Not for high-flown discussions, since there were none. Simply for the living, leaving each other alone but not lonely. Is not that a perfect definition of a monastery?...a mirror of what humanity as a whole is or should be.

Clearing the Path, the writings of his teacher, the Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera, was really Samanera Bodhesako's magnum opus... There is no name of the editor -- in the great tradition he chose to follow. It is notable that in his foreword he claimed the book 'is meant to be lived rather than read and set aside'. It is what he himself endeavoured and achieved in the way of life he adopted as his own...

Letter 4.39

2008-12-03T06:27:00.001Z

"...And if any character tries, however ineffectually, to understand the real nature of his situation, it is not Yossarian but the chaplain. The chaplain (he was named Shipman in the hard-cover edition, but for some reason the name was changed in the paperback edition to Tappman -- not his only identity crisis), who has an open mind, is continually

'...wondering what everything was all about.

...There was no way of really knowing anything, he knew, not even that there was no way of really knowing anything. Was there a single true faith, or a life after death?

..These were the great, complex questions of ontology that tormented him. Yet they never seemed nearly as crucial to him as the question of kindness and good manners. He was pinched perspiringly in the epistenological dilemma of the skeptic, unable to accept solutions to problems he was unwilling to dismiss as unsolvable. He was never without misery and never without hope...' -- pp. 262-3

In the chaplain's tale the human dilemma is presented from a different point of view; it is not a question of sanity or insanity but, in Kafkaesque terms, one of guilt or innocence. Because it is the nature of beings that they are continually trying to establish an existence that continually eludes them[1]; their existence is perpetually in doubt, and they exist, if at all, in a state of guilt. This, it would seem, is the basic perception of Kafka's Trial: Joseph K. arrests himself by recognizing that his existence, being unjustifiable, is essentially guilty. And the chaplain (for whom the question 'Who am I?' becomes acute when he is formally charged with 'being Washington Irving' -- p. 378) is also in this situation.

And later the chap1ain's identity crisis and dilemma of existential guilt is expressed in the same terms that were used earlier to describe Catch-22:

'I offered it to Sergeant Whitcomb because I didn't want it.'

'Why'd you steal it from Colonel Cathcart if you didn't want it?'

'I didn't steal it from Colonel Cathcart!'

'Then why are you so guilty, if you didn't steal it?'

'I'm not guilty!'

'Then why would we be questioning you if you weren't guilty?' -- p. 377

Thus each of us faces the question of our basic unjustifiability in a purposeless world. Some, of course, flee from these questions and deny them (by indulging in sensuality, hatred, lethargy, agitation, and doubt); but the questions return for so long as their root, the conceit 'I am', exists, and the verdict is inevitable: Guilty.

'Chaplain,' he continued, looking up, 'we accuse you also of the commission of crimes and infractions we don't even know about yet. Guilty or innocent?'

'I don't know, sir. How can I say if you don't tell me what they are?'

'How can we tell you if we don't know?'

'Guilty,' decided the colonel.

'Sure he's guilty,' agreed the major. 'If they're his crimes and infractions he must have committed them.'

'Guilty it is, then,' chanted the officer without insignia... -- p. 379

And guilty it is for all of us, if the charge is the fundamental one of being possessors, or even of simply 'being': being what?

And thus Heller repeatedly and ingeniously offers us brilliant literary expressions of the dilemma of existence. The formulations are lucid and compelling and they fully take account of the circular and self-sustaining nature of the dilemma. For this we can praise Catch-22, and perhaps find it of use as a tool in keeping to the forefront of our awareness the nature of our problem. But it would be asking too much to expect the novel to offer the means of resolving that dilemma: for that we must turn to the Buddha's Teaching.

Sāmanera Bodhesako,
from The Buddha and Catch-22

__________

[1] Thus the question 'Who am I?', whether or not it is answerable, is recognized at once to be vital and fundamental to the epistemological dilemma we each face; indeed, it is thus that there is the concept of such a dilemma at all.

Letter 4.38

2008-12-02T06:26:00.001Z

I went to the professor of my Colombo dentist, at the Peradeniva campus a few miles from Kandy -- my first time on that campus; rolling hills, attractive buildings, surrounding greenery, very upmarket for Sri Lanka.

The professor looked at the molar X-rays and showed me how the bottom half of one of the roots was dark, whereas the other root-and-a-half were white (Was? When does plurality begin? At two, to be logical? Or at the tiniest fraction above one, to be mathematical? Or at some foggy and indeterminate place near the middle, to be psychological? Sinhalese verbs make no distinction as to person or number, so presumably this sort of question would not occur to a Sinhala.) This, the professor assures me, meant that my dentist had not filled the bottom half of one root with whatever sort of stuff they fill it -- cotton wool, or sawdust, or some exotic polymer. Ann it was why, he said, I've been having recurrent infections in the gum around the tooth, requiring courses of antibiotics every three or four months for the last several years, ever since the root was canalled (a Venice of the mouth).

Furthermore, he added, he could not understand why my dentist should have attempted the work without the proper tools, since the equipment is available on the campus, and he would be glad to redo the work properly and put an end to these infections, but at present it was between semesters and as I must have seen when I came in he was not actually seeing patients during this time, since he had to supervise the between-terms maintenance of the school equipment, which was therefore inoperative, and in addition he had so many committee meetings and important conferences in Colombo, and he began rattling off a lot of names that meant nothing to me. I was more concerned, actually, about his hands probing at my teeth since, you see, when I came in he had had a drill's innards on the table and the oil had not been as thoroughly washed off his hands as I would have liked. But he was as sensible as he was garrulous, and kept his greasy thumbs off my shiny molars, only probing and tapping with tools, handed to him by his dumpty nurse like in an operating theatre. He would name a pick or mirror or whatever, and she would slap it into his hands. Once she handed him something which he then realized wasn't what he wanted. He threw it to the ground and told her, 'Don't give me what I ask for. Give me what I need.' She did.

As for the dust jacket of Clearing the Path, it was done by one of the best-known artists in the country. Personally, I find it too romantic. However, as usual my opinion seems to be a minority view. And among those who disagree with me is the Sri Lanka Printers' Assn., for they have just awarded it first prize in their annual contest. It's an ink drawing. All those color plates don't come cheap, and then there was a lot of work examining the printing work to make sure the colors and other details were right. Amazing the number of things people will get wrong if given the chance. In any case, the book seems to be doing well, though I can't say how long this will continue, already more than a quarter of the first printing has been distributed, mostly outside the country.

Our street people project has made only slow progress, having net with both anticipated and unanticipated obstacles. Now the government has announced that it will launch a project which more or less duplicates (and undermines) ours. If they actually do it, that's fine; but chances are it will accomplish little other than to provide sinecures for a few relatives of politicos. Aside from reviving their sporadic 'get the beggars out of sight of the tourists' campaign (though they don't call it that) it seems aimed primarily at sideswiping our project. Why? I can only guess it's because we are not part of any establishment and nobody is getting anything out of it (apart, that is, from the street people, who don‘t count).

Weather has been erratic -- evening or afternoon rainstorms very welcome to the electricity board, a bit less so to farmers since it's well out of season. But days are hot and sunny. There's an experimental solar dryer here, for drying the spices which are packed in the spice factory, and the temperature in the dryer has gone to over 150°F. The thing was built late last year, so this is its first real test in optimum conditions. (In cloudy weather, of course, it doesn't do so well.) The spices are sold mainly in Europe and the U.K. but there are plans for expansion, both geographically and into related projects. The Dutch and Canadian governments are providing some assistance for the project (which is non-profit, its purpose being to provide a fair market outlet for small spice growers and employment for the village people), but basically it is expected to pay its own way.

I'm afraid to use the computer when it's raining. A few weeks ago during a thunderstorm, when the computer happened to be off, lightning struck somewhere close by, and the light bulbs snapped and fried. Then, a few days later, it happened again, with the computer off. I don't know what might have happened had the computer been on, and I don't want to find out, so this means I only work when it's clear, assuming there are no power cuts, or power failures.

The political situation in the North is mostly unreported, but the information reaching me is that the Indian troops, who are trained for a conventional war, are ill-prepared to engage the Tigers, whose leader apparently prefers war to peace (those who have met him describe Prabhakaran as a militaristic fascist with no interest in, ability for, or understanding of peaceful processes). The Indians, it seems, are given (or taken) to looting and pillage (the ships that bring in relief supplies of food and medicine return to India, I'm told, laden with booty), the civilian death toll is certainly in the thousands (the official Indian figures are in the scores but the press is permitted to report estimates in the hundreds, since the official figures are Indian, not Sri Lankan), and the people in the North, though now disillusioned with the Tigers, hate the Indians even more.

Meanwhile the JVP spreads its tentacles over more of the South. There are now areas of the southwestern low country that are no-go areas, semi-officially, and considerable territory where travel at night is no longer safe. But the government seems bent on making the situation worse, partly through corruption and ineptitude, and partly through the JVP having a certain amount of sympathy in some government circles and a strong page within the army (which is supposed to be putting them down). A Catholic priest who worked with the poor of that area and preached non-violence -- both very dangerous things to do -- was murdered last week, the victim either of the army (the common supposition) or a cabal of narrow-minded landowners. There will certainly be no meaningful investigation of the murder.

Concern is increasing Upcountry, but, for the time being, there's little trouble here.

I've been a bit under the weather -- perhaps the weather has something to do with it. Not bed-ridden or anything, just a spell of tiredness, headache, and general malaise. I think I've made some connection to tea, and then to sugar. (Is there any diabetes in the family?) I stopped all tea, coffee, and sugar and in a couple days the headaches eased, and I was less tired. Experimenting, I've found I can take a small cup of slightly sweet tea daily with no problem, but must limit myself to this. I've also gained considerable weight in the past few months, though I haven't changed my diet.

Perhaps, I've just become an old man. About two weeks ago (so I'm still new to the business of being an old man), when I got a pair of bifocals for reading. They certainly make print a lot clearer, but they are a nuisance to wear, and I still find myself trying to look at distant things through the reading portion or trying to read through the plain-glass portion, and they give me a headache (on top of the headache I've been having; a sort of duplex?) I prefer large print, but unfortunately many of the things I must or wish to read are in small type (not to mention my own handwriting). Until I got the specs I used a magnifying glass, but it was always reflecting the lampbulb and other things and was no solution. Guess I'll have to learn to live with glasses.

While reading Herman Wouk's War and Remembrance, which I thought very well done, its scenes of Russia and of East European Jews pricked my dormant interest in the family tree. So you've been collecting anecdotes yourself? Thinking of making a book of them? I, for one, would be an interested reader. Today's a particularly good day for memories, I suppose: it's been five years since mother died. Do you also often think back on grandma and grandpa and the stories they must have told you about the Old Country? I know I never asked you much about your growing up in Chicago, and I'm not even sure what part of Russia grandma and grandpa came from; I'd be glad to hear any stories that you remember.

Well, I've got a new passport and visas onward, and soon I'll be departing for India. I may spend some time in South India, then possibly Nepal, possibly Burma, and on to either Thailand or Singapore to catch the flight to the States. I won't know until I hook into the travelers' grapevine in India. But you can expect me to show up in LA some time in late August, I expect -- only for a few weeks before returning to Sri Lanka, but after ringing in your 80th birthday! Well -- and well -- into your next three score and ten! I hope my presence will be a little icing on the cake. (Ahead of me, I also hope, will arrive a box containing the broken carriage of my printer, which I'm sending airmail. The step motor seems to be defective. Repairs are impossible here, but may not be in the U.S.)

I leave you with a Buddhist joke:

For twenty years Suntil, a village Buddhist, had been cook to Father Carolis, the priest who ran the church attended by the upper-class folk. One day, while they were in the river for their daily bath, the priest said to Suntil, 'You've been my cook for twenty years, and you're still a Buddhist. That doesn't look right. People wonder what kind of priest I am when I can't even convert my own cook. Now the Bishop is honoring me by coming to lunch this Friday, and I've decided to baptize you as a Catholic so that I can present you to him as my latest convert.'

Suntil protested that he was content to be a Buddhist, and didn't want to be a Catholic, but Father Carolis would have none of it, and without further ado he pushed Suntil beneath the water, declaring, as he did so, 'Thou art Samuel!' When Suntil surfaced he declared, 'I am Suntil!' But the priest pushed him down again, with the words 'Thou art Samuel!' A second time Suntil declared himself to be Suntil, whereupon Father Carolis pushed him under the waves a third time, and held him so long that when Suntil surfaced he could only sputter and gasp for air.

On Friday the Bishop showed up, and the priest seated him at the place of honor for lunch. Suntil brought in lunch, the main course in a covered salver. When the priest lifted the lid his face grew red with anger. 'Samuel! what is the meaning of this? For twenty years you have been my cook. You know perfectly well that we don't eat meat on Fridays. And now, with the Bishop himself before us, how dare you to serve chicken? What does this mean?'

'Oh, but that isn't chicken,' replied Suntil. 'That's fish.'

'Fish? How can you say such a thing? I can see perfectly well, and I say it's chicken.'

'Oh no, Father, That's fish. You see, before I cooked it I took it down to the river, and three times I pushed it under the water, and each time I said, 'Thou art fish, thou art fish, thou art fish! So that isn't chicken, it's fish!'

love,

Bob

________________________

(Our Dharma-bum banter about 'black holes' during his last sit on my stump apparently went on in his head until, a decade later, it got somewhere: The Big Bang: A Modification. -- Hūm)

'The universe,' the ethnologist was told by his native informant, rests on the back of a giant turtle.' And what, the ethnologist wanted to know, does the giant turtle stand on? 'Another giant turtle,' his informant asserted. And that turtle? 'Ah, I know what you're getting at, and it's very important,' said the informant, 'but it's no use: it's turtles all the way down.'

SUMMARY

Obviously a great deal more could be said on the subject of the birth, evolution, and death of the universe; but what has been presented here should be sufficient for a preliminary draft.

Since the universe is now expanding there must exist a repulsive force which operates on a scale sufficient to have started that expansion. There is no evidence that such a repulsive force is presently operative, at least on a sufficiently powerful scale, to counteract gravitational attraction, so it must have been operative under conditions which do not presently prevail. Those conditions existed during the first minutes of the universe which is described in the Big Bang view, when there was a mass of sufficient density to create a pressure-opaque era. However, this era could only have emerged given proper antecedent conditions. Those conditions could have been the collision of two black holes such that their combined mass was sufficient to initiate a region of the universe wherein a pressure-opaque era could arise. And the condition which allowed black holes of such mass to form are those which are operative even today. Despite the absence of the absolute proof that our presently-expanding universe will eventually begin to contract, there is a great deal of indirect evidence to support the notion; and if this single assumption is allowed we find that it is possible to describe a cyclical universe, wherein the questions of beginnings becomes meaningless.

Furthermore, such a view allows us to address a number of other unresolved questions and either to propose solutions to them or at least to suggest that this cyclical view of the universe allows of approaches to solutions where previously no approach was apparent.

A number of ways -- by experiment, by survey, by mathematical calculation -- have been suggested whereby the views presented in this paper could be tested.

'The universe,' the ethnologist was told by his native informant, was born out of the collision of two gigantic black holes.' And what, the ethnologist wanted to know, were those black holes born from? 'From the previous universe,' his informant asserted. And what was that universe born from? 'Ah,' said the informant, 'that too is very important; but it's no use: it's black holes all the way down.'

Late note:

Unexpectedly high amounts of deuterium have been detected recently by satellite and radio telescopes. This indicates that the Big Bang must have been less massive than formerly supposed, for otherwise the deuterium (which is hydrogen with a neutron in its nucleus) would have been fused, in the additional heat of a great Bang, into helium. This, it has been argued, means that the universe is less massive than earlier evidence indicated and therefore also very much younger. This, of course, contradicts the existing evidence for the age of the universe. But the contradiction is resolved if we reject the assumption that the Big Bang involved all the matter that exists. If, instead, we allow, as this paper suggests, that the universe contains considerable matter which did not directly participate in the most recent Big Bang then we can acknowledge the validity of these recent measurements without being obliged to conclude that it is in contradiction with earlier findings. Indeed, in the model suggested in this paper such a finding would be expected, and can be taken as supportive evidence for the views put forward here in support of an oscillating universe.

Letter 4.37

2008-12-01T06:27:00.001Z

Sorry to hear you had such trouble playing the tape I sent you. Actually, as I said, it was a new invention of mine, designed to be played without the need for a machine. Like all early prototypes it has its faults. It takes generations, sometimes even years, for a product to reach the pinnacle of perfection of, say, a perfect stringhopper or a perfect rabbit-hole. However, vast improvements have been made and I have now developed a tape which not only does not need to be played on a machine but also does not even need a spool on which to wind it. You are, in fact, holding this invention in your hand at this moment.

I have yet to give it a name, since I feel only a good snappy term will have a chance of catching on in today's marketplace. I showed it to one friend who suggested I call the invention 'paper', but obviously such a name has no pizzaz and would never be a commercial success. I've been working on a line of related ideas for transcribing thoughts on to this new medium, which I'll call paper until a better term can be invented. Instead of using an electronic printer, as we have all been doing since time immemorial, I am now working on a system which is independent of electronics. My dull-witted friend has termed the device a 'manual typewriter' -- clumsy oaf, to think such a mouthful would get anywhere. And even beyond that there is the hope of someday creating a system which will be so compact that it can be held between two fingers, and yet, incredibly enough, so versatile, that it can form characters in any script, can do drawings, perhaps be available in different colors, and yet be so inexpensive that if damaged it need not be taken in for repairs but can simply be thrown away. I call the system 'writing'. The major problems yet to be overcome is to invent a material which can make a suitable mark on the 'paper'. My friend tells me this is a pure nine dream. If God wanted man to write, he says, He would have put ink in our veins. I wonder what he means by 'ink'?

Glad Clearing the Path got to your stump. I find that in a coherent book form it is easier to use, to understand, than it was in typescript. But not everyone who has used the typescript feels it makes as much difference as I do. Perhaps that's why it was I, and not they, who took the trouble to see to its publication.

Path Press has been going great guns, and the camera-ready copy of 'Change' (which you saw in typescript) is with them. Path Press will now be taking a three or four month holiday from wordsmithery in favor of the practice of silencesmithery before resuming operations at the same old stump.

I loved hearing you read your stuff, even though I couldn't make heads or tails what it was about. Seemed like a lot of flashbacks/flashforwards/flashsideways. Is it really necessary to demand so much of your readers? I try to make it as easy as I can for the poor ninnies and still get accused of making then work for it. But I sure admire the way you can turn it out, day after day. Me, I'vegot so many blank days I could pass as a snowstorm. And to get an entire page written in one day! The feeling of accomplishment, of self-worth, it instills in me! And then I look at the stack of your typescripts that rest on my shelf, and next to it are my two pamphlets and a few folders and envelopes of incomplete perhaps uncompletable stuff, I do admire your persistence and inventiveness, and if I can't figure out what the invention is for, why, I guess you'll never guess the latest use I've discovered for this stuff called 'paper'. I'll give you one clue. It will be a saving of soap and water'

Letter 4.36

2008-11-30T06:21:00.001Z

(The next -- the last -- tape Bob sent I didn't reel between my thumbs and complain but took straight to the friend's tape-recorder -- and complained. If anything it was poorer quality than I imagined the first tape to be. In fact, it looked like a type-writer ribbon spool with the ribbon itself made out of bits of paper scotch-taped together and would around the spool. I even imagined there were words typed on the ribbon. Fortunately, a second after I put the tape on the recorder and switched it on, I had an uncanny premonition that in two seconds the splices would break and bits of tape would fly apart, so I switched off the machine and was content to reel the 'spool' between my thumbs imagining I was listening to -- or reading from -- a real made-in-Sri Lanka cassette. -- Hūm)

Wow, thanks for another tape. I really enjoy hearing your voice. The reading of your new novel shows a marked shift in your style, out of the jungle, so to speak, and into the garden. There are many kinds of gardens, both formal and informal. In yours there are many pollen-gathering insects busying around, and all of them are going, 'Hummmnmn, Hummmmmn.' Hmmm. The section you read was actually interesting and enjoyable, and didn't take that great effort of will and concentration necessary to pick my way through your earlier stuff, tripping over vines and long words, a dictionary for machete, never sure whether I was heading right and lacking a guide. Now I feel like I'm on a well-conducted tour: hey, look at the bougainvillea, watch your step around the hollyhocks, and now we're coming to the secret jewel of the scarab beetle (or is it the dung beetle?), and just ahead... What I mean is, I could understand the situation, I could understand the trip your protagonist was on, it was all vivid. Good stuff.

Yes, you are right, there isn't much to say, and a blank 60 minute tape is sure a way of demonstrating it. Still, we keep finding new ways to say it, don't we? And, I suppose we'll keep finding new ways until we get it right.

By the way, how do you like my latest invention? A tape that doesn't need a machine to play it? If I can keep coming up with 'em like this, the world will surely (or is it surly)? beat a path to my door, and then I'll have to beat them back. (I could never understand why anyone would want to trap better mice.)

Flash: this is my favorite time of the year: sun basking warm, light breeze just chill enough to offset the sun, sort of tactile sweet-&-sour, a real tropical pineapple sun instead of the northern white sugar type. Nights blanket-bundly steamy-breath cool. This season lasts about a week, if I'm lucky. If it lasts less, it's not enough; if it lasts more it gets boring. A week is just about right. And this is the third day.

A copy of Clearing the Path has gone off to you, and should make its appearance in Spring, along with the daisies, artichokes, hay fever pollen, brambles, and Spring. Actually I suppose it should make its appearance in Sooke. I'm not sure where Spring is. (The daughter, Alice, has immigrated to Australia, I'm told.)

And now I'll read you part of my latest work. It's called 'The Silence'. Just keep turning the spool and you can hear as much of it as you like. Meanwhile, love you. Other side of this tape is blank -- use it if you like. The Silence:...

Letter 4.35

2008-11-29T06:17:00.001Z

Why do I love your awful writing, you ask? Really, it's very simple: your writing isn't just awful; also, it's aweful, and for aweful writing -- writing that has a sense of awe, wonder, generosity, touching (but not squeezing), and waking-up joyfulness -- I'll forgive just about anything. Of course, if it was good writing as well then it would be all the better, because it is, what I've seen of it, also pretty awful as writing (I haven't had a chance yet to get into your Ethiopian epic; maybe The Falasha's Choice will be great writing -- if the drought's pruned the jungle), I think the reason for this is that, as you say, you really get into what you're doing, so much so that you can only see it from the inside -- or, rather, you choose only to see it from the inside, since it's not really a question of can/can't -- and from its own perspective it is, of course, great writing (because it's aweful writing), and nothing else matters. Only later, when you become distanced from the creative act, are you able to see it from a partly different perspective, and to appreciate that difference.

If you would be willing to make a great sacrifice and choose to be able at will to distance yourself from your writing while you were writing it I believe you would develop a different sort of critical faculty, one which would allow you to recognize bad writing as it was being written, and through which you would learn to write not only awefully but also well. (I, for example, can write very well, but very seldom awefully: good writing can be learnt, but aweful writing just has to be in you, and in me it's not-hence, I believe, the sense of weightiness you often find in my work, whereas yours, even when stylistically it's a ton of bricks, still has a kind of motion that I love.) I know it's a lot to give up, but it doesn't have to be all given up at once, and in fact I think it probably can't be all given up at once, since giving it up has to be learned, bit by bit!

But the learning, and the giving up, are immensely rewarding and the long-term result is an incomparable gain. You don't lose anything, because you can still be totally within your writing; rather, you gain the ability to flash back and forth between being in it and being out of it (sort of like gliding, maybe), and while in it you can see what needs to be done to make the conception stronger, strong enough to truly support the conception, the feeling, the essence without which the best writing is merely a well-executed pratfall. More work for poppa, of course, but on the other hand, what else is there? Hell, you know all this anyway.

Your tape, on the other hand, wasn't awful at all, and maybe you should turn in your typewriter for a cassette recorder, and start putting out talks for people to listen to while they're driving to and from work. (Though I must admit that as much as I enjoyed your tape I didn't enjoy it so much as to go completely bonkers and get a job so that I could afford to buy a car so that I could drive to work, listening the while to your non-existent tapes.) Meanwhile, my 'affordable desktop printing' strategy continues to be improved as I learn more about computers: just the other day I learned, at last, how to break into the tables which control the software so that I can modify any value or relationship at will. But learning this is sort of like discovering the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns: there's still a whole heap of exploring to be done. While interested not at all in marketing this, I'm willing to freely share the info with anyone who will also freely share it with anyone who will also...(the infinite hierarchy strikes again!), and I shall probably compose a small tutorial telling the good folks how to go and do them likewise. When I get the time. And when that'll be, only the non-existent good lord knows.

However, I've finally found the time to finish, just the other day, a long-planned paper doing some theoretical physics (Buddhist physics, actually) -- The Big Bang: A Modification -- my first venture back into science in a long time. Nothing aweful in that one at all, of course, but it's now being studied by a physics prof to find out if it's awful. Mebbe so: when it comes to science I'm like you when it comes to writing: me critical faculties be a tad undeveloped, and I have yet to make the choice to develop them. Of course, I won't be doing physics every day for the rest of my life, so there may not be the same incentive, but anyway we seem to have come full circle now, and 360 degrees ought to be enough for anyone.

Letter 4.34

2008-11-28T06:23:00.001Z

(A tape cassette arrived from Wye Estate, and after General Delivery vetted it, I spirited it away to my stump in the woods. I was appalled at the poor sound-quality of the tape -- practically inaudible -- and, after reeling the tape between my fingers very attentively for some time, I finally gave up and took it to a friend in the village who had a tape-recorder, with results which were much more satisfactory.

The tape begins with a rendition of the Negro spiritual, Zem Bones, beamed to me by the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation and performed by -- if their sound had names -- Kingfisher and the Breawthless Sisters, to the clanking accompaniment of cymbals, cowbells, and, perhaps, rattling bones, and as the song fades out in ecstatic moans and wails, a familiar voice, at first black-faced then assuming the complexion of a tranquilized Woody Allen, fades in. -- Hūm)

Yeeesss, boss...how you doin', man?...remember those talking records when you were a kid?...well this here's...this tape machine's here...so I thought I'd send you a talking letter so instead of reading me you can hear me, huh?...and I want you to know right off that I hear you when I get your letters 'cause I read them over and over again and I love what you say and I love how you say it...I want you to know that I thought your last letter was really moving about when you were with your dad in his last days...it was special for you to share that with me...but, hey, but you started off that letter by saying something about my loving hard rock, huh? ...wow, I don't remember that!...what I remember was when I was in the States, when I got back to the States, was right away I loved Mozart, man!...I used to play his horn concertos over and over again...now I haven't heard any of them for donkey's years, but I can still hear it in my head, you know...some of that stuff...mostly I think maybe because of that Flanders & Swann parody...you know the one that starts off, how does it start off...? (sings) 'I once had a whim and I had to obey it to buy a French horn in a second hand shop, I polished it up and I started to play it in spite of the neighbors who begged me to stop!'...well, I'll stop before you start begging me -- and from now on I promise this is just a talking letter not a singing one...unless I maybe just get carried away...because you can never tell about that...but Mozart or hard rock or wherever it is...a lot of that stuff you know it never vanishes does it?...You know I remember another thing I always loved was, flying...even in those big commercial planes which really is like sitting in your living room...but one time I was...the one time I was really ever in a small plane that's when my cousin married a guy who could fly...he had a...he had a small plane...that was really a trip...in fact it was a trip all the way from Albuquerque to Los Angeles...and I remember how I used to...in fact I still do...I...I dream about flying...I mean it's not in a plane, man...like I mean I don't need a plane when I dream about flying...I just sort of stretch out like...like superman and off I go, huh?!...a friend of mine he told me that when he dreams of flying he does it cross-legged which...which right away struck me as a weird position to fly in, huh?...and oh I got to pay careful attention...! have to be very mindful all the time when I'm flying because if I don't constantly keep willing myself to stay up in the sky then I start going into a sort of dive...and once I...one time I can...I can remember I got a little careless and I came really close to some power lines...and that scared me...almost woke me up...I woke up later and I could remember that part of the dream really vividly...so when I dream about flying now I have to really be mindful...and...a...another thing about flying I read about once...was...was that there's this kind of glider that comes in a kit...but you don't need to be towed up into the air by a powered plane 'cause it's got a little engine...and what it...what this engine actually is is...get this...it's a lawn-mower engine with a propeller attached...and the whole thing...what it is is it's an enormous set of light-weight wings with that lawn-mower engine behind it and a way to fasten yourself in and a strap to sit on and what you do is you get into this thing and you start up the engine and then you RUN LIKE HELL DUWN THE RUNWAY!...and if you're fast enough and if you're going into a headwind you can really get up enough speed to take off...(softly) and then you just circle around and climb and climb and when you pick up a thermal and when you're high enough...you turn off the engine and just...(breathless) sooooooaaaaaar...and glide for as long as you like...of course, I never got that one together but...but I remember some fantasies I had of gliding through the Himalayas...and I know that idea has to blow your mind because you‘ve been there and you know how incredible those mountains are and I remember you once said something about flying always being a fantasy of yours...so when this...this flight simulator program came into my hands, man, I just had to give it a spin on the old disk-drive...'cause..'cause I could fly without even needing a plane, without even needing a lawn-mower, man, I didn't even have to sleep I could be wide-awake and now I've...I've flown all around Chicago, I've circled lake Michigan, I've circled the Statue of Liberty, and I've flown under the Brooklyn Bridge...and then there's this WW1 Ace option -- and then this whole story sort of spun out from there like how to tell it dramatically...and I figured you'd really dig that 'cause also I thought it was pretty good writing and then I know you get off on good writing...so I was surprised you didn't get off on that fantasy flight letter I sent you...but anyway don't worry about my getting addicted, because you know it's, it's not really a question of getting like addicted or not getting addicted, it's really a question of like getting unaddicted or not getting unaddicted, because we already are addicted and it's just a question of what the object is of our addiction...I mean like how many years now have you been writing your...your sort of jungly prose novels?...and...what are you going to tell me, that...that you can quit any time, that you just don't want to??...well, better if you tell me it's a way...you're hoping it's a way, of putting the addiction to an end...and I'm sure you're doing it with clarity and love...or as much clarity and love as...as you got, which is a lot...and that's fine and there's no criticism of it...but...a...well, I'm not going to pretend that that flight simulator has anything to do with Dhamma...but the real purpose for the word-processor, for the computer, is to get Ñāṇavīra's writings into print and about that Dhamma...now that I don't need to make any claims for because you know how I feel...and it's been like what?...it's been like nearly 20 years since that manuscript first came into my hands...and that's long enough time for something to finally happen...(beep, beep)...that's the beeper...it's 10 o'clock at night now...I've borrowed this tape-machine from the people where I'm staying...and it's...it's my little electronic clock that beeps on the hour you can probably hear that in the background...so anyway it's been like 20 years and I want something to finally happen and so when this possibility arose I took it and I have no regrets about that...and so most of my time I spend in front of the monitor I don't spend flying over Europe shooting down...you know, the Red Baro...I spend most of that time putting the book together and I hope it's for the last time because I've done it a few times before, you know...and I won't pretend I don't get a lot of pleasure out of that...in a lot of ways it's more fun than shooting down the Red Baron...it's not like it's something I have to endure. I do it because I want to do it, and because I want to see it done, and because I think it's probably good for me, and maybe it'll be good for other people too, and it's good work to do...you know I had to modify the soft-ware program to get it to do Pali and to get it to do the italics and diacritical marks and columns and all that kind of stuff and for somebody who's never even touched a computer before this year...I have to say I think that's doing pretty good...'cause some of it is pretty technical...and the so-called soft-ware experts I talked to in Colombo they all told me they could do it but they wouldn't want to because it would be too arduous for them...which really means they couldn't do it, at all, and I figured out how to do it, and there's a lot of satisfaction in working out all those technical problems -- and achieving soma really high-quality print-outs...pretty close to a professional level, or I should say a high professional level, because it's already at a professional level...you know the monks at the BPS (Buddhist Publication Society)...the Ven. Ñāṇaponika and Bhikkhu Bodhi they've seen what I'm doing and they think it's so much better than the quality of print that they're getting they're going to copy the system and they've been out here and...well not Ven. Ñāṇaponika...he's 86 and he doesn't go anywhere, but Bhikkhu Bodhi came out with one person from the board of BPS and they looked at the system and watched me do it and talked about it for a long time and they've decided they're going to get it themselves...'cause it's...like astonishingly low priced...and...they've got...they've now got these...desktop printing...but that's pretty expensive stuff...that's 10-12 thousand dollars for a system and...a...there was this fund made available to publish Ven. Ñāṇavīra's stuff...and it's a few thousand dollars to put this system together and then all you need after that is just to pay the printer to print what's already been type-set and that's like photo-offset and in Thailand they do that pretty cheap and they do good quality too...so I think...a...you might remember those Achan Cha booklets I sent you once and that was done in Thailand and you might remember that that was reasonably good quality stuff, so that's what I'm expecting to get when it finally happens which will be sometime next year, maybe the middle of the year, maybe a little bit after that...so anyway I've agreed to teach the BPS how to get the special effects that I've developed...so it turns out that what I've developed is going to be of use to others as well...but, you know, addiction?...that's something I dabble in a bit but I don't think it'll ever come to more than that...even with that morphine you know all those years ago, 20 years ago, 21 years ago, even with that that's all it came to really was dabbling, and I was never really that heavily into it...so anyway enough for that trip...so I'll tell you the way this whole tape trip came together is that last month I had to go down to Colombo to get a new passport -- oh, hey, you know those new passports are for ten years now and that means that the next passport I'm gonna need I'll be 57 years old!...that's astonishing!...an old man me?...never!...so anyway they told me I had to wait for a few days while they called Washington to find out if they maybe wanted me for something like if I was a fugitive or they wanted to ask me questions about like gun-running to Nicaragua or maybe selling arms to fanatics like the Ayatollah Khomeini...or maybe about fiddling with secret Swiss bank accounts...so in the end it turned out they didn't have anything to ask me about that...but I had to stick around Colombo for a few days and it happened that at the temple I was staying at I had to share a room with a monk who had a radio...and he very kindly kept tuning in the English language programs on my behalf...like even without me even asking for it...and it happened like one evening he tuned into a program where they were rebroadcasting these old half hour BBC dramas...and the one they happened to be doing that night...was a play called A Question of Retreat and it was by this guy named Robin Maugham...talk about incredible serendipitous coincidences!...though maybe after you hear the play you might think that serendipitous is really the wrong word...'cause the play is really an act of hate...still it's good for a few laughs 'cause we know who the model for...for his monk is and we know how...we can see ourselves how totally off-base he is but anyway it's...you know it's like something I had to do I went down to the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation -- like the SLBC -- and I asked them if I could get a copy of the tape and so right away they grabbed me and they said that the party they were supposed to be interviewing for one of their Buddhist programs hadn't shown up and I was just in time and would I come this way to the studio please and here we were and we just have a few questions for you and it won't hurt much and it will all be over in a few minutes...and so we did this interview and...and then after that they agreed to give me a copy of the play and they stuck a copy of this interview on the tape too...I guess they copied it when they broadcast it...I didn't hear the broadcast myself...I went back a few days later to pick up the tape and I guess it was all done...so all that stuff anyway is on the other side of the tape...and if you ever want to listen to it then it's there. and so I still had this one whole side of the tape left and I was wondering what to do with it when I was back at the temple and this monk's radio was on...I think that this time he didn't turn it on I think my hand must have accidentally hit you know the on button or something...and so anyway there was this...there was this music show...so the radio announcer said that he was going to play 'Bones', man, and I just hit that record button and away we went!...and then the whole tape just turned out to be just like sort of like ordained for you...I mean like...like dedicated from the start, you know...I mean like I realized when they played 'Bones', man, everything was coming together so much that if was just meant for you...and so here it is man and I just want you to know that I love you and I really respect what you're doing with your life and this tape is just my way of telling you just that...OK?...sukhi hotu[1], man...(whisper) yeah...(voice fades out humming, 'Zem bones, zem bones, zem dry bones...now here's the word of the lawd...')

(I flipped the cassette over and listened to A Question of Retreat, Robin Maugham was the grandson of Somerset Maugham. His grandfather told him a story he had heard of an Englishman living alone in the jungles of Sri Lanka. The young Maugham, a journalist, searched out Ven. Ñāṇāvīra who, perhaps with the odd qualm, granted the young man an interview. For his courtesy, the monk was slapped with an unflattering portrait in a London rag as well as the disparaging play.

Following the play on the tape was the radio interview with, according to the announcer, Ven. Bodhesako Thera. The mistaken title of thera was, in fact, ironically fitting. A monk who has taken his higher ordination is a bhikkhu. A bhikkhu with atleast ten years as as bhikkhu is a thera. Although Bob had once been a bhikkhu -- Ñāṇasuci -- in his last stint as a monk he chose to not take his higher ordination, preferring to remain a novice or samanera. However, all his years as a monk toted up to atleast twelve; the thera ten plus. The interviewer called him 'Ven. Bodhesako Samanera', but the announcer, at the conclusion of the interview, called him 'Ven. Bodhesako Thera' again. Also the interviewer introduced him as 'from Thailand', where he was ordained, but over the radio one wouldn't assume that someone 'from Thailand' had been born in Detroit and had a Jewish grandfather from Russia named Morris Medvedovsky; perhaps, they all looked the same to the interviewer. -- Hūm.)

Announcer: The time is 10:45 AM and you are tuned to the national service of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation. Ven. Bodhesako Thera is heard in conversation with Alec Robertson in our weekly program 'Buddhism and You'.

(Though to one with an ear to hear Ven. Bodhesako says some enlightening things, such an ear, apparently, does not belong to Alec Robertson, as he keeps answering his own questions, quite content to be in dialogue with himself. The comic affect is compounded by Mr. Robertson's singsong tenor, as if he were parodying himself. An excerpt from the interview may give something of its unique flavor. - Hūm)

AR: It is indeed a pleasure and an honor to have with us today Ven. Bodhesako Samanera from Thailand to take part in this short discussion. Venerable sir, you have been a monk for the last six years and you take a very keen and enthusiastic interest in the study, practice, and publication of the teaching of the Buddha. In fact you have written a book on...a Buddhism which has been published by the Buddhist Publication Society...kindly...entitled...a...the...

B: The Buddha and Catch-22.

AR: Yes...a...now, reverend sir, with regard to the doctrine of anatta or no self, one of the most abstruce teachings of the Buddha. Westerners find it most difficult to understand and.comprehend this teaching. What is the reason for it?

B: Well, I think that any person looking for an explanation is going to take this doctrine and use it to fit his own needs, desires, whether it's in accordance with the teaching or not. And since people have always been looking for answers to questions, they've always been looking for resolutions to situations, and this is not only today, not only Westerners, this is true of all times and all peoples. People have always been looking for answers to questions -- now somebody comes to this teaching and they are told that the Buddha said that wherever you look you will see nothing that is self or pertains to self and they look for an explanation they can understand within their own frame of reference and so because this teaching is so different than what Westerners are accustomed to they will try to adapt the teaching to their own framework. what they need to do is not adapt the teaching to their own point of view, but their point of view to the teaching -- this is called saddha -- or trust -- to give oneself to the teaching even if it is contrary to one's preconceived notions of the way things are. That means instead of looking for answers, what they need to do is examine this need they have to ask questions -- and this is what the Buddha teaches -- that we must examine ourselves; that when we need to ask questions we must discover the root of this need and to find out what it is that gives rise to it. If we put our attention on the question instead of the answer then we will be practicing the Buddha's Teaching.

AR: Yes...now with regard to the doctrine of anatta or no self...

(After AR gives a little spiel telling us all about meditation, he asks, by the way, B what it is. -- Hūm) [2]

B: Meditation is simply facing our existence, living in the present, seeing things as they are, instead of seeing them with a lot of glitter. You may see some of these display windows where they're trying to sell merchandise; all these glittery things are strung out in the window to catch your attention. But when somebody is really attached to something you don't need to string out the glitter -- the glitter is in his eyes and he will see things with glitter -- mindfulness and meditation is freeing oneself from the glitter, becoming disenchanted.

AR: Yes...as you said meditation helps one to...

Announcer: That was Alec Robertson in conversation with Ven. Bodhesako Thera. The time is exactly 11:00 AM. You are tuned to the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation.

__________

[1] sukhi hotu: (Pali) 'my you be happy.'

[2] Transcribed interview can be found at http://pathpress.wordpress.com/bodhesako/interview-with-samanera-bodhesako-on-sri-lankan-radio-1986/

Letter 4.33

2008-11-27T06:23:00.001Z

(Few Buddhist monks have probably had this affliction: computer problems. First Bob couldn't get in Sri Lanka the particular 'thimbles' or daisy-wheel-like print elements for the diverse typography of the book's text, then Spinwriter ELF blew a gasket...er power distribution chip...even Singapore didn't have them in stock, so it had to be 'got down' from Japan...and fickle local electricity filched floating memory. -- Hūm)

While my days have been spent for the most part, east of the subroutine and west of the monitor, the trip to Colombo, even Kandy, kept getting bumped into the future, till I realized it might just stay there...

Unlike here, in Kandy there is daily evidence of security: armed soldiers guard main intersections and sometimes stop cars, the road past the Temple of the Tooth is closed to traffic, although there seems little danger of an attack on the Temple: this obliged me to frequently make a long detour around the other side of Kandy Lake to get to and from town. When news was heard of the killing of the 32 monks in the Eastern province, almost all the houses and shops in town flew yellow flags in mourning and protest. This got a big play in the paper which, however, virtually ignored an inter-religious peace march of about 500 people from Kandy to Anuradhapura which started while I was there. (I walked in it for a few miles.)

Then on to Colombo, where my printer was finally repaired, after nearly 3 months to get a single part from Singapore! My order for fresh ribbons, placed 2 months ago, had still not been filled, so obviously attempting to get thimbles would be as futile exercise. My teeth have taken about as long to repair with about as much satisfaction. I still may end up losing the molars with the root-canals, because a low-grade infection seem to stay with them which nothing but antibiotics can check. I usually get some other bug in the city that I'm spared in the country. This time it was more serious, however: paratyphoid. It's a water-borne virus from contaminated water. I usually am very careful, but such things are a monk's occupational hazards. Atleast, it was mild case, from which I'm mostly recovered. I had it once before 15 years ago; worse, as I remember. The latest plague in the city are the virus' infecting computer software, I have learned. The virus' are encoded in the software turning it to gibberish on unaware command. Almost all software is pirated here, even that which is sold by established firms at list price. Unlike imitation watches, it is, except for the label, indistinguishable from the original, being-an electronic copy. The virus' are employed as protection against piracy, for piracy, and by piracy. Except through the most reputable agents I'd be very leery about purchasing any more software locally.

I saw some destruction in Colombo: the burnt hulks of buses and other vehicles alongside the road, stretches where telephone poles were broken, the wire missing, black patches in the road where tires had been set alight. Some telephone exchanges are totally destroyed, and I've been told other tales of destruction of many millions of dollars of government property, in protest against the recent peace accord signed by Jayawardene and Gandhi.

The accord is basically between Sri Lanka and India, not between Sri Lanka and the Tamil separtists. The Tamils are granted some concessions, but it is not entirely to their liking since it doesn't give them the separate state for which they have been killing and dying, and the unification of the Northern and Eastern provinces is contingent upon a referendum, which the East, it seems, will probably reject. But they have no real choice in the matter, since the accord offers, in exchange for Gandhi's promise to deny the separtists a base in India (without which they would have no possibility of being a credible presence), a de jure recognition of India's de facto dominance in the region, guaranteeing strategic concessions (a non-militarized Trinco bay, etc.) which India has long sought.

It's probably the best deal that any of the parties could have hoped for, but some Sinhalese in particular are unhappy about it, regarding it as a sellout. And the JVP (the radical party that was behind the '71 rebellion) will no doubt use it as a rallying cry for sympathisers, who are very nationalistic and anti-Tamil, The Indians are quite pleased about the pact, mistakenly regarding themselves as having successfully brokered peace between two factions: what they've really done is to have agreed, for a price, to stop supporting one of those factions.

But it has yet to actually be implemented: very few weapons have been surrendered, parliamentary debate will surely be stormy, even within Jayawardene's own party, and there was quite a bit of rioting and some killing when Gandhi came to Sri Lanka to sign the pact. Perhaps you saw the video clip of the Sri Lanka sailor trying to knock off Gandhi's head -- he'd have succeeded if there hadn't been an alert officer at hand who deflected some of the blow. I heard the live commentary of the proceedings on the radio, but the announcer made no mention at all of the incident and I didn't learn of it till later. I don't know if he failed to see it, though that seems unlikely, or was too stupid to think it worth mentioning (a distinct possibility: Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation is an outfit of incompetents if there ever was one), or was afraid to speak of it without official approval, also distinctly possible. Anyway the coming weeks or months will tell whether the accord, still just a piece of paper will become anything more than that.

Another project I'm involved in presently, apart from the book, is called, among the few of us who are taking it up, the Hopelessly Poor, and its purpose is to find, among those who are hopeless because of dire poverty, individuals who if helped might be able to earn their own living instead of being dependent on begging. These people, who are a small minority of the hopelessly poor, would be trained in whatever skills they would like to learn and which we can arrange for and would be lent funds (which we will be contributing collectively) and whatever else is necessary to get them going. When they are self-sufficient they will be expected (without bated breath) to repay (without interest) what has been lent them, so that these funds can form a revolving account. Only when they have repaid the money will they be considered rehabilitated. However, we will continue to make contributions to our kitty for as long as is necessary or useful. We are doing this quietly, privately (although a few government people have been informed so that we will not unwittingly get ourselves into unforeseen difficulties with suspicious bureaucrats), and experimentally. I don't know how it will turn out but I think it's a worthwhile thing to do with the income being generated now from my share of the LA property (as I also think the publishing project to be worthwhile).

Three Dutch students are staying at the estate for a few months (in the quarters of the Dutch Catholic priest, who is away), partly to do some engineering on behalf of 'Uva Spice', the non-profit spice exporting unit that has recently been established by said priest. They want to be sympathetic to ideas which are new to them, but I find it interesting to see how difficult this task is for them. Several times I've talked to them about a perspective to which they are unaccustomed -- once specifically on the Buddha's Teaching, but the other times on more general cultural perspectives -- and I discover that even with reasonable good will on their part, they aren't really able to see what I'm getting at. Always, they put my words into their own perspective, which automatically prevents them from seeing any perspective other than their own. (And since they are, all of them, committed to Christianity, our more specific discussion produced even less comprehension. They could not fathom that what seems important to them is, from another point of view, irrelevant; and try as they might to understand, they kept missing the central point, however directly -- or indirectly -- I stated it.) Curious to think that at one time I was in their position exactly. Even the most sympathetic Westerner, bound to his Western perspective, is bound to sympathetically misunderstand the Third World and any point of view with which he is not already comfortably familiar.

Fortunately, due to my weakened condition, I had an unusually comfortable ride back to Ella from Colombo. An Englishman who lives on the estate with his wife happened to be coming up at the same time I was: in a big chauffered air-conditioned car belonging to his company. And since getting back to my kindly hosts, the Congreves have been looking after me to the small extent that I need.

I'm sorry about the rather poor quality of the printer. The ratchet which holds the thimble steady when a letter is printed has become partly worn and can no longer do its job. As a result some of the letters tend to be a bit out of place It's just a little plastic bit that fits in with a c-clamp, but until a new one can be got down from Singapore we'll both have to put up with it. Still beats a typewriter, though.

Well, if they've added color to Casablanca I assume they will also have changed its title to Casarosa. Did you know that Ronald Reagan was one of the candidates for the lead part in the film? He didn't get it then, but some 35 or 40 years later he nailed down the translation rights. Just goes to show the translation is never as good as the original.

love,

Bob

Letter 4.32

2008-11-26T06:18:00.001Z

Some month or other (or else not)

Dear HMV,

I've been out, or out of it, for a long time, sort of half involuntarily. Well, 01' Ma N told me it was time to get out of that kuti (BAM! SMSH! well, yes ma'am, I see your point) and until a few days ago I've been loose upon the world. Though I must admit that sometimes it seemed the other way 'round to me.

Not that anyone's tried to do me more harm than, say, sprinkling some chili sambol over a mess of stringhoppers -- terrorism comes in an infinite variety of forms -- but eventually I had enough of that way and with -- I hope -- Ma N's tacit consent have once more become settled down, albeit in my own unsettled (and perhaps even unsettling) way.

Your letter of some month or other (or else not) arrived, as did your birthday (the Buddha's, not mine, and probably not yours either) greeting, and will be celebrating (or mourning) its own soon, so let this be a greeting to it as well as to you. Hi there!

As you will have noticed by now, in all likelihood, I'm writing this letter using one of those newfangled word-processing machines. Never be as good as ola leaf, goose quill, and carbon black ink, will it?, but then what can we expect in these degenerate times?

The thing is, it's not only letters what can be written on these infuriatingly versatile critters, but books as well -- they can be formatted in what is a fair approximation of electronic typesetting, and that, it seems, is exactly what is about to happen to NOTES ON DHAMMA and the rest of that shmegegga to be known collectively (unless something better comes along) as CLEARING THE PATH. The whole to be printed by something called photo-offset, if you believe everything you hear.

And it occurs to me that it's only a few months shy of 20 years since I first started, in fits and, working on Ñāṇavīra's manuscript in much the same way that your 20-year sentence (or was it life + 20?) has been, or is being, served upon WORTHY BONES. Or vice versa. And since you promise that you won't send me a copy I'll get even with you by promising that I will send you one. After all, fair is fair. But I warn you, it's a thorny work, as anyone who tries to use it for toilet paper is liable to discover.

Keep those gentle catastrophes coming, Yes indeedy, metta to all tarsals.

V .

Letter 4.31

2008-11-25T06:20:00.001Z

The upper slopes were closed all morning by heavy snow. When the clouds lifted around noon, I was one of the first on the just-opened lift and at the top there was miles of untouched powder snow. My skis sank ankle deep, giving incredible support, but the snow was dry so speed was possible, and everything was so quiet and pristine. After speeding down a slope I came to a rise which ant the top (as I discovered when I got there) was cut away sharply. There was no warning, no chance for planning, just the automatic reaction as for 15 yards I sailed over the snow and made a perfect landing. It was such a rush I knew why people risk their necks to do those incredible hundreds-of-yards jumps... This was one of the most vivid dreams I've ever had in my life -- not a fantasy, but a memory -- perfect recall of an event I'd all but forgotten. The jump with synchronous perfect recall...a suggestion, perhaps, of what I'm trying to do with my life?...

My stay in Colombo was much longer than I'd have thought possible, but all's well that ends well (enough), for I finally got the basic software problem sorted out. I had to return the computer to the people who sold it to me, since their model couldn'd handle the software I needed. They weren't very gracious about it, but in the end they had no choice, not only because legally I was in the right but also because I know a few people who could make my position stick, and the computer company knew it. So I got a different computer, a Taiwan-made CAF, which is simply an imitation of the IBM PC, mistakes and all (the better compatibles try to put right some of the things IBM did wrong). But it runs the software I need to use (and makes my printer work up to its capacities), and also the people who sold it are reliable and will always go out of their way for me, and that makes a big difference in this country. For instance, I paid for 256KB RAM (random access memory -- the amount of data the computer can keep in its own memory, the more of which the more software it will be able to run and the faster it will be able to run it), but they gave me a computer with 640KB memory, remarking that the additional memory chips (worth about $100) were already soldered into place and it wasn't worth their while to remove them. Obviously, there was only one possible reply I could make to this, namely, 'Thanks for the memories'.

A video game called 'Demon's Forge' intrigued me. In most games one knows the rules and wins by skill within the confines of the rules: in this one only a few of the rules are given, and one has to discover, by experiment, what the remaining rules are. They could, perhaps, re-name this game 'Life'.

I remember as a kid the only sort of entertainment comparable to video game was the pinball machine -- put a nickel in and get five balls and two or more flippers. Well, it's more expensive now -- in video: costs a quarter to play, but since pushing 'Q' earns me two bits a push I can manage. Extremely realistic, with flippers, etc. exactly like the mechanical versions of old. Only thing is that it's hard to remember that to 'jiggle' the machine certain keys have to be pushed: the tendency is still to try to jiggle the table, which achieves nothing (except jiggling the table). And if you push those jiggle keys too much, you go tilt. On the other hand, with the electronic version it's possible to change virtually any of the parameters at will: bumper action, flipper response, scoring system, etc. The curious thing, however, is my reaction to winning a 'free' game. In the arcade version there is always the rationale that a 'free game' means additional playing time for my money, but here obviously the plays don't cost me anything at all, except wear and tear of the keyboard: why, then, should there still be the same emotional response of satisfaction at winning a free game, even when it's only by matching numbers at the end of play?

Then I tried the 'Flight Simulator' and was eventually successful in bombing Kraut factories and shooting down a, number of Hanse-Brandenburg DIs, Albatross DIIs, and Fokker DVIIs. I learned something about the controls, including the radar and radio, and managed a few daredevil stunts. However, I couldn't land successfully. When in the Chicago area, it is from Meigs Field that I fly, by the way, and the tall building into which I frequently crash is, therefore, the John Hancock building.

I also beat the computer in chess: quite badly; it was probably embarrassed.

This all plays well with my sense of satire; generally unwelcome in polite society. But I'm not the first to be misunderstood when irony is intended: it's a risky undertaking. Even Swift had some trouble, I believe, when he made a modest proposal of his own.

While in Colombo I read a report on the results of a match in the recent World Cup games which observed that the 'Lebanese marked the football victory in traditional fashion, blaring car horns and firing machine guns.' I also learned that the word 'optimism' was first used in 1737, and of the invention of a new unit of measure called a 'helen', which is the quantity of beauty sufficient to launch one ship. (Helen of Troy is of course the standard measure, at 10 kilohelens.) I also heard a few BBC program on the radio. I enjoyed the Vienna Boys' Choir; in particular a solo version of 'Ave Maria' done to a counterpoint from Bach's Prelude to a Well-tempered Clavichord -- I forget the number of the Prelude but you know which one I mean, the one that's made up almost entirely of arpeggios: I used to play it on the piano. The BBC was also running a series of readings by Garrison Keilor on Lake Wobegon Days. I chuckled (and twinged considering my dental problem, which I have yet, as the Sri Lanka idiom has it, to 'do the needful by) the retired dentist who went fishing all the time and, having snared a sunfish, prepared to remove the hook from the unfortunately creature's mouth by remarking, 'Open wide now; this may sting for a moment'.

A couple peculiar remarks were made on a newsbroadcast. A person being interviewed, a partisan for a particular cause, said, 'There would be no violence if these people would just get out of the way!' He happened to be a Muslim fundamentalist (not one of my favorite charities), but the remark struck me as summing up so much of the world that it is virtually a sociological paradigm. The other remark was a report on the Gulf war, in which I clearly heard: 'A new offensive by Iran is definite for October, which is the start of the tourist season.' This puts a whole new perspective on what the war is all about. The six-year-long equivalent of a professional football game? Killing your neighbors for fun and profit? Seeing the world the hard way? It occurred to me that perhaps I misheard, and what had been said was 'the start of the terrorist season but that interpretation raised even more questions, and seems no more probable than my first understanding. Perhaps, in an irrational world, we cannot expect news reports to be both accurate and rational.

Have you ever felt an elephant's tongue? It is very soft and moist, and also very large. It does not seem to be a very flexible tool. In the municipal park across from the Colombo monastery where I stayed was a very friendly elephant who likes to be patted and rubbed, especially on her concave jowls, and who, if I approach her with food in my hand, opens her mouth and expects to be fed like a baby ('Here comes the choo-choo!'). Only reluctantly will she take food with her trunk (inside is just like a giant pair of nostrils-she doesn't like me to touch the tip of her trunk at all) and feed herself. A whole loaf of bread is a modest mouthful. Bananas go at about 4 to a bite. I just shovel it and she looks at me with a very gentle long-lashed eye. As a pet she would be an expensive white elephant, even though she is gray (with pink spots on her mottled ears, pink tongue, pink nostrils, a few brownish molars, no tusks) and -- so I'm told, I can't judge for myself -- pregnant. But who done it?

Letter 4.30

2008-11-24T06:32:00.001Z

Tell you what, if I die before you then you can have my body, give you all the opportunity to see me again that you could ask for. Sure, I'd love to see you too, and not only you but a whole trainload of people I've enjoyed in my own way, but also every morning I wake up and see my robes and almsbowl and give a cheery wave and say 'Hi there, friend', and I just couldn't face the prospect of parting from my dearly beloved (not to mention loving my dearly departed). Of course, you'd always be welcome to hop out here and join me -- if your brotherly twinge can ever find its way outside those big black parentheses, that is -- and I'd even be willing to arrange for some robes, a bowl, and a stump in the woods. But maybe your nearly departed, the ever-departing HMV[1], might object as vociferously to your departure as my nearly parted robes (oy, have they got patches -- but the rains-retreat ends in a few weeks and next month I get a new one, wot cheer) object silently to the thought of mine. So here I sits.

You'd like some local color for what disappeared down my black hole? Mauve, magenta, burgandy, chartreuse? We got 'em all. But which one fits into a book you ain't writ yet I couldn't say. So instead of sending you a lot of paint buckets which you might not even be able to use at all, would it not, pray, be better if you sent your quasi-historical rag to me and then let me suggest where specific touches of specific shades might go well? I'll be a sort of interior decorator. (I've always fancied starting a firm called Sky Ghost Writing Services.) Send me your novels, your poems, your essays and potboilers, I'll turn them into spiffy scenes you'd be proud to have your friends in for dinner parties. Meanwhile, back at the typer, I think your idea of a novel about the famine in Ethiopia has to be a sure-fire winner provided that you write it as a well-ordered garden rather than as a dense, impenetrable jungle. Publishers just are not handy with machetes or pruning shears, and tend to fear meeting up with a libelous lion who has become a publisher-eater.

I'm not the sort to attack dying people, even though we're all dying, where the devil else you think we're heading, particularly when they're as busy dying as old HMV seems to be these last years, but he seems to have latched on to the peculiar notion that somewhere or somehow the Buddha teaches the Truth, and he seem to have the further notion that there ain't no such thing. Well, if that's his truth... But actually, I'm not aware of anyplace in the Pali Suttas where the Buddha makes any such suggestion (though all sorts of people, starting probably with Nagasena, make that claim on his behalf). He claims to teach something quite different from Truth, or so I read it, so the question of how messy the universe is actually misses the point. The point is that man is perpetually unhappy with the, as he sees it, mess, and is always trying to neaten it up, which as HMV says is poetry. But what the Buddha says is that all this ordering of the universe to be other than it is, poetic as it may be, is just dukkha;. To give up dukkha you have to see that to give up dukkha you have to give up poetry. I'd like to see you nuke that one rhyme. Whatever ol' buddy HMV sees in the Buddha is all in the eye of the beholder. It's not a question of how much can be or cannot be known, but of how much can be or cannot be groan. Like nearly everyone, HMV seems to be doing his best to miss the point. But since HMV thinks the Buddha is finally poetry (or the poetry of no poetry), then I'm very pleased to know he's not a Buddhist. I'm not either (as Stan Laurel once remarked).

Ven. Dukkha [1]

__________

[1] In Worthy Bones, HMV was the representative of the English 'collector', Sir Makepeace Gravenhenge (SMG), who, perhaps, 'more than represented him' and hired Mohel to pinch the Buddha's bones; he was also the author of the novel and now and then in his dotage dashes off notes of bone—dry humor to former agents and godknows who else.

[2] In Worthy Bones, Ven. Dukkha (Pali: un-satisfaction) was the Buddhist Patriarch of the island of Samadhi and possessor of the relics. In the original draft he was called Ven. Tanha (Pali; desire, craving).

Letter 4.29

2008-11-23T06:22:00.001Z

May Flours

May flours are the best for making stringhoppers and glue for aerogrammes without a glue.

I've now returned from my wanderings to distant lands (like Colombo and Dodanduwa), where I writ several novels in my head; such as an action-packed soy thriller with high-governmental intrigues and international consequences that just happens to be set not in modern times but in India, 2500 years ago, in which a certain ascetic who has attracted many disciples, and for whom certain extraordinary claims are being made, happens to play a role which, though minor, turns out to be vitally crucial to the denouement? Howzat for a guaranteed worst-seller? And then there was the one about the very first European who ever became a Buddhist monk (that we know of), who happens to be a Greek at the time of King Asoka (he -- the Greek -- is mentioned in the Dipavaṃsa) -- how he came to India (as a spy for the Persian emperor who, having heard of the death of Bindusara -- Asoka's pa -- and foreseeing a power struggle sees a chance to regain territory lost by his grandpa to Asoka's grandpa, Chandragupta -- perhaps as a spy disguised as a merchant who gets into the court and participates in the power struggle and learns about India -- maybe he was a Stoic back in Athens, from which he's now exiled -- and maybe... but that would be telling you my plot, and maybe you prefer to invent your own, or none at all, and, in fact, due to a power outage of no longer than a hiccup, it -- unrecorded to disk in my head -- has disappeared into an mnemonic black hole forever... Just as well, I could never get up the steam to actually write it...

Yes, it must be getting difficult to know how to address me by now -- I know it's not easy figuring out how to sign off at the end of a letter. Indeed, I shall soon run out of letters in the roman alphabet and shall have to turn to some other alphabet -- fortunately no shortage of them, either ancient or oriental, to choose from -- and shall eventually become first unspellable, later unpronouncable, and in the end, dead.

Yes, love,

um...well...B?...no, V?...no, how about RES? CDE? BEAD? QED?

(Dear Postmaster of Sooke, B.C., Please be advised that the addressee of this letter is a criminal of the worst sort, who refuses to believe the popular lie and will not bow down to Mammon. Obviously he deserves the harshest penalty society can possibly offer him, which is to entirely ignore him, I trust to your good offices to see that this is achieved. He informs me, without ever complaining, that you have been reading his mail. The nerve of him, to have neither righteous indigestion nor wrongeous indigestion. Please horsewhip him, if you have a horse. Or dogwhip, catwhip, or canary whip him. On second thought, he would then no longer feel ignored, so better not. Instead, just put his name quietly on file with the KGB -- North American HQ in Moscow, Georgia. Your friendly spy, X.)

Letter 4.28

2008-11-22T06:18:00.001Z

I believe I mentioned the Congreves when I was staying at Ella -- they are the friendly couple who were managing (the husband, at any rate) one of the large tea estates near to Ella. Now he has retired and they have moved to their own tea estate – about 40 acres -- a few miles the other side of Bandarawela. They will be setting aside a small part of their bungalow for me, and that will be (I hope) a more suitable place than where I am now in a number of ways, particularly for the work I shall be doing. (By the way, in Sri Lanka the word 'bungalow' is used to describe the single-story palatial residences built mostly during colonial times for estate managers. In those days the owners were usually in England, and since they knew that their managers could easily rob them blind, the usual strategy of defence was to give them everything they could possibly want anyway, leaving them with little incentive to cheat. An estate bungalow is typically built from granite blocks, expensive hardwoods, etc. with generous proportions and set on a carefully tended lawn with lavish gardens. Even today they are almost all kept up and retain their English atmosphere.) There are, it seems, several foreigners staying there (also a 'guest' bungalow, a smaller affair with four rooms, which is rented out -- though I've been told that if I would pay for the electricity I use the Congreves expect no rent from me), but I haven't met any of them and have been told that everyone keeps very much to himself, which is fine with me. Unforeseen problems could arise, of course, but it could turn out to be just what I need presently.

But before I move to the estate a trip to Colombo is necessary to have some corrections made to this word-processor which by now you will have realized that I have. A computer, actually, coupled to a printer, with a word-processing software package. Therefore it can be used for many other projects besides word-processing. But there seems to be a problem in that the software will not communicate certain commands to the printer, and therefore it can't do all the things it is supposed to be able to do in setting text to look like a professionally-set book. My requirements are for as text-setting ability, since that is its primary purpose (though I admit to having quite a bit of fun with it already and have written some basic programs myself). The computer is an Epson 0X-11 with a monochrome green monitor and dual disk drives, and the printer (the Spinwriter ELF 350) is made by NBC. Epson, I learned only yesterday, is owned by Seiko. NBC is the telecommunications giant, Japan's answer to AT&T.

Everything goes slowly in Sri Lanka. I ordered the system when I was in Colombo in January, but since some of it had to be 'got down' (as Sinhalese English puts it) from Singapore I didn't actually take delivery until my trip to Colombo of about six weeks back. So, knowing about delays, it would not surprise me if the software problem did not get corrected this trip.

The book I will be publishing is that of my teacher, Ñāṇavīra Thera, a typescript of which you saw about 18 years ago. I'm not the only one involved, but am the principal editor. I've also written some things and there is the possibility that they will be published under the same imprint -- we are setting up an entity called Path Press to handle legal matters, though there is no plan for it to be a full-function publisher. But one thing at a time. After this book we'll see what, if anything, comes next.

I suppose you'd only find giardia [1] listed in a medical dictionary, since it only occurs in tropical climates. It's an intestinal infection characterized by loose motions and frequent belching, often with a foul taste. Though I've never had it before now, it's, apparently, not uncommon, and is not regarded as dangerous but it is persistent and difficult to get rid of completely. However, I have been free of symptoms for a week or so and a stool test shows no parasites, amoebas, etc., of any kind. But it's sapped my energy, at least; at most, it's a discomfort and hindrance to concentration.

Well, that's the second time I typed the preceding. I got that far the first time when there was a power cut of about a half second and everything got totally erased. This time I've recorded it to disk so that that can't happen. Hardly a day goes by without a power cut -- usually brief, but occasionally lasting several hours. So it's necessary to get into the habit of saving a disk every half hour or so. (There are some word-processing programs that will do so automatically, but not this one.) Then it would not be possible to lose more than a half-hour's work (though I doubt it took more than either half an hour or half a brain to compose the preceding).

The Kantalee dam -- as you ask -- is far from here. (This is Upcountry -- dams are a feature of the plains.) It is in the Trincomalee area, a place where there is a lot of fighting going on, and it may be that the dam was sabotaged, as claimed by one group. I doubt the rains had anything to do with it, else there would have been earlier warnings of its being breeched. I believe it's one of the ancient earthwork dams constructed 15 centuries ago at a time when major irrigation schemes were the kings' pride for several centuries. It may have been strengthened in recent times, though these old dams have been found to be very well engineered. No doubt you also heard about the plane being blown up at the airport. Although the political situation seems worsening, there is no reason, however, to believe that it will affect Upcountry (except in indirect ways, such as economic), and however disastrous it is to those unfortunate enough to live in the north of the island it is to me so far only a nuisance (e.g. the army's main training camp is only a few miles away, and their target practice, which is clearly audible, has increased considerably since I was first involuntarily introduced to their 'fusillade symphony' when I settled in Ella). But, where are there no troubles? (E.g. The rain in Ukraine is a radioactive bane.)

__________

[1] Perhaps, not the first symptom, or misdiagnosis, of the herniated bowel, which eventually took him to his death-bed in the hospital in Katmandu. -- Hūm

Letter 4.27

2008-11-21T06:25:00.001Z

(In Colombo Bob picked up a box of books and manuscripts he'd requested which had been shipped from the States. He needed the material for the annotation and commentary of his verse translations of the Dhammapada. But what he was again faced with was the manuscript of Ñāṇavīra Thera, which had so deeply instructed and haunted him for twenty years. He realized that it was finally his responsibility to prepare the manuscript for publication, and he also realized that would not mean merely editorial duties. With only a small fund available for the project, the only way he could see that it could be done properly was to electronic type-set it himself. So, having never touched a computer in his life, he began looking around for a suitable word-processing system, and also a place to do the work: i.e. a dry, stable room with electricity and few distractions. Also in the box were a bundle of my old letters to him during his former sojourn in Sri Lanka. He sent them back to me with a note. -- Hūm)

A warning about going down old rabbit holes. You can never tell what you'll find in them. Rabbit shit. Rabbit food. Rabbit nests. Maybe even rabbits. This stuff turned up (incredible what people will squirrel away, isn't it? or should I say, what people will rabbit away?). Now it's turned over. Perhaps it will be turned out, or in. Down, not likely. (You don't get down off a rabbit anyway; you get down off a goose.)

Anyway, I introduce you to yourself -- Hum, meet Eric, meet Jungne, meet Fred & Nelly, etc. Also some old friends, such as Vināyadhara & Ñāṇasuci. I could go on. No doubt I shall. But not here. Let you dig into it now and watch karmic juices get squeezed back into their fruit.

Letter 4.26

2008-11-20T10:22:00.001Z

(And then the rains came -- and came and came! The Upcountry of Sri Lanka had further to fall than the lowlands of the Negev -- though it was not even the second time the ground didn't stay put under Bob's feet -- for him, even the Flood's twice -- Hūm)

Ella -- January '86

For days we were in very thick cloud much of the time, raining almost continuously, atleast as a drizzle, swept by winds. As a result the parapet wall which fronts the verandah became increasingly drenched. Now, on this wall are 3 posts which support that part of the roof which covers the verandah and cantilevers several feet in front of the parapet. About 9:30 at night this parapet collapsed, in part, taking with it two of the posts which were holding up the front of the roof, causing that half of the front of the roof to tilt at a strong angle. I made an effort to shore up the beam but found this impossible. In fact, a support was torn from my hands as one of the cross-beams cracked. The inside was unaffected, and I contemplated staying the night there, moving over to the half of the room that was away from the tilted roof, but when another roof beam cracked I thought that although I might make a bed, and I might lie in it, it was unlikely I would sleep in it.

So I grabbed a bag, stuffed with a few things, donned a poncho, took the lantern, and was about to leave -- when I was delayed by two hours. First I discovered that a mouse and her pups had taken up their domicile in my bag. Perhaps to distract me from her sleepy pups not inclined to move, she jumped out and darted around the room until I finally caught her under my alms bowl. I took her and the pups a decent distance from the cottage and let them find a new home. When I came back and opened the door, a kind of robin, a black robin, flew inside. There was no catching her, except by giving up. I left the door open and she finally flew out. I heard several roof tiles fall off the roof. They're quite heavy and could be dangerous. The whole house seemed ready to collapse. Even walking into a storm at night seemed a safer place to be.

The gully by the bus road was in half flood, but I was able to leap it, and then went to my nearest neighbors, about 200 yards away, but it seemed they had already left their house -- a brand new and well -- constructed building -- for the schoolhouse, since they thought it was safer. However, my next nearest neighbors were in and they gave me shelter. Their house is tile-roofed from the front to the peak, but shingle and thatch-roofed down to the back -- they are not well-off and probably haven't yet been able to afford the additional tiles -- and the back half of their house dripped into numerous pots and pans through the night.

About 5 AM the rain became torrential for an hour or so, and at first light I could see the gullies -- not the little one I have to cross to the road but the much bigger ones that run year around -- in a raging torrent that reminded me of the flooded wadi mt Ein Gedi in '65, though the Ein Gedi flood was far more substantial since it was at the bottom of the riverbed systems rather than well up the mountain. You might think that since we have passed the winter solstice that sunrise would be coming earlier each day, but repeated observations through the years convinces me that in fact the sun continues to rise ever later until late January or so, and if the days do truly become longer (and it's not just a scientific hoax) that it must be due to the later sunset. Therefore it didn't get light until after 6, and then, once the gully to my place receded enough to be negotiable, we were able to survey the damage by light.

Of course, I hadn't known, as I lay awake much of the night, what I would find in the morning -- complete devastation or no further damage -- but it turned out between the two extremes. From the front wall forward every tile had fallen to the ground, many broken, and the third front roof support had collapsed, and he whole front part of the roof tilted down, lacking support. But without tiles it was no longer so very heavy and therefore the roof over the room held firm aside from a few tiles which were out of place, perhaps due to the roof tilting forward, dropping a load of tiles, and then resettling.

The verandah was blocked so that rainfall was trapped and running backwards under the door frame into the room, but most everything in the room was still dry. Since there is a problem with termites, before I leave I always pack the books and papers into the emptied rain barrel and a few buckets, so there wasn't a lot to do to pack up the contents of the room, and various neighbors came and helped remove everything to the house where I had spent the night, and to put up some temporary braces to hold up the front of the roof frame, and to cut a channel to drain the porch. Almost the whole parapet wall had collapsed and there were no tiles before the front wall to protect the top of it, but I didn't think it safe to start climbing up on the roof to put up tiles, so left that to stand or fall as chance would have it.

A repair job is possible, but not for a long time, since new tiles are needed and they are expensive and would have to be brought in by truck, which cannot be done until the road is repaired, which will take months. This road was built about 10 years ago by hand, without any heavy-machinery available for its repair. Once I had seen a round near Bandarawela being built by hand and I talked to the supervisor, who told me that in terms of cost there was little difference, except that when construction was manual the cost went mostly as wages to poor local people whereas when construction was by machine it went mostly to Japan for heavy equipment, wasting valuable foreign exchange. The only disadvantage to manual building is that it's so very much slower.

Naturally I was told I could put up with one of the villagers until the rains were finished, but this would be very inconvenient both for them and me, so I decided to go at least to Nilandahenna to learn the condition of the main roads. Since I didn't want to leave my things in the house where I slept (too small and also too leaky) we then arranged to shift everything to a closet in the schoolhouse some distance off. This was completed about 10 AM. All this time the rain had ranged from steady to drizzle. The road, I was told, was no longer passable even on foot -- I didn't believe this at the time but later when I saw the Randy road I could easily believe that the Udamdura road was indeed impassable even by foot.

However, several, villagers had to go to Nilandahenna, one of them being a a man I knew well, and they were going over the mountain, so I decided to join them.

It could have been a terrible climb if it had been storming and windy, but fortunately the whole climb was done in a light drizzle without wind, so it was merely difficult. In some places the way was very muddy, sometimes boulders had slipped across onto the path, obliterating it, but when I had climbed in the past it had been hot and sunny and this time at least it wasn't hot but cool, so that discomfort was eliminated.

I went as fast as I safely could, but still the villagers went slow for them to let me keep up. It was perhaps a 45 minute climb, with lots of leeches near the top, but we had a bar of soap, which when applied to the feet will instantly change a leech's intentions from bite to flight.

Along the top of the plateau there was a lot of laterite to deal with, which is extremely slippery when wet, and the down side was mostly stony. I found that the gully that we needed to negotiate was not crossed but rather descended along for several hundred yards, so it is extremely fortunate there were no heavy rains, since muddy water would obscure the rocky and uneven bottom, and its pressure would inevitably cause a fall. But the gully had only a few inches of water running and was negotiated safely and carefully.

While descending we met a village family going up, the wife had been in the hospital near Watumulla having a baby when a mudslide endangered the hospital and forced evacuation of all patients. Since they were poor people there was no place for them to stay, so they had to return to Udamadura. So the wife was carrying a 3-day-old baby while the husband was lugging all their goods plus a jerrican of kerosene up this rugged hillside -- and the side we were descending is about 4 times the length of the side toward Udamadura. Until the road is repaired this will be the only way the villagers can get supplies from the outside -- kerosene, food, medicine, building material to repair their houses, etc. It will all have to be carried over the mountain.

Near the bottom it started raining hard, but a few minutes later we were among tea bushes, and in another few minutes had arrived in Nilandahenna. I went to the post-office to give them a change of address to the monastery in Colombo where I usually stay when in the city. The post-master told me all roads were blocked, even to Watumulla, the next town towards Kandy, 4 miles away, me that I would have to stay in Nilandahenna for at least a few days until the roads could be cleared. I thanked him and left. Then I met the G.A. (Government Agent, top man in each district), who also told me that the road to Watamulla could be walked but not driven. I said I'd walk. He tried to discourage me. As we discussed the matter the van which plies this stretch of road pulled in from Watumulla and discharged passengers. End of debate. I got in the van and when they collected a full load we set off for Watumulla.

The road was indeed in bad shape, and there were many places where there was just barely enough clearance between the edge and the mud, or as fallen tree, or boulders -- many kinds of obstacles. But the road was motorable and we made the 4 miles in about 30 minutes. From here I set out on foot, but my writing hand is giving out so I'll continue later.

Later -- So I set out from Watumulla on foot. I'd been told the road was closed as far as Rikilikasgada, 18 miles away, but that from there I could get a bus to Kandy, but I had the idea that I might get lucky along the way, for example meeting some earth-moving equipment which might give me a lift.

About a mile out of Waatumulla I met a bus coming the other way. It stopped and the driver told me that the road was motorable for only another 3 miles or so and that he would return if he got enough passengers, but I decided to keep walking, and if he came along then fine and if not I was better off moving.

The weather was drizzly to dry. I was now on the west side of the big range of hills that form the first barrier to the NE monsoon (Udumadura is on the eastern side), and as I learned later this was in fact an effective partial barrier. Also, this stretch of road offers views of some of the most spectacular variegated, and dramatic country in Sri Lanka, and I'd never seen it before it as walking pace, so it was actually quite pleasant.

Again there were narrow places and some ankle-deep mud, but with sandals off this could be managed without difficulty. So after a while I came to the end of the motorable stretch. There were people walking here and there most of the way, generally going short distances, but I met one person who had begun walking that morning from Rikilikasgada (coming from Kandy), and who warned me that there were many places that were difficult or dangerous.

The first few places that were not motorable were relatively minor -- a couple of men with shovels could have cleared them sufficiently for a car in a few hours -- but then I came to a place where large boulders blocked any possibility of motor traffic. Many earth slips, and a couple places where part of the roadway had collapsed into the deep valley below. But certainly the worst of all was a place where mud about 2 feet deep covered the entire road up to the very edge, and the only way across was to plunge in. It was thigh-deep, and each step involved pulling out one leg and swinging it forward and plunging it into the mud. Only about 30 paces, but it took 30 minutes, and was very exhausting. Of course, there were plenty of small stream where I could wash off, but the mud was smelly and I noticed bright pink splotches on my legs as I cleaned myself off. These remained with me until Colombo, and I've been treating them with a cream since then with some relief -- they can itch fiercely for short periods of time -- but they will no doubt go away in a few days.

The sky remained leaden, with a light rain on-and-off through the day -- not unpleasant walking weather, and since the road was a steady slight downhill grade this was also nice; and by evening I'd covered about 9 miles from Watumulla, leaving me, I incorrectly calculated, another 6 to go to Rikilikawsgada, when I came

to a village where I asked about shelter.

I was told the schoolhouse (apparently built to be a refuge not only for the mind in these small villages) was completely filled with refugees who had fled endangered houses, but I pointed out that I was also a refugee, since my house had, indeed, collapsed, so I was taken to the schoolhouse, where I was recognized by someone from the Nilandahenna area as the foreign monk who lived in Udamadura, and the outcome was that eventually I was taken off to a private house and given a bed to sleep on -- a result which was very pleasing and very kind of my hosts, but in Sri Lanka not really at all surprising. You would be correct if you supposed that I went to sleep right away, although the sleep was neither as solid nor as long as I would have liked due to the itching of my legs.

Wednesday AM

I forgot to mention yesterday that while walking, on that first day, in late afternoon I heard loud motor sounds and shortly afterwards a convoy of road-repair vehicles came along, heading toward Nilandahenna -- a jeep, dumpster, backhoe (with those huge 4 feet high balloon tires), and road gang. They gave me a cheery wave as they passed. Too bad they weren't going my way, but I reflected first that it was conceivable that they could clear the road as far as Nilandahenna that night, in which case it was possible that the 6:30 AM Kandy bus might run the next day, and secondly that even if that didn't happen, at least the road would likely be clear now of any more major obstacles ahead of me, and in fact this was true the rest of the dayn -- nothing more than ankle-deep from then on.

So when I set off the next morning shortly after 6 I was still quite tired, but hopeful that perhaps a bus or van would come along or that atleast there would be no obstacles ahead.

After about 2 miles of walking in fact a lorry came from behind me, having started I don't know where -- the first vehicle since Watumulla, except the road gang -- and gave me a lift. They said they were going to Kandy, so I started to feel very lucky, but my luck didn't hold. After a mile or so we came to a place where a bridge had been washed out and a way had been cleared for vehicles to go around and through the streambed -- boulders as large as houses lay about and the way went around these. But apparently during the night there had been further earth-slippages and mud-slides and the way was blocked.

We cleared some of the stones by hand and then the driver tried to bully his way across the rocky terrain, but he became stuck on an iron girder from the bridge, and after a lot of pushing it was apparent that he (and anything that might come behind him) had gone as far as he was going until heavy equipment arrived.

So I set off walking again. I could see two sets of caterpillar treads on the road, one coming and one going, so I assumed the way past the broken bridge had been cleared by a treaded vehicle, and in fact after a mile or so a Jap version of a D-9 or D-10 came along, obviously to clear the landslide of the night before -- all heavy equipment in Sri Lanka is of Japanese origin.

I figured there were about 2 miles left to Rikilikasgada, and was disappointed now to be told by several different people that there were in fact 5 miles to go. I was tired, and had developed a few blisters, and would have been glad to stop, but was determined to get on with the trip.

However, after 2 miles I did come to a town where in fact a CTB bus was parked and just about to leave for Rikilikasgada -- apparently it had been mrooned there for some days and the drivers had enjoyed a paid holiday which they were now obliged to end. So I hopped on and stretched out while we jangled the last 3 miles Rikilikasgada, where a Kandy bus was due to leave in 10 minutes.

I was told there were no further roadblocks and that traffic was running freely, so I thought that at last my difficulties were over -- a dangerous thought, as I soon found out, for a few miles down the road there was a sudden loud hissing sound, the bus started listing and bouncing to a stop -- flat tire! It's never over I decided, and sat down to wait until, about 20 minutes later, another bus came along and went into Kandy without further incident.

From Kandy, in a pouring rain, I got the Colombo express, which plies the 72 mile route (for 20 rupees -- about 72 cents) in a mere 2½ hours -- a fantastic speed from my point of view! By the time we reached the plains the rain had stopped and I could see blue patches of sky -- the first in over a week -- and when we arrived in Colombo it was warm and sunny and people were walking about doing their shopping and it was obvious to me that none of them had the slightest notion of what had been happening Upcountry -- oh, they heard the news and read the papers, but it might as well have been on Mars, they didn't relate to it (except perhaps to wonder why I would go about town looking so scruffy and dirty -- even for a monk). A genuine refugee, unnoticed in the throng, though perhaps not unsmelt. But I have no plans to register myself with the UNRWA.

Since then a few people I've spoken with seemed genuinely interested in what had been going on in Upcountry, but most listened only out of politeness or stupor -- it meant nothing to them. And why should it? The next day, Sunday, was sunny and I wondered what conditions might be like up there, but aside from a few newspaper reports it was for me too becoming just a somewhat remote incident. I don't even know whether the rains have ceased yet -- no way for me to find out.

So here I am, contemplating my next move. They say that getting there is half the fun. I can't wait for the other half.

____________________

If any character in Catch-22 comes close to accepting the Buddha's advice it would be Dunbar, who tries to increase his lifespan by cultivating boredom, on the grounds that when you're bored time passes slower. His idea seems to be that if only he could achieve a state of total and absolute boredom he would be, for all intents, eternal. This sounds like a rough literary approximation to meditation (although we must remember that the Buddha, unlike many Eastern teachers, quite explicitly stated that meditation by itself is an insufficient condition for enlightenment).

Dunbar, given to cultivating boredom, to seeking eternity, lies motionless in bed: he goes so far in his efforts that at one point Yossarian, looking at him, wonders whether he is still alive. This will remind us of the story of the Ven. Sañjīva who, we are told (M. 50: i,333), was seated immersed in the highest meditative attainment when some cowherds, shepherds, and ploughmen, passing by, saw him and thought, as did Yossarian of Dunbar, that he was dead. They collected grass, wood, and cowdung, heaped it up about the Ven. Sañjīva, set his pyre alight, and went on their way. The next morning Ven. Sañjīva emerged from his meditative attainment and went wandering for almsfood. His would-be cremators were astonished at seeing him alive and gave him the name by which he became known, Sañjīva, which means "with life." Dunbar seems to have lacked the Ven. Sañjīva's meditative abilities, but each sought to escape death (Ven. Sañjīva, the Sutta tells us, successfully), and each came thereby to be taken as dead.

It is common, of course, for beginning meditators to be assailed by boredom (as well as the other four hindrances); however, this does not justify equating boredom and meditation: on the contrary, boredom is an enemy of meditation. Despite the story of Ven. Sañjīva, then, we must regard any effort to equate meditation with the cultivation of boredom as tenuous, and as being further weakened by the episode in which Dunbar becomes a fortiori. However, we must also note that it is immediately after Dunbar becomes convinced, upon re-encountering the soldier in white, that (p. 358) "There's no one inside! ...He's hollow inside, like a chocolate soldier" -- thereby perhaps suggesting something of the Buddha's teaching of anattā, of not-self -- that Dunbar is disappeared. We never learn the meaning of this cryptic event ("It doesn't make sense. It isn't even good grammar" -- p. 359), but if the parallel with meditation is accepted then the further parallel that would be suggested here is with nibbāna, extinction. After being disappeared Dunbar is described (p. 360) as being "nowhere to be found", which is exactly how the Suttas describe beings who have attained full enlightenment (arahattā).[1]

Perhaps a literary parallel of an achievement that transcends literature (let alone literature, nibbāna transcends bhava, being) could not be more closely described; but in any case we cannot allow that the parallel is more than a suggestion, and (no doubt inevitably) an inaccurate one at that. And in any case to be disappeared sounds, from Heller's description of it, far less desirable than extinction, from the Buddha's description of that. (Still, it would be interesting to know how much acquaintance Heller actually had, if any, with any school of Buddhism during the seven years in which he was writing Catch-22.[2])

Sāmanera Bodhesako,
from The Buddha and the Catch-22

__________
[1] The phrase occurs frequently in the Suttas. See e.g. the concluding lines of the Vakkali Sutta (Samy. XXII,87). At Dh. 180 we find:

That tangle of snares by which he'd be penned isn't found anywhere.
His range has no end, that Buddha awake.
What track can there be to trace one who's trackless, craving-free?

[2] This question was put to Mr. Heller. The reply was that he knew "not an inkling." The range of the puthujjana, it seems, is more extensive than commonly supposed.

Letter 4.25

2008-11-19T06:19:00.001Z

BEAD

Is I is or is I ain't? Well, I is and I ain't, though what I is and what I ain't wouldn't bear thinking about, much less discussion. Actually, I did reply to your letter in a letter dealing with the on-going (...and going and going but never quite gone) sad saga of Sam who, it seems, has got himself into a stringhopper. This letter was sent to your old chap (apparently retired or dead; to be sadly missed) POB. Perhaps it will be forwarded to you by this General Delivery fellow (what are you doing mixing with this shadowy military type these days?). Or, perhaps, not, I also sent you, via slowboat to China, care of departed Mr. POB, a booklet, The Buddha and Catch-22, which should arrive, if it is to arrive, later than sooner. Let me know if there is any spooky communication between Mr. POB and General D. (What could grey be up to?) If not I'll send another booklet, and perhaps also a repeat of the latest gossip re Sam.

Speaking of gossip, Our Carmen of the Snows dropped me these lines: 'I'm down from my tottery Himalayan perch, umgnificent though it was, but I understand now I can no longer pay the price for getting high off someone else's magnificence, even if that someone is no one -- shades of Ayin (the Non-Existent; her name for God -- Hūm) -- the wrong roof for this fiddler. It's just too bright for my dark Semitic soul.' Ergo, her pan-Asian search for panacea proceeds apace... Perhaps you've got more details?

And you? What is and what ain't. Don't be coy. Your last missive made the most passing of references to some bloody great accident, but (even without the gory details) failed to cover the ground (is that the phrase?) in the least comprehensible manner, leaving me quite uncertain as to what is -- perhaps, though, that makes 3 of us? Are you still in your stump, or have you been uprooted?

Letter 4.24

2008-11-18T07:51:00.001Z

Udamadura, '84

I'm not surprised you couldn't find Udamadura on your National Geographic map -- it's just a farming village. It's unknown to Sinhalese except those who are locals -- most Sri Lankans don't even know where Nilandahenna is, which is also not surprising, since it's just a fork in the road. Udamadura is on my one inch map (i.e. one inch to one mile scale) -- it takes several dozen maps to cover all of Sri Lanka, but I have just a few sections that cover part of Upcountry, and which cover half of one of my walls). But since Badulla is on your map, Udamadura is exactly 12 miles northwest of Badulla in a straight line (but about 50 miles by road!), and Ella, where I used to stay, is 8 miles south and very slightly west of Badulla.

Tonight I hear the villagers drumming and singing for the future tobacco crop. It's quite beautifully abloom. The flowers are rather like morning glory, only a third that size, and grow in clusters at the top of the stalk, which is usually about 3 feet tall, though some giants get up to 6 feet.

The villagers sound inspired by another flower as well. The flower of the kitul tree is pressed for its sap (one flower stalk can produce a few quarts of sap), which is fermented to make toddy. Fresh the sap is sweet and tastey, boiled down it makes jaggary, a fudge-like confection. Fermented, because of its high sugar content, it's a potent punch. There are many kitul trees here as well as eucalyptus forest which is owned by the Ceylon Tobacco Corp. The eucalyptus wood is apparently used as fuel to cure tobacco leaves. The government has been trying to discourage tobacco growing; not from any consideration of public health, but because tobacco growing causes heavy soil loss, which runs down and silts up the reservoirs, which have been redredged. On the other hand, it may have nothing to do with this either, merely another of the interminable intrigues between the Government Agent, the Forest Service, and the Ceylon Tobacco Corp.

While in Colombo last week to get some much-needed dental work done (two root canals -- without proper equipment -- though he seemed to know what he was doing; in any case, the choice was between his treatment and having the teeth out at once -- I once read an interview with Joseph Heller in which he was asked if he believed in an 'afterlife', to which he replied 'no', though imagined if there was it was something like 'root-canal therapy'), the news came that Tamil terrorists had blown up a police station in Jaffna killing 25 people. In the following days there were several 'bomb scares' in Colombo, and one that went off harmlessly. One Tamil shop was burnt, but things didn't get out of control. Nonetheless, many Jaffna Tamils have gone back to Jaffna, though from all reports things are less safe there than in Colombo (at least for as long as there is no outbreak of violence in Colombo and there continue to be killings by the army in Jaffna, as well as the inconveniences of curfews, etc.), but perhaps they just prefer to be among familiar surroundings, ways, and peoples regardless of the actual danger -- or rather that they perceive greater safety surrounded by what is familiar even when that perception may be false.

More troops were evident around town; some road barriers were set up with armed soldiers checking ID, etc., but they seemed cheerful and relaxed, not the nervy sullenness of imminent danger. The press, of course, blasted away at its usual bugaboo 'anti-social elements' (lead? manganese? fluoride?) and the papers had half-page ads placed by the army advising what to do if 'unattended parcels' were discovered (unattended how long?). What I liked best about my time in town was reading the comics in the papers. The comics in Sri Lanka papers -- atleast the imports -- exist in the 1950's exclusively. Mutt & Jeff, the Phantom, Blondie, Bringing Up Father, etc; that's the current crop.

Not able to resist the real low-brow stuff, I noted in Time that the U.S. has constructed a 'fallback' position in the Philippines on the island of Saipan. This answered my own question as to exactly where Saipan was, for, on occasion, I've caught a SW broadcast on KJOI, an all-rock station with no commercials or identification of proprietorship, and they sometimes announce that their transmitter is in Saipan. It also made me wonder whether their failure to identify their ownership might not indicate that they were not simply a group of philanthropic rock-lovers determined to bring rock-music to a hungry world, but might not be, instead, a CIA front. They seem to have their main offices or studios in Canoga Park. So I wonder if you would be interested in phoning them and mentioning that your son reports that he's heard their broadcasts round about 0700-1000 GMT (which is early afternoon here) usually a bit faint but usually clear (fading in the early afternoon and being lost in atmospherics by mid-late afternoon), in Sri Lanka, and that they might be interested in a reception report, and that by the way he was wondering how the station manages to support itself, since they have no commercial content and seem to have no religious affiliation (the Jesus stations are obviously supported by the faithful) nor government affiliation. I'd be interested to know what they say. Sometimes there are peculiar blips and beeps which previously I ascribed to the normal dirty atmospherics that creep into some broadcasts, but now I wonder if these might not be code signals to operatives. (They always come between songs.) By why rock? Is that supposed to be a good cover these days?

Maybe I've been reading too much Le Carré. I just finished his latest novel (at least the latest I know of): The Little Drummer Girl. I've admired much of what he's done in the past, particularly the Smiley trilogy -- but The Little Drummer Girl is the best of all. It concerns Israeli Intelligence's plans to neutralize (I believe that is the correct phrase these days, sort of like a stomach that is slightly acidic and needs to be set aright) -- to neutralize an Arab terrorist/freedom fighter (choose one). Astounding powers of characterization and a story that pulls no punches in its ethical viewpoint. For a view of the Israeli/Arab situation that you wouldn't get from any journalistic matter, I can certainly recommend it.

I spent a few days in Kandy before coming back here, and while there visited a friend who has a TV and we watched Mrs. Gandhi's funeral (I'd heard the BBC bulletins when she was shot, and managed to pick up an All-India Radio broadcast to follow developments on the day of the assassination, just before I left Colombo). What a wretched affair. Poorly organized, 3rd class all the way. Nobody knew what to do next. When the murners poured ghee on the pyre they poured it from a 4-gallon metal drum in which it is shipped, instead of having one of India's elegant brass urns filled. The army trucks had a few wreaths on the hood but otherwise were undistinguished. Even the TV camera work was atrocious. Instead of focussing (at least at some point) on the various dignitaries present and identifying them, a few quick pans without commentary was all we got, together with meaningless shots of soldiers' berets, of other unidentified goings-on, etc. Rajiv seemed to stand aloof from all the confusion, which is better than being involved in it but not as good as ending it -- I predict such will be the nature of his leadership -- and he was trying, I suppose, to look Prime Ministerial. He looks like a nice fellow, but Indian politics is vicious.

In Colombo I also heard the debate between Reagan and Hondale from Kansas City, about our foreign policy you know (if Rodgers and Hammerstein will forgive me). Reagan seemed to have trouble even remembering names like Beirut. His stumbling was made all the more apparent by his 'set pieces'. Well, Mondale won't get my vote either. The ballot I'd like to see would read:
□ yes or no
□ yes and no
(check one). I expect we'll be saddled with another 4 years of Reagan and Bush (As H.L., Mencken said: 'Democracy is the theory that the people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.')

After sunset, in fact through the night here, there's a rather curious twilight, though not in the west: our very own 'northern' lights. 15 miles north of Udamadura is the Victoria Dam on the Mahaweli, the biggest river in Sri Lanka, and the glow in the northern sky is from arc lights at the project.

Infinitely more impressive, however, was a sunrise I saw about 3 weeks ago. The most amazing I've ever seen. The sun rose into a long black cloud which hung a few degrees above the eastern horizon, and was hidden. But to the south a large fluffy cloud hung alone in an intense pale sky, like one usually sees only in high mountains in winter. And on this cloud was a patch of intense brightness as brilliant as if the sun was rising there instead of about 20 degrees to the north, and on the left-hand edge of this brilliant patch were bands of intense orange, red, brown, green, deep blue, which shimmered as if they were a light source rather than reflected light, absolutely brilliant. Meanwhile below the black cloud, between it and the mountain, the sky remained a deep and fiery orange for an amazingly long time. What I theorize is that although it was a normal morning at my altitude it may have been unusually cold in the high air (as the intense pale color suggests) and the cloud my have contained frozen ice crystals which caught the sun -- and could stand out so brilliantly because of the dark cloud hiding the sun. The green color was especially remarkable.

As I blow out the lamp, listening to distant drums and trills of flutes, it occurs to me that a local money-lender, one of the honest ones, who charges merely 10% interest a month (which, you can figure, in a year makes a peasant farmer into an indentured servant for life), has been very ill. Perhaps the celebration is for it -- or against it'?

Did you know George Bizet wrote an opera set in Sri Lanka called the Pearl Fisher?

love,

Bob

Letter 4.23

2008-11-17T06:28:00.001Z

Dear Mr. Hum,

Please excuse me for having read your letter to Mr. Sam, but when you have read this letter I hope you will forgive me and understand my reason for having done so. I am very glad that we have finally found one of his friends, for we have no knowledge of his family or friends in India.

Mr. Sam appeared here one morning in the middle of a paddy field, unable to account for himself or how he got here. Indeed, he seemed as bewildered about his appearance (which was rather shabby: torn and dirty once-white robes, scratches and bruises, etc.) in our village as we were, but he seemed so harmless and good-natured that we took him in, where he at once took to going from house to house insisting upon doing the washing-up, all the time muttering strange things about either rabbis or rabbits, nobody here was quite sure. Some of the women were very happy to feed him, and soon discovered that he loved above all else our native food, stringhoppers. 'Why do they call them stringhoppers?' Mr. Sam often asked me (excuse me, I should introduce myself, I am Ven. Bodhesako, one of the village monks). 'Because they look like they're made of strings,' I told him. 'But do they hop?' he would ask, to which I had no answer.

Mr. Sam was so fond of stringhoppers that it was inevitable that he should eventually want to learn how to make them himself, after which he extended his services to the village beyond doing the washing-up, and went from house to house looking for opportunities to make the family stringhoppers (and, of course, to share in consuming them), and it was this that led to his downfall. As you may know, Mr. Sam, being an Indian, wore the 'lucky string', a length of black thread that had been blessed by a swami, around his wrist. What happened was this: one morning while making stringhoppers for one of our neighbors his lucky string became entangled in the strings that were being woven to make a stringhopper. Before he noticed it the lucky string (which, in retrospect, may not have been so lucky after all) was thoroughly enmeshed in a stack of stringhoppers, and in attempting to extricate himself Mr. Sam only found himself becoming more entangled. This was his mistake. He could have cut the string, but this of course would be looked upon as terribly unlucky, or he could have called for help, but he delayed until it was too late. First his hand disappeared into the stack of stringhoppers, then his arm, and by the time he called for help there was little of him left. Despite all our efforts we couldn't save him: he disappeared.

Two days later at a neighboring village a woman was preparing her family's meal when she noticed, in the stringhoppers that were being made, a black thread. She attemmted to remove it and throw it away, but found that when she pulled on it a hand began to emerge. She screamed and fainted and when her husband came running in to discover the hand he pulled on it and eventually a wide-eyed and bewildered person emerged who, it was eventually discovered, was in fact our Mr. Sam. Now Mr. Sam does nothing except eat stringhoppers all day long -- he won't touch anything else, not even other foods he used to love -- and he won't do the washing up or anything. When he moves he doesn't walk or run, but makes a strange rabbit-like hopping move. And he now is unable to say anything at all except one sentence: 'Now I know why they're called stringhoppers' -- a phrase which he repeats about two hundred times a day. Please, Mr.

Hum, what does this mean? And please tell us what we should do with Mr. Sam. How can we help him?

With all friendship,

Bodhesako

____________________

"...In the end, perhaps due to the exigencies of the novel's form, Heller does suggest a solution to Yossarian's dilemma. Whether this solution works artistically is not of concern to us here. Rather, we need to understand why this suggestion of a solution is incompatible with the Buddha's Teaching.

The Buddha's Teaching is concerned with letting go of what can be surrendered within the sphere of the unenlightened (namely, sensuality, hatred, lethargy, agitation, and doubt -- the five hindrances) in order to allow for the possibility of seeing what might be let go of beyond that sphere. This further perception can be indicated by one who has already seen for himself, and must be initially accepted by the practitioner as an act of faith, until he too comes to see it. At that point it is possible for there to be a further letting go, a giving up of what can be surrendered only outside the sphere of the unenlightened, namely, all beliefs concerned with selfhood (sakkāyaditthi, attavāda) and, eventually, the conceit "I am" (asmimāna). Thus the Buddha's Teaching is a course of practice concerned fundamentally with renunciation. Without giving up the world to the limits of one's ability to do so one will never be able to extend those limits: one will instead remain entrapped within the world..."

Sāmanera Bodhesako,
from The Buddha and the Catch-22

Letter 4.22

2008-11-16T21:36:00.001Z

Dear Rev. Sir,

I must apologize for having left you so suddenly and without farewells. This, I think, was a mistake. I hope it was not a serious one. or course, the light in that tunnel was very poor, but I don't want to blame that, I want to tell you what happened later, and how I came to be here.

I fell, I think, for a long time, although I can't be sure about this. In fact sometimes, I suspect that I'm still falling: even though I stand on solid ground unfortunately my two feet are unable to cover it all. But what I do remember is finding myself wedged -- most uncomfortable, although possibly better than falling -- between two rocks, while my feet dangled free. It was very dark, I long since dropped the Crapper (Krakir's -- giving off a faint glow. -- Hūm). Indeed, I was so frightened of my position that I had also dropped a crap. So you see, I am your true disciple.

Then something a little bit out of the ordinary happened: a rabbit bounded past me and into a nearby hole. I was so excited to see a rabbit that without thinking about it I followed him, and found myself in another tunnel. I think this happened just in time, for behind me I could hear strange hissing sounds. I ran as fast as I could. Somehow I could see, as if all the air was aglow, as if the Crapper had taken over. I don't know how long I ran -- a long time, I think. I felt energized with every breath I took. Then I heard a deep deep rumble behind me and a roar like the end of the world, and I ran and ran, but could not find the rabbit anywhere.

What I finally found was a warren, out of which many tunnels emerged, and in the centre of which was a pile of what appeared to be stringy discs. I examined one, curiouser than ever, It smelled good, so I nibbled at it. It tasted good, so I ate it. I ate many of them. Then, as I picked up the bottom disc I saw one piece of stringy stuff ran out of it and down one of the tunnels. So I followed it. This tunnel was dark, but the string went on and on, until finally I came to the end of the tunnel, and crawled up a very ordinary rabbit hole and found myself in this land.

I know you won't believe me, but people here speak very peculiar English indeed. Many speak no English at all. Isn't that amazing? But they are very nice people who treat me well, and they grow rice and tobacco (although in truth I myself have certainly lost all interest in smoking -- perhaps you can understand why) and live on the side (near the top) of a big long hill with a view of many ranges of hills, and the sun rises every morning and sets every evening, which is very commendable, I think, and the people laugh and smile when they see me, I don't know why, so I try to preach to them your doctrine ('It all comes out in the end'), which they like very much to hear, and they show me great respect because of this and give me many stringy discs to eat, so I think I'll stay here for a while and see what happens, or doesn't.

Your devoted disciple,

Samsara[1]

__________

[1] In Worthy Bones Samsara was Sancho Panza to Mohel's Don Quixote. Samsāra in Pali means 'running-on', or becoming (from existence to existence). Nibbāna ends it. -- Hūm.

Letter 4.21

2008-11-15T08:02:00.001Z

As for the prequel to Worthy Bones, although you have mentioned that Our Hero was born one stormy night in Chattanooga, neither of us have charted the ins and outs of his early days.

Mohel had a very confused childhood. Although his father chewed tobacco, drank beer in his undershirt, cussed, and avoided attending the Baptist church, he was a very sloppy housepainter, who frequently came home with a red shirt collar and a blue neck to the family's embarrassment. His mother (whom his father married for the sake of a small inheritance which was soon dissipated like his father) was of Jewish stock, but she had radical ideas which turned out worse than her cooking. The matzoh balls and black-eyed peas which made their way, via his bloodstream, from Mohel's stomach to his brain, left him so uncertain of his identity that he could never quite recall whether he had any brothers or sisters.

In high school he developed an interest in the theatre and began by doing stand-ins for fallen stand-up comics. Then the civil rights movement came along, and he turned to doing sit-ins, until one day in Moscow, Georgia, he had a run-in with the local KGB, was beaten unconscious, and for the next several weeks did a lie-in.

Having thus completed his education, he enrolled in University where he neither fell in nor stood out. On the day that the last of his savings ran out he read the lines of Kenneth Patchen you mentioned ('a cowboy went to college/somebody spilled ink of his horse'), and decided to drop out.

Necessarily, the next several years were all downhill, during which time he became skilled in mankind's oldest crime, that of writing poetry. Only when his conscience (which lay in his guts) most sharply pricked him did he atone by shoplifting at the local Spend-Thrift or by impersonating the local agent for the Society for Hearing-Bar Parrots for deaf people.

He lived alone in a ramshackle old cabin in the Ozarks, built by himself upon architectural principles learned from Nature ('nothing level, nothing square') until one day in midwinter it caught fire and burned to the ground while three feet away a barrel of water stood frozen solid.

Leaving his one-man ghetto in ashes, he emigrated to Europe, where he starved, and recalled the warnings his mother had given him in the distant past ('Eat your food, Mohel: don't you know there are poets starving in Europe?'), and read Peregrine paperbacks, and peregrinated until one day in Spain when he was trying to peddle some recently-minted ancient Hebrew shekels at a synagogue in Madrid, when in quick succession he met HMV, who was seeking a suitable agent to shul-lift an unimportant pre-Inquisition mezuzah, and then Carmen... And there our story begins...

I continue my homeless existence. How can I found anything if I can't find it? A calling? Or a being-called? I think I may have an uncalling. I don't hear a thing (like Reagan). I hear the Russians (a.k.a. the Americans) are finally getting rid of some of their missiles, by moving them somewhere else. If that's not hearing nothing, then I don't know what ain't.

Letter 4.20

2008-11-14T06:19:00.001Z

Kolatenna Hermitage, Bandarawela

Fooltide greetings ('Tis the season filled with folly...'). Another Xmas, another residence. I don't seem able to spend two consecutive ones in the same place, indeed I'm lucky (I guess) to be able to be in the same country. Move thy wastes? It's all of me, why not move all of me, that gets the heave-ho from Papa Time every time the spirit (of waste) moves him, not just the wastes, excepting one adopts the perverse view (truth will out) that it's all waste, even the part that doesn't get wasted. So here I am, never made it to the Center for the Study of Peripheries, though it warn't a half-bad notion. Still, I suppose I should be glad (or is it sad? I keep forgetting) that I'm anywhere for Xmas, or at least not nowhere. Not even on the edge of it, but smack dab in the middle, rainy season just ending in time for the downpour of year's end. All of which is to say, I hope you're making it well, brother, and I'll be glad to hear about it if you want to tell.

Love ya,

Letter 4.19

2008-11-13T06:17:00.001Z

Since WW2 the driest year in Sri Lanka has been 1983. The drought, of course, was not so bad as it was in Africa; but bad enough. Still no less solar energy striking the earth's surface, and presumably about the same amount of water evaporates from the oceans, so someplace must be getting an excess of rain, unless it just falls back in the sea. One theory is that the whole drought is due to some inexplicable 'hot spot' that developed over the last few years somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean, only a few degrees above normal but over a large enough area to affect the world‘s weather. Dump that on the theoretical pile.

In any case, the drought has ended...with a vengeance! It was assumed the rains had come and gone, only half filling the reservoirs, and promising continuing power-cuts in the foreseeable future. Predictably, the clouds gathered, and we had 4 weeks of rains, during which time it rained a little or a lot every single solitary day, and there was almost no sunshine. The plains had floods; the people were evacuated and helicopters flew emergency supplies to them, but of course in the hill country there is no chance of floods. A lot of crops were damaged or destroyed. The rains ended (again), and now the weather is dry (the doors don't stick anymore) and crisp, though it's probably too late for a real winter season like the cold one of last year.

However, the rains went on a bit too long for the devale which is just up-hill from me. A devale is a place for the deva, or local god, in this case a two-room building, one for the god herself (I'm told she's female), and one for the occasional visitor, a few a week from what I've been able to see. The god is a stone statue about 18 inches high of curious proportions, the head being as big as the torso, but otherwise unremarkable -- only the usual number (usual for humans that is) of arms, legs, and heads. I don't mean that this statue is a representative of the god. It is, I'm told, the god herself. Anyway, the day after the rains ended the roof (tile) collapsed and took the wall with it, or perhaps it was the wall (adobe) that collapsed and took the roof with it; in any case it fell downhill and took a chunk of my roof with it too, though nothing that can't be spared; overhang and verandah. My roof (asbestos) fortunately managed to not get broken over my room. But a big mess, a day's work to clear up, and then a workman had to dismantle much of the rest of the devele before (today) 3 workmen began rebuilding it. They are paid by the owner of the devale, which is not the god herself, who is only resident, not owner, but I'm not sure whether the devale is owned by one man or whether he is a front man for a committee of owners, or what the arrangement is. Perhaps, I'm like the god herself in this regard.

A few days ago I walked into the nearby village, as I often do, and saw there were flags up, and a banner on a rope overhanging the roadway, and other signs of festivities. The reason, I found, was because a deputv minister was coming to give a speech that day to inauguratethe installation of a telephone in the village's sub-post office. It's a grey dial phone, which one can hire by payment to the sub-postmaster (I suppose he's called). All calls must go through an operator. A great day in the life of the village.

A few days before that there was a shramadana, which is when all the villagers get together to do some public work. In this case it was clearing the weeds from the dirt road which connects up to the main road. Lots of people out with hoes, someone hooked up a tape deck to a loadspeaker (at full volume, naturally), a banner on a rope overhung the car road announcing the work. The road needed it, for the sides, by the water ditches, were quite tall with weeds. The road is motorable only about half its length, the last half being blocked by landslides; but there are signs that there are plans to asphalt the road its full length, which is maybe 3/4 of a mile. These signs -- gravel piles, etc. -- have been there since at least last December. Considering the work the villagers were putting in they don't seem hopeful of its quick realization.

One time in the village I passed a house where a woman was sitting outdoors in a sort of bamboo frame, curtained on three sides, but open in the front. Before her several men dressed in very elaborate costumes -- brocaded sarones, the first time I've ever seen men wearing them, and what on a total would be called a middy blouse, but is in fact a traditional sort of men's blouse worn on ceremonial occasions -- were dancing furiously in front of her, while several other men were wailing on flutes and beating drums. This was an exorcism of sorts, for the woman was ill (fever and so on), and the dancing was intended to cure her. It was a bit difficult to discover this, for when I asked different people everyone seemed greatly embarrassed, and they gave me slightly different explanations of the goings on, as they wanted to soften the truth of the matter. I guess they supposed I would dismiss the whole thing as primitive superstition, as they themselves were half-inclined to do. However, when I later inquired of the woman I found that she had in fact recovered. If she had died there would have been a stronger basis for dismissing the whole thing as primitive superstition (as opposed, no doubt, to the sophisticated superstition of the Western medical tradition). But it sure is a lot simpler to take two aspirin and then call the doctor in the morning (particularly since there is now a sub-phone in the sub-p.o.).

Recently I listened on a short-wave radio to one of those hot-gospel American stations that beam around the world. I've noticed before on these shows a propensity for the archaicism 'that which is', which can sound quite strange when combined with modern usage. For instance, the broadcaster said something like: 'The main book, Get All Excited, Jesus is Coming Soon, as well as The Destiny of America and the Time-Line Chart that tells you what all is happening and the order of events in which it will happen, over 100 news items in Bible references, is yours for just $15, that's right, send just $15 to Today in Bible Prophesy. God bless you, we want you to know that which is happening.' Well, the phrase 'that which is happening' struck me as odd, so I also noticed another 'that which is', when I heard on the same program, 'Just in case Russia strikes first our submarine can release that which is in them that can make a cinder out of Russia, Bless your hearts, we've got 19,000 nuclear warheads aimed right at them.' Of course, with stuff like that going out (and giving every appearance of having private U.S. sponsorship, even when not broadcast from US soil) one begins to think Radio Moscow tirades are not so paranoid as might be at first assumed.

The local schoolmaster has naw informed me that there are 'talking cars' in America. If true, I wonder what they say when you push the horn? 'Get off the road, you SOB!'? And no doubt they're prograumed to say, on a monthly basis, 'Have you mailed in your payment this month? If not, then when Nissan executives push a button, I will drive myself back to their office.' Or, 'I am the computer working for X corporation, and according to my records I have no registered any payments from you for the last three months. So far you and I are the only ones who know about this, but if I do not receive a payment from you within ten days, then my program requires me to inform a human...unless (heavy computing) you happen to know a nubile young piece of software...'

These days I'm reading a quite extraordinary book called 'Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid', which is an exploration of intelligence, both human and artificial, and therefore talks much about the principles of programming a computer. It does it with considerable wit, play, and lightness, but, though written for the newcomer, it requires careful attention to follow the mathematics, and since it's 750 large pages, I shall probably continue to be-reading-it for quite some time. I disagree with much of what he has to say, but enjoy working out exactly what my disagreement is, and thereby clarifying my own views on the nature of mind.

Letter 4.18

2008-11-12T13:38:00.001Z

Greetings from the rabbit hole of the March (or so) hare. Perhaps with no way to go out of, I have either simply gone a long way and come a long way, or complexly come a long way and gone a long way. Or vice versa. A recent newspaper clipping (recent to me, that is; the newspaper itself was last year's model) has given me just the right phrase to describe what I am doing in Sri Lanka again: I'm here to restore a new order. How paradoxical! How ironical! How religious. Well, parody and irony are very well as a religion, provided you know to hūm you are praying and on whom you are not preying. Paradoxically, such a religion is not at all ironical. Ironically, it is not paradoxical. For some reason it reminds me of dancing with my shit. Dat take a long way.

Glad DAMAGED IN TRANSFER (or is it TRANSPERRHD DAMAGE?) arrived safely damaged (General Delivery's doing, no doubt -- you don't get busted to General for nothing): our latest bicentric biographic bigolly co-creation, unpublishable if anything ever was. Though totally unreadable, it's actually quite brilliant, provided it remains unread. But WB VI (or is it VII?) -- sounds like a Leon Uris title -- is just as well out of the hands of grimy publishers, who are only interested in it (if at all) in the same way that sex-starved drilling crews are interested in oil rigs. If you could glue two pages together with a paste of Krakir's Crapper[1] that would give them a rise. But otherwise we should remember it as a toy we both played with (and may play with again) -- AND NOBODY EISE! Nemmind its flaws. It starts off like a metronome -- ticking away furiously, lots of energy and juice but not characterization, then runs down gradually from presto to lentissimo, then -- your entry again -- suddenly gets plugged into a wall socket and -- not being wired -- fizzles and jumps all over the place in an orgy of mixed tiempos until it's simply all gone. But nemmind it floss. Itl's a nice toy. Quite unmarketable, and tinkering will only make it (if possible) more so, but a nice toy. Unmarketable? There's one remote long-shot chance. If you could devise a board representing Samadhi[2], and added dice, markers, and 'chance' cards, you might be able to sell the package to Parker Brothers. Then everyone could play with it, in groups of 2-5, ages 10 to 100. But as a book? Who reads books?

My mother died in January -- I'm not sure exactly when (rather like Mersault, though I hope not to end up like him) -- after a long painful and losing decade battle with mainly, Parkinson's. The last couple of years were, apparently, pure ordeal, spent mostly in a sort of semi-delirium. I heard of it too late to return with any good purpose to the States. My father and sister are, it seems, handling all matters as well as can be expected. For which I'm thankful -- and about as aggrieved as relieved. Something irreplacable lost -- the mother who loved one; yet, as long as one draws breath, not gone -- the love that mothered one. And -- womb in tomb -- it's not so easy not to see where one's going... The most moving remark, a year or so ago, was my father's, who said that sometimes my mother would emerge from her semi-delirium into a sense of reality, and then begin to cry.

I'm settled into my own hillside, a squatter like you, save that I didn't build the house (except the one wherein I squat), and now have no plans to leave here unless/until I'm told to go (which, I'm told, will happen when the owner's son has saved enough money to build a house -- and tear down this cottage). However, there's always the bright side: I may die before that happens. So good cheer.

__________
[1] In Worthy Bones, Sri Krakir is a shadowy Hindu scientist who's concocted a microbe -- Krakirls Crapper -- that eats -- and shits harmlessly -- oil slicks. -- Hūm.

[2] Worthy Bones transpires on Samadhi (Sk. meditation), an island in the mouth of the Red Sea. -- Hūm.

Letter 4.17

2008-11-11T08:43:00.001Z

The water situation became critical: the amount coming from the reservoir was insufficient to reach me -- it got absorbed by the mud in the channel -- and I had to trek to the well for bathing and washing, hauling back for drinking and to keep alive at least part of the garden. Finally yesterday we had a good rain, which refilled the pond -- it had emptied to within a few inches of bottom, which I left for the benefit of the tadpoles (who will turn into mosquito-consuming frogs) -- and there are a few inches of water in the reservoir, which I open for an hour or so a day, giving me perhaps 30-40 gallons: enough now to keep things going (the garden -- most of it managed to survive -- consumes the bulk of this.) With luck and care it should last about 2 weeks. The monsoon normally starts (gradually) about the middle of September. So if it is not late, or if we get another good shower, we'll make it. It's very difficult for all the people, most of them more than me. Some women have to walk a long way for water, and usually have to haul it uphill, even for their cooking. And of course tea production also goes down, with loss of income to the estate and to the workers. This is one of the driest years on record.

I did manage to save all the vegetables, and in fact have just harvested my peas. I planted 15 seeds (all that I had), and 3 months later harvested 105, all of which I will use for further planting. This is a 7-fold increase in 3 months, a very substantial return on my investment. If I were to continue at this rate for another 3 years I would have approximately 1,383,936,400,000 peas. This is more than 250 peas for every man, woman, and child in the world. If each of them were to plant their 250 peas and replant their 7-fold quarterly increase for two years, then 5 years from now every person on the planet would have 1,641,200,20 peas enough to solve the food crisis for decades. It's amazing that no one has thought of this yet. Or perhaps a very few geniuses have tried to indicate where the future lies, but only by indirect suggestion. Tolstoy, for example, in his classic novel, War and Peas.

Recently the curfew was advanced to as early as 6 PM, due to some incidents in the North -- relocated Tamils attacking isolated Sinhalese -- apparently coinciding with the one-month anniversary of the outbreak of the riots. But there have been no further incidents in Upcountry or Colombo. About 10 days ago I was passing through Bandarawela and saw the extensive damage; perhaps up to 20% of the shops I saw were empty blackened shells, exactly like WW2 bombed-out buildings. Elsewhere it's business as usual, or nearly so. Steps have been taken against hoarders and profiteers, so most goods are available and prices for staples are now about the same as before the riots. Many Tamil shopkeepers, forewarned by reports from elsewhere, were able to remove some of their stock to safe places (and to claim insurance loss on it afterwards as well).

A friend from a village just outside Bandarawela says one Tamil couple was killed in his village. One night someone threw a rock through their window and the Tamils, who it seems owned a shotgun, fired upon the person (missing him). A Sinhalese crowd gathered and set fire to the house, which burnt to the ground. He doesn't know whether they were burnt to death or killed while trying to escape. Only a few hours before this incident my friend had had tea with the couple.

Judging from what I witnessed and the reports of others during the riots of '71, government estimates of casualties, homeless refugees, etc. will be off by a factor of 8 to ten fold. For example, at least 50 Tamils accused of being terrorists were massacred in prison when -- according to the guards -- Sinhalese prisoners overpowered the guards and killed the Tamils, the guards being helpless to intervene. The government seems inclined to accept the guards' assertion without a serious investigation. And I have heard private estimates of reliable eye-witnesses that place the Bandarawela and Badulla tolls at well above the official numbers, as well as reports of isolated incidents that almost surely did not get included in the government figures. So I think we can safely assume that at least 3,000 people were killed, and that at the height of the riots there were at least 200,000 homeless refugees. These figures don't approach the '71 figures. But the property damage is much higher than in '71.

Every Tamil I've spoken with says he has friends who have died and I've heard numerous tales of narrow escapes. The Tamils are still very much afraid, and most of the Estate Tamils hereabouts continue to sleep in the tea bushes rather than in the lines -- the drought continues, so they keep dry -- and to keep their valuables hidden. At least 75% of the ET's seriously intend to return to India, where they -- or more often their parents or grandparents -- came from. As difficult as their lives are here economically, they will be yet more difficult in Tamil Nadu (the South Indian state where most of them would go, and which is poor even by Indian standards); but there they will at least be among their kin (who may not be overjoyed to have them, but could not refuse) and will no longer need to fear from outraged Sinhalese mobs. That there will be other fears no less fearful is, at present, not of importance.

Obviously the tea industry -- Sri Lanka's biggest earner of foreign exchange -- depends upon a superfluity of cheap labor, and if even as quarter of the workers go the situation will be very difficult. If anything like 75% leave the estates will be devastated. But herein Sri Lanka is in a difficult position, for the government has steadfastly maintained for decades that the Estate Tamils are legally Indian citizens, not Sri Lankans, and has encouraged their migration by making things difficult for them. A superfluity of labor is needed, but there has been an over-abundance. Now it will be difficult for the government to prevent vast numbers from leaving (though they will not allow to leave those few who have obtained Sri Lanka citizenship).

The tourist industry is also hard-hit. There are no tourists in Ella these days (normally August is a prime month, for French and German workers take their holidays in August and it is mid-winter in Australia). The expectation is that the trade will take 4-5 months to normalize.

The government seems to have hastily forced through an amendment to the constitution making it illegal to advocate separtism. Since it is of the essence of freedom of speech that even the most unpopular views may be espoused (and that only physical deeds, not verbal ones, can be made illegal) this means that Sri Lanka now has taken a step away from liberty and towards authoritarianism. Since separtism is a view espoused by a significant minority -- the TULF (Tamil United Liberation Front) is -- or was -- the largest opposition party in Parliament and separtism was (is?) their major plank -- the step is a large one. It can be argued that nothing less would have sufficed to quell the outrage of Sinhalese at the effort to divide the island and that had this not been done the damage would have been much worse, but it can be replied that damage to property cannot be compared with damage to the principles of liberty, and undertaking such a serious change while influenced by the heat of the moment is a rash method of administering a nation, and that in any case to muzzle opinion only drives it underground, where roots can spread and deepen, resulting in eventual difficulties which will prove more costly than what is supposed to have been saved. Which is not to suggest that I think partition to be a sensible move -- it makes no sense geographically, economically, culturally, or esthetically, and would not correct the injustices of which the JT's complain but only perpetuate them in an altered guise (it would tip the scales of Injustice who, as we know, is blind) -- but only that to do outrage to such a precious institution as freedom of speech is yet less sensible. But people seldom appreciate such freedoms until they lose them.

Two further problems will be involved with the military and the Parliament. The reason the Sinhalese were enabled to do as much damage as was done was firstly because of the half-hearted effort of the army to stop them (even in Diyatalawa -- just beyond Bandarawela -- where both army and airforce have major bases, every Tamil shop was razed), understandable in light of their long-running battle against the Tigers, though not therefore condonable, and secondly because the army is divided along political lines, and many officers and enlistees who oppose the UNP government saw the riots as a possibility to topple that government. These soldiers either abetted the rioters or at least did so little to stop them that their actions were correctly taken as a green light.

The riots can only further fragment the army and raises the possibility of the government control over the army weakening, which leads to further future danger of the country being beset by a coup, or an attempted one.

The situation in Parliament compounds the danger. Traditionally, the two major parties have been UNP and SLFP, which alternately won elections. But the SLFP became fragmented due to internal quarrels (the Bandaranaikas run the SLFP as Mrs. Gandhi's clan runs India's Congress Party, and the parallels, including those between Mrs. B's son and Mrs. G's, are striking) and the SLFP was soundly trounced in '77 due also to their having manipulated a two year extension of their term. UNP obtained a 5/6 majority, enabling them to do as they wished, and the TULF became the major opposition party.

Earlier this year the government forced through an amendment to the constitution enabling it to hold a referendum on the question whether to extend the life of this Parliament for a second 6-year term. They won -- it was the first time any government in Sri Lanka has been returned to office -- due to the popularity of the President (Jayawardene) -- far more popular than his party -- and the lack of a viable opposition, and therefore by a majority vote retained a 5/6 majority in Parliament.

Now the TULF, because it advocates separtism, has been made illegal, and its members cannot sit in Parliament (nor, if they are individually convicted of advocating separtism, would they retain any civil rights, including the right to practice a licensed profession which, of course, includes law).

And three other minor parties (including the co munists) have been accused of fomenting troubles and encouraging rioters, apparently, hoping to topple the government. Warrants have been issued for the arrest of their leaders and deputies -- some have gone underground -- and so those parties too are probably destroyed.

If the government has presented any evidence for these charges I am unaware of it, though I've heard and read statements by a number of ministers making such charges without offering evidence. Therefore it seems that Sri Lanka is now in danger of becoming a one-party state. UNP and SLFP are ideologically more differentiable than say, Republicans and Democrats; but even if they were not, the danger of a one-party state is that there is simply no incentive to govern for anyone's benefit other than their own, whereas a two-party or multi-party system, even when it's just a case of Tweedledum and Tweedledee (or is it Tweedledee and Tweedledum?), generates a concern for the electorate out of simple self-interest. If a one-party state should befall Sri Lanka the country's hopes for improvement will be lost in a quagmire of corruption and mendacity.

And of course there is still the problem of the Tigers. Since the Tamils tend to regard themselves as the victims of Sinhalese hatred and in-fighting (their view of themselves is myopic, as are most such views) we can expect new recruits for the Tigers, and further activity. The only possible way in which Sri Lanka could be partitioned would be if India intervened (as she did against Pakistan in '72, leading to the creation of Bangladesh), and India would only intervene if it were forced to do so (at least as long as the present government rules in New Delhi; other governments my be less fastidious about such matters, and obviously Mrs. Gandhi will not rule forever). And the only way India could be forced to intervene would be if the Tamils were to come to such a pass that there was no political alternative to military intervention. This would mean the slaughter of thousands or tens of thousands of Tamils and it may be the strategy of the Tigers to commit such outrages as to provoke the Sinhalese to embark on such a slaughter. It sounds like -- and is -- madness, but the world has seen crazier things. Therefore, the Tamils who support the Tigers may be paying to have their throats cut.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention about the aftermath of the riots is that the government has said that it will help rebuild industries and homes -- nearly all Tamil-owned -- destroyed by the riots and fires. But (here's the catch) it will thereby become part owner of all such industry (the exact percentage to be determined by -- of course -- the government), and under the guise of establishing an architectural coherence to the reconstruction -- a joke, but a bad one, since 1) Colombo is a hodgepodge architecturally. 2) Tamil houses are found scattered amidst this hodge-podge, not in a ghetto-like area. 3) No such plan exists nor could such a plan be produced in a reasonable time -- they have declared themselves to be temporarily the owners of all property under repair, so that they can ensure that all reconstruction proceeds according to their plans, and owners will be billed according to whatever the government sees fit to charge for its services and can recover their property upon settlement of the bill. The Tamils, naturally enough, think that the government is trying to get what the looters missed. I hope I have misunderstood this, because if I have not, and it is as I report, then it's an incredibly stupid act which will have serious repercussions in the future.

Letter 4.16

2008-11-09T23:53:00.001Z

Ella, Summer '83

Even a few months ago I was hearing stories of 'troubles', of 'difficulties in the North'; but I've heard a good many rumors in a good many countries, and have learned that whatever basis they may have in fact they usually come, in the end, to little or nothing. (One notable exception was the Sri Lanka insurrection of '71.) But -- so I gathered -- there had been increased terrorist activity (against government forces and Sinhalese) in the Tamil-dominated north of the island, by the 'Tamil Tigers' (TT), who for some years have been waging a campaign for 'eelam' or partition of the island into a Sinhalese nation (in the South) and a Tamil nation (in the North). I had also heard of (well-publicized) instances of the government making reparation to Tamil families who had suffered in one way or another at the hands of the army or police, and been struck on occasion by the barrage of government-originated publicity decrying 'eelam' as 'asking for the moon'.

But the first news I had of the present situation was the morning of the 26th, when I asked three brothers who live nearby why they weren't in school that day. 'Because the Tamils killed 13 soldiers,' they told me. I've heard better reasons for staying out of school, and I've heard worse, so I questioned them further. The killings had taken place in the North of the island, not in Upcountry (which is well to the South), and the brothers were unrelated to any of the victims; so those were not the reasons for staying out of school. The schools, it turned out, were closed. So too, it seemed, were the banks and all government offices. Finally they told me that it was not in mourning for the soldiers but because of a Sinhalese reaction to the killings which had resulted in anti-Tamil riots -- hardly the first, there having been a number of them even in the year that I've been back in the country (all local and quickly put down by the government).

The Sinhalese and the Tamils have both occupied the island for several thousand years, and there is a long history of tensions, as well as innumerable wars. Since independence in '47 there have been scattered outbreaks of disquiet caused by competition for what wealth exists, by differences of view and lifestyle, and so on. But this outbreak, I learned, was widespread, and for that reason the schools (etc.) were shut down for the day. But they felt that all would be well by the morrow, the schools would re-open, and peace would be restored. So I went about my business and didn't concern myself further with what seemed to be distant troubles. And indeed on Wednesday I didn't see the boys (or anyone else), and assumed them to be in school.

Thursday morning I went into town, and was informed by the AGA (Assistant Government Agent -- who is the highest government official in the village, a genial portly chap from Kandy side) that curfew would take effect that afternoon at 2 PM and would be in effect until 5 AM Saturday. 'Oh, then I won't be able to go to Bandarawela,' I said to him, although I had not in fact any plans to go there in any case. 'You shouldn't go to Bandarawela,' he advised me. 'There's fighting there. It's very dangerous. Many shops have been burned.'

Well, Bandarawela is the nearest town of any size -- maybe, what? 10,000 people? and only 9 miles from Ella -- so it was about then I first began to get an inkling that the situation might get serious enough to affect even me (although, as you know, it would not be the first time that I've found myself in the middle of big-screen-drama situations; in fact, it might even seem that I have a propensity for them). So I finished my business in town and returned home where, shortly afterwards, one of my Sinhalese neighbors, Suntil, came to call on me.

Suntil looked very upset, face puffy from lack of sleep, and he said the whole country was in flames, arson, riot and looting going on in much of the South by Sinhalese against Tamils and in much of the North by Tamus against Sinhalese, and that he didn't know what would happen to this country. Since he is a sensible fellow who has not previously been given to alarms I had to take him seriously. His brother, he said, had just returned from Colombo and reported the city devastated. The whole city, he said, would have to be rebuilt. Obviously not every single building had been destroyed, so I had no way to judge from such a statement how extensive the damage actually was, but I knew that in the capital there were no ethnic quarters, Tamils living alongside Sinhalese, and that most of the homes are old, i.e. made of wood (the Sri Lankans have never taken up the idea of tearing down the old to make way for the new).

Tamils are a significant minority in Colombo, as in fact they are also in most Upcountry towns, including Bandarawela and Badulla, which is the district capital (and rail head), about 15 miles away, with about 50,000 people. I believe it's the largest town east of Kandy. Most of the Tamils who have settled in Upcountry towns are traders and professionals. They are also all 'Jaffna' Tamils, Jaffna being the main city in the North of the island, as distinct from the Estate Tamils. The JT's have been in the country for about as long as the Sinhalese, whereas the ET's were imported during the last century by the British as cheap labor to work the tea estates (or, before the blight of the 1890's wiped them out, the coffee estates). The JT's look down on the ET's, and even speak a rather different sort of Tamil dialect, like uppercrust Oxford English and Cockney, and there is virtually no intermarriage between the two communities, which therefore maintain separate identities.

Around Ella itself there are not JT's, but of course there are hundreds of ET's who work on the tea estates which surround Ella, still fulfilling the role for which they were brought in from India. (and still working for base subsistence wages, presently about $1/day). So the Sinhalese do not fully identify the two groups with each other. But obviously they also have some things in common, so they are partly identified together. The danger, then, was that the ET's might also be attacked, in which case Ella would become involved, and, with ET's and Sinhalese about equal in number locally, the situation could become serious. Suntil told me a few horror stories, probably true, of what the Tamils had done to some of the Sinhalese in the North (the TT's seem to cultivate a bloody-handed image); no doubt similar stories can be told of what some Sinhalese have done in the South, though I haven't heard any such tales myself.

That afternoon it was very quiet: I've accustomed myself to the modest amount of traffic on this road (a road less travelled by), but for the first time I became aware of how much I'd had to ignore. It was a very pleasant afternoon, though, and the troubles were still at that time remote enough that I could indulge myself in reveries of supporting whichever side promised to maintain the curfew, etc. Even then, although I appreciated that the situation was difficult, I still regarded it as not more than a larger-scale version of the local incidents that had affected various towns from time to time. Multicultural nations have many advantages over unicultural nations (such as Thailand) -- e.g. a greater ability of the people to accept, and to understand, different ways, a greater ability to adapt to changing conditions, a more diversified pool of talents, etc. -- but there is a price to be paid for it in the form of communal tensions. These need not result in riot, but they all too easily do.

Such were my reflections on Thursday afternoon, and in the evening as well. The few shops and houses visible from my place had their lights out, and it was pleasant to take the night air without their lights glaring (frequent as they are, power failures come all too seldom for me). But about 8::30 at night I noticed to the west a bright red glare which could only be fire. It died down, then flared up a minute later, then again died away. Well, I'm east of Ella, so I speculated on what the light might signify.

Most of the ET's live near me or across the road and into the estate -- away from town -- but there are a few of them living in old housing near town. These people do not work for any estate, but survive on odd jobs and so on. I believe the housing is left from a failed estate; and the people are mostly elderly and mostly quiet and religious; by no stretch of the imagination could they be supporters of the TT. They are also extremely poor. So I hoped that nobody had been so foolish as to set their homes on fire. Another explanation was the tourists. There are 6 guest houses in town, from the high-class government-owned Ella Rest House to the ones that attract the backpack crowd. During the season (now) they do well on people who come usually for a night only, look at Ella Rock until they get bored with it, and leave the next day, since there's nothing else to do here except walk around. One 0f the owners had mentioned that morning that he had 12 tourists -- a full house for him -- that day; and perhaps they had become bored with the curfew and lit a bonfire. I've seen more foolish behavior than that by travellers, e.g. during the Guatemalan earthquake, during the Cambodian refugee crisis, during the Bangladesh refugee crisis, etc. I listened for a long while, but heard (and saw) nothing else -- no cries of distress, no screams (or bumps) in the night -- and so finally concluded that whatever the flare had been, it had not spread. With that I went inside for the night.

The next morning – Friday -- there were buses on the road, and a train on the tracks, so I guessed that the curfew had been lifted. Even if it hadn't I would have gone into town; there are footpaths through the woods. But instead I went by the car road. In town I learned that curfew would start at 5 PM and also that the night before the firelight I had seen had been the initial flare-up of a fire that had destroyed the Sunnyside Lodge, the guest house just beyond the other side of town (more than a crow's mile from me, the farthest buildings before the tea estates start again).

The lodge had had half a dozen tourists at the time, who fled into the dark injuring themselves a bit on the pointy ends of the tea bushes, but otherwise unharmed. I knew the Sunnyside was owned by a Mr. Joseph, who I had thought to be a, Burgher (of European or part-European descent), since he is a supervisor on one of the estates the previous government had nationalized, and because of his name (Tamil names are usually long and difficult -- for us -- to pronounce), and because of other impressions. But non I learned that I had been wrong in this belief, that he is a JT. I had been told that there were no JT's living in Ella, which is true: he lives on his tea estate a number of miles away; and that no shops were owned by JT's, which is also true. But I hadn't known the Sunnyside to be owned by a JT.

A I also learned that a rumor had been circulating -- false, as it turned out -- that a number of JT's from Bandarawela were hiding at the Sunnyside, refugees from the riots and killings in the main towns. So it is entirely possible that people from Ella set the place on fire to 'get the Tamils'. It would be easy enough to do, since it is out of Ella, surrounded by tea and a small fruit grove. But other explanations are also possible: it could have been Sinhalese from one of the outlying villages, which look to Ella as their commercial and government center. These are villages up in the hills, where I had heard of occasional difficulties between Sinhalese and JT's in the past. (The JT's there all moved away during the last few years.) Some of these villagers are rather rough-cut (though there are certainly some locals who would be quite capable of splashing some gasoline and lighting a match). Or it could have been from the neighboring tea estate, for they and Sunnyside had been having an acrimonious dispute about water rights, an important matter in this dry area, particularly so in this year of drought. I don't know the management at that estate, so I can't say whether this is or is not likely. But certainly it is possible. Or it could have been Sunnyside's competition. I've heard it said that the (Sinhalese) owners of some of the other tourist joints felt that Sunnysidewas getting an 'unfair' amount of the trade (whatever that means). And the owner of one of these guest houses is a person who would be uplto such an opportunistic act (none of the others would be, I think). Or it could be something I haven't even thought of (just as the fire itself was accounted for in a way I hadn't thought of). There's no telling.

The place, though, was totally destroyed. Stone walls waist-high still stood, and the walls at each end of the tourist building, which supported the roof structure, still stood. One of them had a window with a glass unbroken. But otherwise there was only ash and stench and fire-whitened zinc roofing sheets, and a couple of chairs too burnt to be repairable-perhaps they had been outside. The black char on one wall seemed to indicate where the gasoline had been poured (it was the light of the gas flame I had seen; the light of the burning building was not intense enough to light up the sky for me to see it over the hill that lies between my place and the Sunnyside). The other building was also totally destroyed; it was the dwelling of the cook/caretaker and his family, and he had lost everything he had put together in his life (he is in his 50's, I would guess). It was impossible to tell what material -- wood, bamboo, or whatever -- had formed the walls of either building above their stone base. One large roof beam, only half burnt, still smoked. A garage had not been burnt.

On my way back through town I met a villager who had just been to Ballaketuwa to sell some produce. This small town -- one or two hundred people, the same as Ella -- is about 4 miles from Ella, 3 miles from my place, and is therefore the closest town to Ella, aside from the villages which -- 5 or 10 houses each -- lie wherever there is farmland. He told me that at Ballaketuwa one of the Tamil-owned shops had been set afire and was burning even while he had been there. And then on my way back home I heard from someone else that all the Tamil shops at Ballaketuwa had been set afire -- maybe 4 or 5 shops, I'm not sure, for I've only been there once -- and that the Tamils, not content with the situation, were fighting back. With fists? I asked -- or with weapons? Not with fists, he said. But he wasn't sure what sort of weaponry was involved. Were the Estate Tamils involved? He wasn't sure, but he thought so.

I decided then not to go directly home. I consulted Suntil (who is the most influential of the younger Sinhalese in Ella, not only because he runs a shop and owns much land and comes from a large family, but also for reasons of character), who told me that he was storing in his house the valuables of the ET's from the Sutherland lines ('lines' meaning the row buildings where the ET's live, one family to a room), Sutherland being the estate closest (it is the only private estate in the area: I've mentioned before the owner, Mr. Henry, a Burgher), for the ET's there were now very worried, and had been making arrangements for the women and children to stay in the more remote lines while the men were prepared, if necessary, to defend themselves. One block of these lines lies directly in front of (and below) my place, a few hundred yards away. So I told these people that if there was any trouble, they could come to my cottage, where they would be safe. It is quite certain that no Sinhalese would harm me, and -- Suntil agreed with my assessment – almost as certain that they would also not make any trouble for anyone I put under my protection. This is particularly so for the Ella people, who all know me. So the ET's knew that they could find safety nearby. Suntil was also worried for his own safety, for if the Ella people learned that he was protecting (the goods of) the Tamils some of them might cause him trouble, particularly if they thought there was a chance to do some looting. He is the youngest child. His last sister was married just last month and now only he and his mother are in the house (though one brother -- the one who had returned from Colombo -- lives with his family nearby).

I then went on to Mr. Henry's burgalow -- estate bungalows, built during the days when the British owners were making fortunes, are always substantial structures that could hardly be duplicated nowadays -- to inform him of what was going on and also to phone on to the Newburgh office (although Newburgh tea lies just above my cottage, the office, bungalow and lines are a mile or so away, and I'd already done a lot of walking) to inform those people that there was a safe place for them, if they needed it, and could get to it. The phone wasn't working just then, but Mr. H said he'd call later. I also learned that the Newburgh Tamils were taking a more militant attitude than the Sutherland Tamils, making large knives (firearms, if any were to be had, were not spoken of: it would be rare in Sri Lanka for any average person to possess such weapons, unlike in Thailand -- or the US) and preparing a defence. There had been rumors that some JT's were taking refuge there, and whether true or not the rumors themselves were enough reason to be concerned: witness the fate of Sunnyside.

Mr. H had also hired a number of Sinhalese -- roughnecks, I assume -- to keep a patrol on his land, including the lines, during the night, and no doubt the same had been done at Newburgh (which is government-owned). He told me what he knew of the national situation, from radio and TV, which largely centered on government proclamations, suspicions of 'foreign' (i.e. Indian) support for the Tamils in general and the TT in particular (many of the ET's are still legally regarded as Indian citizens, even though they may have been born here: there is no doubt that, like many minority groups in the world, the Tamils have grounds for perceiving inequality of treatment), and also revelations of much that had been previously kept secret. It seems the killing of the 13 soldiers had not been a singular incident: something far more serious had been developing for some months, approaching in the North, a full-scale insurrection. loss of life on both sides (army/Tamils) had been much higher than reported; in particular army losses had been concealed, much to the disgruntlement of the army. And it was in fact a group of angry soldiers who finally told the press about the 13 slain that blew the lid off the government cover-up. (The government had tried to ship the 13 bodies to Colombo in the dead of night -- so I was told, and it may be true -- without informing the next-of-kin, this last detail being a particular grievance of the army dissidents, as well as the payment of reparations to some Tamils but not to army next-of-kin.)

The government had kept all these troubles quiet, of course, hoping the situation would blow over and fearing that exposure would result in rioting -- a reasonable fear, as it turns out -- and then just got sucked in deeper and deeper until the situation could no longer be hushed up. By then rumors were so rife -- many of them true, it was being discovered -- that the rioting when it came, was beyond the government's capacity to control.

All of this was interesting, of course, but this story -- the national story -- was in certain ways quite divorced from the immediate situation in Ella; on the national scene we were only spectators (with seats in the bleachers, yet) whereas on the local scene there was a situation that was very dangerous. Therefore after checking with Mr. H, as to his preparations, I went back to town, and talked to the people there, telling then basically that it was not a question of Tamil/Sinhalese, that such a view would only lead to more trouble, but that it was a question of right action/wrong action. Then as evening came on, I went back home, along an empty road.

The night was tense: that was clear. It was always possible that people -- Sinhalese or Tamils -- might come from Ballaketuwa. We didn't know how the fighting had gone there. Or they might come from farther away, particularly the Tamils, either seeking refuge or -- TT's or their agents -- come to stir up troubles. Occasionally vehicles went along the road. I could recognize the government jeeps on patrol; but because so many vehicles, especially trucks, had been put to the torch many owners had turned their vehicles over to the army and police for official use as well as greater safety for the vehicle. So most of the vehicles were not jeeps, but whether they were army/police patrols or something else I couldn't tell. One car stopped, about 8:00, at the entrance to the lines, paused a minute, then returned towards Ella. I kept watch, but nothing happened, and I learned the next day that this had been a police-driven car taking one of the ET's (who for some reason had been in town) back to the lines.

That was the most dangerous time, that night, and it is fortunate that nothing happened, for there could easily have been a spark struck that would have left Ella in cinders as were Bandarwela, Colombo, Kandy, and other towns (though, of course, on a smaller scale). But Saturday morning when I went into town I learned that there had been locally no further trouble. However I also learned the sad story of Badulla, the district capital.

Badulla is an entirely ordinary town, neither beautiful nor ugly, but since Kandy is not really considered quite Upcountry, being only 1600 feet elevation -- Ella is more than double that -- Badulla is the biggest town in the tea area. Tamils, like any minority group in the world, must specialize in order to survive as a group. Thus the JT's tend to be better educated and more industrious, and dominate the business community and play a big role in professional capacities. ET's survive as a group by doing work that no one else cares to do, and doing it for less than anyone cares to do it. The Muslim community, on the upperside, control a substantial amount of the gem trade and, on the down side, are often fishermen (these are of Moorish descent, the last Moors left in the world). The Burghers are often in managerial positions. The JT's have been attracted to Upcountry towns because (aside from good climate) outside of Colombo and Kandy most of the coastal Sinhalese are too hostile to them for the JT's to wish to settle there. It was in coastal towns that most of the isolated troubles of the last year occurred. Also, of course, they will have better business opportunities among the ET's even if they do not mix culturally or socially. And Badulla is large enough to offer the professionals -- doctors, engineers, accountants, etc. -- a chance to establish themselves. So in Badulla there are a lot of Tamils from the North. (I also have the impression that there are larger-than-average sized Muslim and Burgher communities.)

The TT, it seems, had a plan to take Badulla in the hopes -- quite possibly justified -- that if they succeeded the BT's of the entire district would rise with the JT's. Since the ET's can hardly be expected to be content with their position, economically, socially or otherwise, it is not an unreasonable notion that if they thought there was a good chance of success they would join the JT's.

Accordingly, at least 50 Tigers had been in Badulla, where aside from raising money from the Tamil merchants, they had also been stocking large quantities of weapons. When the riots began in the country they prepared themselves and laid their plans. The police seem to have had some idea of what was going on, for they arrested some of the TT before they could escape. Somehow -- perhaps from the arrested Tigers -- it was learned that the Tigers had made plans for a general attack on the Sinhalese, and somehow -- perhaps from the police -- the news became known to the Sinhalese in Badulla that the time for the attack was but two hours away. It took no more than this for mobs to form. Every Tamil shop and most Tamil homes were put to the torch. As the shops burned explosions from inside revealed that stores of bombs had been concealed in them. Naturally the flames spread. The Tamils tried to hurriedly mount their attack, and fired upon the Sinhalese, but the Tigers were not organized, and after a bloody fight they finally surrendered to the police/army.

One person who had been there said that in one schoolhouse he counted 55 bodies. In other schools Tamil refugees were guarded by police against the Sinhalese -- about 3000 homeless -- and elsewhere hundreds of captured terrorists were being held. (I'll bet there was no school in Badulla that day.)

The town, I've been told repeatedly, has been destroyed, flattened, demolished. In Bandarawela I‘m told that though few houses were burnt, all Tamil shops were destroyed and some Sinhalese shops as well. Looting was rampant. The army, which could hardly be expected to look kindly upon the Tamils, is said to have told people (unofficially, of course) that they could kill and burn, but not to loot. On the other hand, soldiers went out to Ballaketuwa, stopped the fighting (which, it turned out, had not gone farther than stone-throwing), recovered from Sinhalese homes what looted goods they could find and restored them to the Tamil merchants, and warned the Sinhalese not to make more trouble or risk arrest (for looting, I assume).

In Colombo there are about 50,000 homeless refugees and perhaps another 25,000 in the rest of the South. I have no idea whether the death toll is still in the hundreds or has mounted into the thousands, nor do I know the situation in the North. Ironically, the coastal towns -- Sinhalese-nationalist strongholds -- suffered less than Upcountry, because most of the Tamils had already fled those places due to previous troubles. In the area north of Upcountry but below the Tamil area -- Anuradhapura is the main town -- there seems to have been little trouble.

Some people who tried to get to Kandy said they were turned back at Nuwarm Eliya -- the foremost tourist town in Upcountry, the one homesick British like so well (though homesick Americans would not concur, there being no McDonald's) -- due to mobs and flames. Parliament has passed some new laws, about what I'm not quite sure. A minister from Mrs. Gandhi's cabinet has flown in to assess the situation. And opportunists of every stripe and spot have taken what advantage they could of the situation to benefit themselves, most commonly by looting or taking revenge for wrongs done to them, real or fancied. But in Ella, that Saturday, all was peaceful and the situation felt less tense (shops opened half their shutters rather than a quarter of them, though the small fruit stalls were closed). But the roads were still uncertain, and there were no trains, so some of the tourists were getting itchy. Saturday night passed peacefully.

Sunday morning was very quiet -- no vehicles, no trains, no pedestrians. So naturally I went into town to see what was up. All shops were closed and I was told that the night before the government had declared Sunday to be full curfew island-wide. Some of them thought there was still trouble in Colombo while others opined that Saturday night the government, having realized in a flash of intuition that the next day, being Sunday, was not a normal business day, had decided to celebrate their acumen by declaring full day curfew. Certainly all was quiet in town, although the police in a jeep which passed me (raising no objection to my being out and about) were heavily armed with rifles and shotguns. I was also told that the chief of the local constabulary had been sheltering some Tamil refugees in his own home, upon their payment of a very sizable incentive, and that someone had pasted a letter to the door objecting to this, though whether the objection was to his sheltering refugees or taking protection money or both was not made clear. At any rate, so I was told, the chief took fright at this notice and ordered his wards to leave at once, though whether they were able to recover any of their payment I did not learn. I did not learn where they might have gone, and heard no further rumors of JT's being given protection by the Newburgh BT's. So much for Sunday.

Monday morning there was traffic on the road and no curfew until evening, and a feeling the tension was now relaxed and that, for Ella at least, there would be no further troubles. This feeling was maintained into the afternoon. At about 5 o'clock a private car with a policeman at the wheel drove along the road, came to a stop, did a clumsy reverse, nearly backing into a ditch, and after an unnecessary amount of unskillful maneuvering, managed to reverse itself. Then a jeep came tearing along the road with several policemen, came to a screeching stop beside the private car, and held a hurried consultation. I happened to be at a house by the road at the time, getting one of my sporadic Sinhalese lessons and therefore I was able to learn that the policeman in the private car had decided to give himself some practice in driving and had borrowed the car -- which was in the care of the police so that it would not be burnt -- without telling anyone. The police in the jeep, having suddenly realized that their comrade and one car were missing, had rushed out to rescue him from whatever dire fate might have befallen him. He claimed that he had only gone out to get some tea and sugar for the boys (although there were at least 6 shops between the cop shop and where I observed the incident); they advised him to get back to work. They left and he haltingly followed after. And with that Keystone [ops episode the uprising can be considered to be over.

Curfew lingers on, as it did in '71, long after what gave rise to it has finished, just as a cough can linger on after the cold is cured. But otherwise, in Ella, all has pretty much returned to normal (it is now Thursday, the 4th of August, a week since I first heard of the curfew). And now what remains is to pay the price for the past week. ('Riot now, pay later.')

Economically it can be calculated: so many buildings to be rebuilt, so much production lost, so much to be made up for or forgotten, etc., etc. So much goods destroyed, to be replaced or done without. Food distribution will be the first priority. Probably no one will go hungry (or if anyone does it will be the Tamils), but some things are already scarce. Even here, where no shops were burned, they can restock themselves only from the government co-op in Badulla (which is farther from here than is Bandarawela), and not all things can be had there. In Colombo, I hear, a coconut -- formerly Rs. 2.50 (figure 23 rupees to the dollar) -- is now going for Rs. 12. A kilo of beans up from Rs. 3 to Rs. 50. Because of the transport shortage all goods that need to be moved are now very expensive. And though, as tie-ups get unsnarled and profiteers put down, prices will drop, it's unlikely that they will drop to their former level. This will be a very difficult time for many hard-pressed people who have already been suffering much from the inflation which is a concomitant of the present government's efforts to tie the country more strongly to the international economy.

Such a tie-in inevitably benefits urban people at the expense of the rural -- the demand for rice, after all, will not rise as fast as the demand for the flood of electronic goodies now pouring into the country, mostly from Japan -- and therefore hurts my neighbors, though they usually have other ideas, or no idea, about the source of the present inflation.

With much of this year's first rice crop failed due to drought the food situation will worsen. The second priority will no doubt be construction material. Not only is the demand great, but existing supplies of many materials will have been destroyed -- timber, zinc sheets (which can be ruined by an intense fire), etc.

This will affect my own plans, though as yet I can't say how: my landlord clearly intends to carry on with his plans to tear down this cottage and build himself a house, though whether the increased price of goods will convince him to wait until, the demand going down and supplies coming in, the price reverts to something more reasonable, I can't say, and perhaps he can't either. He has made up the plans, however, and showed them to me recently. The dining room is at the opposite end of the house from the kitchen, which he planned to make 5 feet by 9 feet, 'Will that be big enough for your wife?' I asked him, 'I didn't ask her,' he told me, perhaps surprised at the notion. I suggested to him that if his wife were consulted, and if a space suitable to her needs were alloted, he might get better meals than otherwise, and if he put the kitchen next to the dining room he might get hotter food as well. Perhaps some communal strife can be avoided. Though whether he will act upon my suggestion remains to be seen.

The burden of making reparations will not be eased by the disruption of communications networks in general -- in some cases power facilities damaged, many vehicles to be replaced or done without, etc. What the final cost will be I can't say, but I can say it will be more than this poor country can afford.

Also more than it can afford will be the non-economic cost-the loss of trust and co-operation between people who, a decade ago, were not at loggerheads, the greater dissatisfaction among those who already find or invent grounds for dissatisfaction, etc., etc. Certainly the Tamils have now learned that the Sinhalese have the will to keep the island as one undivided nation, and since they are a substantial majority the Sinhalese will succeed. Diehard Tamils will still resist, but most of them will now realize that for the present 'eelam' really is 'reaching for the moon'. What sort of agitation will persist I don't know, but it should be, if at all, on a much reduced level -- for the time being. That's perhaps the only 'lesson' drawn from the past week, and it's a lesson for which this country has paid dearly.

____________________

And yet, by the very fact of being part of such a world one cannot be completely sane; and to be not completely sane is to be not sane at all. But if one tries to escape is that not then evidence of a spark of sanity? Perhaps so; but the problem is that when we try to escape we discover that we can't: every effort to free oneself from (in Buddhist terms) involvement with craving, aversion, and delusion or (in the novel's terms) the war -- every effort apparently brings one back to the same dilemma, and results only in making the problem more urgent (and perhaps also more evident), as will be recognized by anyone who has ever tried to extirpate the root of craving, and failed. Is it not madness, then, to try to escape?

And yet, if to do nothing is regarded as less insane, still that too does not lead to disengagement from a mad world. This is the very crux of Yossarian's dilemma, and ours as well: a dilemma illuminated in experience by the effort to practice the Buddha's Teaching and in fiction by Yossarian's effort to escape from the war. Heller puts it this way:

"Can't you ground someone who's crazy?" [Yossarian asks the flight surgeon, Doc Daneeka.]

"Oh, sure. I have to. There's a rule saying I have to ground anyone who's crazy. "

"Then why don't you ground me? I'm crazy.... Ask any of the others. They'll tell you how crazy I am."

"They're crazy."

"Then why don't you ground them?"

"Why don't they ask me to ground them?"

"Because they're crazy, that's why."

"Of course they're crazy," Doc Daneeka replied. "I just told you they're crazy, didn't I? And you can't let crazy people decide whether you're crazy or not, can you?"

Yossarian looked at him soberly and tried another approach. "Is Orr crazy?"

"He sure is," Doc Daneeka said.... "I can ground Orr. But first he has to ask me to."

"That's all he has to do to be grounded?"

"That's all. Let him ask me."

"And then you can ground him?" Yossarian asked.

"No. Then I can't ground him."

"You mean there's a catch?"

"Sure there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy." -- p. 45

Thus Yossarian's efforts to establish a rational basis for being grounded must fail. Logic is an inadequate tool to deal with the human situation, for whenever we apply logic there is always a catch. This is not to suggest that logic is not necessary, but rather that it is not adequate. In this computer age we could hardly manage without logic. Let alone computers, without logic we could make neither mathematics nor music nor marmalade. But whenever we try to deal with the fundamentals of existence, with the forever unanswerable question, "Who am I?" (or any other question concerned with "me"), we find that logic neither answers that question nor shows us the way to stop asking it.[4] ("'Why me?' was his constant lament, and the question was a good one" -- p. 34.)

And the reason for this, the Buddha informs us, is because of avijjá, or ignorance. But avijjá is not a mere absence of information; it is a refusal to see what is at all times there to be seen. It is not failure to see one particular thing among other particular things, but a radical refusal to see the way all particular things are, and in this respect it is as great a modifier as death -- indeed, the two are (so the Buddha tells us) inseparable. The dependent arising formulation says, in summary, "With ignorance as condition, ageing and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair come into being."

The deluded person, in refusing to see the nature of all things, refuses also to see the nature of his refusal to see (which is also a thing). That is, he refuses to see delusion. Thus, by denying itself delusion sustains itself. This is stated in the Suttas (e.g. Sammáditthi Sutta, M. 9) as follows:

Friends, that which is non-knowledge of suffering, non-knowledge of the arising of suffering, non-knowledge of the ceasing of suffering, non-knowledge of the way leading to the ceasing of suffering, this, friends, is called ignorance.

For after all, what is "the way leading to the ceasing of suffering"? It is (the Suttas tell us) the noble eightfold path. And what is the first factor of this path? Right view. Ignorance, then, involves non-knowledge of right view. And right view is knowledge of the arising of suffering; that is to say, knowledge of ignorance. Right view is knowledge of right view, and also knowledge of wrong view, whereas wrong view is non-knowledge of wrong view, and also non-knowledge of right view. And this structure of ignorance is, in fact, Catch-22 at its most fundamental level.

Sāmanera Bodhesako,
from The Buddha and the Catch-22

Letter 4.15

2008-11-07T06:52:00.001Z

(Late '83 I started a 'Peace Run' frm British Columbia to Southern California; knees -- 40 year old knees -- and logistics gave out; but it was worth the try. -- Húm)

I think it's a great idea. You can run. You want peace. Therefore, you can run for peace. It may not work, of course. It's at least conceivable, arguable, that at the conclusion of your run there will be no more peace, no less contention, in the world, any way you describe the world, any way you quantify or qualify peace/non-peace. But, of course, that doesn't matter. You do what you can/must do; to expect results is already to do violence to the present -- i.e. the world. Therefore you run not to bring about peace; you run for peace. 'Folks, I'd like to dedicate this next mile to peace in... let's see... peace in Zimbabwe, okay? For the next mile we are running for Zimbabwean peace.' And who knows? Even without expectation, without hope, who can possibly deny the possibility that... Stranger things have happened. The pebble has given birth to the avalanche. If there is any movement to be initiated, your movement may be the... but even if not, it is still your movement. It is not a movement towards peace. It is a movement for peace. Being such, it is its own success, and whatever follows, or tries to follow, or fails to follow, doesn't matter. Your movement is, in itself, complete, like a strong dose of castor oil (as I'm sure you've thought yourself already) produces a complete and very purifying movement.

I think it's a great idea. But I can't run worth a damn. 50 miles a day? Every day for a month? 'One day, on carika, I walked 23 miles (in 10 hours of walking time), and was totally done in for the next 3 days. Normally I'll do 8 to 10 miles and be proud, and that's for all day. Running's not my thing. But I can fart. When I consider my various talents (almost entirely non-marketable) I conclude that the best thing I've got going is flatulence. Not that I'm in any world-class competition, mind you. No; but of an evening, down at the local health food bar, I can harmonize and odorize with no fear of being shown up as a Johnny One-Note. Yes, I can fart. And I too want peace. Therefore, I can fart for peace. For the next month, entirely due to your inspiring example, every expulsion of gas will be for peace. Of course, these days I'm not into actually organizing anything. But ideas occur. These ideas -- who knows how far things might spread? Part-ins. The Pass Gas for Peace movement. ('You know in your bowels that it's right.') Giant balloons can be filled with collected farts and floated over the skies of the world -- whoops -- there goes another one, right now, dedicated to peace. Tonight, I predict, will be -- whoops -- big one that time -- tonight will be a time dedicated -- whoops, long thin one, trifle malodorous, but for peace, for peace, just like all the others -- yes, tonight will be a time, whoops, brief crack of a fart, it was -- a time, I say, a time dedicated to peace in our hearts, in our minds, in our bowels, in -- whoops, good satisfying one that was -- yes, peace in our hearts, in our...

(The edge of the aerogramme wafted with peace, which may have lasted a month, to judge by the next aerogramme from him, picking up the scent, as it were. -- Hūm)

..My own backward and long-winded efforts, inspired by your example, to make a contribution towards peace, continue apace -- not exactly striking a blow for peace, perhaps, but a blow nevertheless, and certainly a clarion-call (to myself -- ain't nobody else around to hear it, but that don't matter no nevermind) for all we believe in. As you say, all we have is wind and poesy, so though it was a one-man effort -- I invited some friends to join me, but they thought I was cracked -- nevertheless your slogan Plutonium Piles Are Hard To Sit On was the inspiration for my expiration, the Pass Gas for Peace Movement. For one month every fart I farted was, with a song in my bowels, dedicated to peace...

I too prepare for winter -- the NE monsoon will hit with full fury next month -- the termites have already done so, as you can see by the bites taken out of this aerogramme -- and huff and puff, but, I hope, will not blow my little house down. But what makes it interesting is that I can't be sure. People keep telling me not to live on top of hills, but what, then, is Upcountry for? So I go down to the pine forest below, where the village women illegally pull down branches, and I gather the small sticks that they don't think worth carrying. Pine burns great. The needles go into the bed, which thus gets fractionally higher each day. Soon I shall be above the top of the hill and beyond the doubts of my distant neighbors and supporters. (Sometimes, at night, I see rabbits -- or one rabbit several time running past, so there must be rabbit holes about the place. Moon-lit, he looks rather... well... white and seems in a hurry.)

Here's a few more Dhaumapada renderings for thee.

Let go of the future; let go of the past;
let go of the in-between and surpass
existence. When freedom of mind is attained
then to birth and decay you will not come again.

If its root is firm and stout
a tree cut down will heal and grow.
With craving's base not rooted out,
again, again, will sprout this woe.

People who are biased, moved,
exult in what's engaging,
though bent on ease, though seeking good,
they undergo but birth and aging.

The blemishless man who's gained freedom from thirst.
untrembling, the one who's accomplished the aim,
for that man the dam of existence is burst.
This is his final frame.

Letter 4.14

2008-11-06T08:15:00.001Z

We're getting a sprinkle of rain just now -- 7:30 PM -- which happens to be full moon. This is the first rain we've had since February, though it has yet to build into anything deserving to be called that, and of course no single rain could be adequate, for the fields are parched and cracked, and the rice shoots have been slowly dying back. But if the drought -- which is nationwide -- can be broken at least a part of the crop can be saved (due for harvesting in about a month), and of course without adequate rain no new crop could be planted. Neither do the cows have pasturage. Needless to say, it's been very hot. The town's reservoir ran dry about a week ago -- up till then the taps can only an hour or so per day, gradually diminishing -- and now everyone takes their laundry to any of several wells that are to be found in the forest, and carries water back for cooking.

In this respect I'm very fortunate, for although the small reservoir from which I get my water (it is not the town's reservoir, which is up the hill, but feeds a single paddy field in front of me) -- although it is running low, it is nevertheless running, and my pond remains full (there are beautiful blue and gold water lilies in it now), except when I water my garden, which takes about 1/3 of it. My pond used to contain a frog I called Friendly Freddie, because he got so used to my dippings that he accepted me, and even allowed me to stroke his back as he floated (though not to pick him up); but he disappeared about a week ago and a few days later I noticed that the pond had a new watersnake in it. He hides in a little grotto, but he seems less fearful of me gradually; he likes to bask with his head on a rock and his body in the water. I saw him dart from his grotto once and snap up a grasshopper who was having a swim (doing a sort of crawl, not quite dog-paddle), and I assume that any snake that eats grasshoppers can't be poisonous, though the theory has not been tested. But as you know I've had many close encounters with snakes (of the 2nd kind, and something 2½th kind), so he doesn't worry me, though I admit Freddie was the preferable neighbor.

The snake, however, is preferable to some: there's been a spate of petty thievery, which has now (I hope) ended. A trap was laid and three kids – teenagers -- were caught. They live near the RR tracks (which side I can only surmise), where there are about a dozen families squatting on government land. The police gave the kids a warning (I had already given some general warnings myself), and in Sri Lanka, unlike Thailand, they treat petty theft quite seriously -- if it had gone to court they could have gotten 6 month sentences -- so now it has stopped. I really didn't mind the stealing so much -- it was petty enough: fruit, soap, and little things that could be easily replaced -- as the vandalism that was accompanying it (tearing down the fence I'd built to discourage the cows from helping themselves to the garden); and if they'd been content with just taking what they did I would have done nothing.

My garden hasn't been invaded by cows but by termites, who eat the manure that has been mixed into the soil, and thereby kill the plants the manure was supposed to fertilize. Termites, in Sri Lanka, are called 'white ants', so you might say I've got ants in my plants.

My neighbor, Mr. Henry, who owns the Sutherland estate, spoke of the film 'Gandhi' the other day (have you seen it?) -- he had seen some poobah or other on TV (since the start of this year TV is broadcast island-wide, as it has been in Colombo for 4 years past, with programs from 6-10 PM alternating between English, Sinhala, and Tamil -- one channel) holding forth about it and seemed enthusiastic to see it. However, Mr. H is not very successful at managing his estate and will probably lose it before 'Gandhi' ever gets to Colombo, in which case he would probably migrate to Australia (not only to see the film). He keeps getting his workers angry with him, and production is down. His is the only privately-owned estate left in the area, aside from a few small holdings (he has 140 acres), so that also puts him in a difficult position, for the government-owned estates (taken over during Mrs. Bandaranaike's reign) are doing things for the workers -- new housing, bonuses, etc. -- that he can no longer afford to do, compounding his problem. Too bad; his great grandfather pioneered the estate when this country was still thick jungle.

Some people, it seems, like to get things arranged the way they want them and are then content to leave them there, or to try to do so (things don't always stay put) while others prefer to keep things in more or less continual motion, a sort of juggling act, and are content when things don't stay put (but this is both exhausting and endless). You might think that I am of this sort, but actually not. I would be quite content to arrange things the way I want them -- that's the hard part -- and then stay put ('Things', of course, doesn't mean just physical things.) That's what I've been trying to do since 5 years ago. I would have been content to stay in Thailand, but the visa hassle got to be too much, and now I will be even more content to stay in Sri Lanka (a country much more to my liking than Thailand ever was), and in Ella (which is a nice place, offering hospitable people, suitable climate, enough elbow room, and a stable situation; people say t e place hasn't changed much in the last 25 years and, aside from an increase in the number of tourist guest houses -- there are 6 now -- will not likely change much in the future), and even in this cottage. Unfortunately, for this last point, the landlord is now making moves that will make me make moves, Nothing has been said directly, but the unmistakable message is that he would like his land (and his house) back. I am not being pushed out precipitously, but need to look around. So in the next few weeks I will look around -- first in the vicinity -- for another place to put myself. On the other hand, before selecting I might as well see more of the selection, so my look farther afield. In any case, I intend to make long-term arrangements at my next stop.

Two weeks ago was the annual Sinhalese New Years celebration, but the last couple days, judging from the crackers, shooting, and goings-on, sounded like a repeat performance.

Today I have learned that it is the custom to celebrate a girl's first menstruation -- 'coming of age', it's called -- and that's why my Tamil neighbors are having the two-day shindig, loudspeakers blaring music that sounds to me like Bob Dylan must sound to you. But this is the only disturbance they've made in the year that I've been here (363 days today) and even if speaking about it would do any good (which it wouldn't) I wouldn't do so, for they've been good neighbors. Asian people in general are more polite-spoken than Westerners, but Tamils seem to carry this to an extreme. It is common for them, when speaking to Westerners to use terms of extreme respect -- 'Master', being a common one -- but recently one Tamil visitor (he wanted me to help him prepare for an exam in management, which he was studying in English mediu ) went perhaps as far as one can go in this direction by persisting in calling me 'god'. 'Please don't call me god,' I asker! him. 'Yes, god' he replied. Maybe he was hoping for more help than I could give him.

On books, as it were, I'm looking for a gardening book. One for someone who knows nothing, has no equipment, and grows on poor soil in tropical highlands. No doubt no such book exists -- like all the necessary ones. Available locally are minly travel guides-cum-pop philosophy, In the Footsteps of the Buddha, and other such titles, which aren't for growing a thing. After interminable niggling and hemming and hawing, by the way, the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy has agreed to publish a long essay of mine The Buddha and Catch-22, more or less as I wrote it. It will be out sometime next year. Not a guide to grow anything either.

Letter 4.13

2008-11-05T06:28:00.001Z

I‘m sure it's been a much more trying time for you than you say. I hope by now some of the emptiness has been worked through. Though, perhaps, it's never really, until or unless we see the source of it. As life goes mother had many good and full years; the end could have been longer and more painful than it was. You did all that could be done all these difficult years; at a not inconsiderable cost to your own well-being. Though I'm sure you don't see it that way; 'one does for one's own', as you say. Still, as you should accept the appreciation of your children, you should allow yourself some satisfaction in the knowledge that you gave what you could with such love and devotion. I wish I could say the same for myself so confidently. I hope, as time passes, you will tell me whatever is comfortable to tell. For my part, I am dealing with it by doing what I have been doing: trying to see the source of that emptiness. I believe there is nothing better I can do to honor my mother. Even from this great distance know that I share in all you are feeling.

love,

Bob

____________________

...The most immediately obvious (though hardly the most profound) similarity between the Teaching and the novel is that both are deeply concerned with man's mortality. "Old age, sickness, and death" is a phrase that occurs repeatedly in the Buddha's Teaching, as recorded in the Pali Suttas (and, indeed, throughout the later Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan texts as well). A citation of even a small portion of such textual references[1] would be far beyond the scope of this brief discussion: the fact of man's mortality -- a constant peril in an inconstant world -- is a perception absolutely fundamental to the perspective of life presented by the Buddha's Teaching.

And in Catch-22 the protagonist, Yossarian (a bombardier in World War II), is no less deeply concerned about old age, sickness, and death. The spectre of their imminence is his constant dread. As his friend Dunbar puts it,

"Do you know how long a year takes when it's going away? This long." He snapped his fingers. "A second ago you were stepping into college with your lungs full of fresh air. Today you're an old man."

"Old?" asked Clevinger with surprise. "What are you talking about?"

..."You're inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age?" -- pp. 38-9

As for sickness:

Yossarian had so many ailments to be afraid of that he was sometimes tempted to turn himself in to the hospital for good and spend the rest of his life stretched out there inside an oxygen tent with a battery of specialists and nurses seated at one side of his bed twenty-four hours a day waiting for something to go wrong.... Aneurisms, for instance; how else could they ever defend him in time against an aneurism of the aorta? ...He wondered often how he would ever recognise the first chill, flush, twinge, ache, belch, sneeze, stain, lethargy, vocal slip, lose of balance or lapse of memory that would signal the inevitable beginning of the inevitable end. -- pp. 171-2

But even more than old age and sickness, it is the spectre of death itself that haunts both Yossarian and the novel: "At night when he was trying to sleep, Yossarian would call the roll of all the men, women and children he had ever known who were now dead. He tried to remember all the soldiers, and he resurrected images of all the elderly people he had known when a child..." -- p. 339. Yossarian is enmeshed in a killing war which is (as the novel's disclaimer makes clear) representative of a larger framework,[2] a war to which "there was no end in sight. The only end in sight was Yossarian's own" -- p. 16. Nevertheless, Yossarian "had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive" -- p. 29. Yossarian feels death hovering about him -- indeed, even living with him, in the form of a dead man named Mudd, who was not easy to live with.

However, old age, sickness, and death are not apprehended merely as things, as objects in a world of objects, in themselves neutral. The fact of death changes Yossarian's world, as it does ours, radically, and Heller's insistence upon this point is the beginning of the novel's profundity.

In a world in which death is an unavoidable presence, "it made sense to cry out in pain every night" -- p. 54. Indeed, the disorder that the awareness of death introduces into a world which, throughout our lives, we are forever trying to order, leaves us with neither simple order nor simple disorder, but rather with "a world boiling in chaos in which everything was in proper orders" -- p. 143. Death, the great modifier, alters everything, so that for Yossarian "nothing warped seemed any more in his strange, distorted surroundings" -- p. 402.

It is this strange distortion that is the keystone of the novel's humour -- not merely that of its many throwaway jokes but also of the tragicomic perception which circles round and round the death of Snowden ("Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?" -- p. 35: what a poignant joker), drawing ever closer, while at the same time mockingly inverting that trivial sensibility which ordinary men use to deny the disorder of death: "the Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. In three days no one could stand him" -- p. 9; "Nately had a bad start. He came from a good family" -- p. 12; "Yossarian couldn't be happy, even though the Texan didn't want him to be" -- p. 16; "strangers he didn't know shot at him with cannons every time he flew up into the air to drop bombs on them, and it wasn't funny at all. And if that wasn't funny, there were lots of things that weren't even funnier" -- p. 17. But it is not merely the one-liners that are inversions of everyday logic: that everyday sensibility is twisted into various shapes, so that each character is seen to exist in his own uniquely topsy-turvy world, a world whose shape hovers somewhere between a wry smile and a teardrop....

Sāmanera Bodhesako,
from The Buddha and the Catch-22

Letter 4.12

2008-11-04T06:53:00.001Z

So Vanity Fair is back in bizness, eh? Enjoyed the Marquez piece even more than '100 Years of Boredom' -- much more to the point and less 'diffuse, despite the horror-drawings. Looks like a high-class spread, some competition for the New Yorker.

Your WHAT [1] (me worry?) is obviously in a class of its own, without competition.

In the ethnic riot department competition is fierce on a worldwide scale, and Sri Lanka has little chance of carving out more than a minor niche for itself; but this is provincialism if anything is -- in that department Sri Lanka stands high above every place I've ever seen, as the most non-significant country to care deeply and intensely what everyone is saying about it (nothing at all, usually) -- and so there is a feeling of mixed dismay and pride that for a few days, at least and at last, they were able to get some play in Europe and U.S. rags. They believe, like Nixon, that the press is kicking them around; on the other hand being ignored totally -- the usual case -- is hardly an improvement. Ella, however, was unaffected save for the razing of one Tamil -- owned tourist lodge, which sent the tourists fleeing in their nightclothes through the tea bushes. Nearby towns -- Bandarawela, Badulla -- were among the most seriously affected.

For reasons entirely unrelated to the riots, I must move. A site about ½ mile away has been tentatively selected, and provided the villagers get it together, work should start soon. I will be surprised indeed if I'm out of here before the end of the year, but early next year seers a reasonable bet, I thus will involuntarily maintain my record of never (in adult life) managing to stay in one dwelling for as long as 2 years. I'd be perfectly content to stay here -- the owner wants the land back to build a house -- and hope that with the next move I will live long enough (and that, in one place) to break this pattern. The move will put me several steps closer to the edge that I generally live on. (I may name the new kuti 'The Center for the Study of Peripheries'.) Like you, I'll have a river below me, but in my case it will be about 500 feet below, so fetching water would be s difficult task.

Meanwhile, I design an ever-increasing number of kutis only one of which (at most) will become reality. Higher than actuality stands possibility.

__________

[1] William Head Amateur Theatre -- a long narrative poem of mine about a night out at a prison production of MacBeth. -- Hūm.

Letter 4.11

2008-11-03T06:05:00.001Z

The boxes of books arrived with newspaper packing -- the LA News – which I read with some interest. I was impressed by the ads for fat people and for alcoholics -- i.e. by the number of such ads -- and by the ad for peppermint-scented hula hoops (a marital aid, possibly?). Puzzled by a letter to the editor expressing gratitude that the U.S. was a capitalist country, except for Santa Monica. What does this mean? Passed the papers on to some villagers, who have yet to comment on them.

/.../

On the way to Colombo recently, while stopping to eat, I drank some orange juice, which had a bit of a seed -- I suppose it was -- with a sharp edge that cut the inside of my throat. It only caused an annoying tickle, but then it got infected, so before returning to Ella I saw an MD in Colombo about it. Yes, he told me, my throat was red and my tonsils were swollen. Doctor, I told him, my tonsils were removed when I was a child. He had no comment to make, and gave me a prescription for tetracycline, which I took to the dispensary, where they gave me ampicillin instead. I was asked by neither doctor nor pharmacist if I had any allergies, etc. In any case, I took the ampicillin and am now recovered -- with problematical thanks to the medical establishment. Another medical misfortune: we now seem to have entered into the season for a certain kind of caterpillar with thick tufts of black hairy fibres all over it. One fell on my head as I slept, waking me. I tried to brush it off, thinking it was just another cricket, which I get plenty of, but as soon as I touched it I knew it was no cricket. One day of intense itching, and about 3 more days of gradually diminishing itching. And then, a few days later, another one got in and got me on the arm. The best medicine I've found so far is preventive: a thorough wall-check before going to sleep each night -- they, apparently, like to climb walls -- though don't seem to be very good at it as they keep falling off.

This isn't only the caterpillar season -- also swarms of small yellow butterflies, invariably flying southward. They haven't far to go before reaching the Indian Ocean and the next landfall (unless it's some secret butterfly island) would be Antartica, so presumably the southern coast is now suffering from an infestation of butterflies and -- unless they fly back at some later date -- the north of the country will eventually be totally devoid of this species. Another of life's minor mysteries.

In the paddy fields they are now finishing transplanting rice shoots from the seed beds to the prepared fields, which is where I came in 6 months ago; but it's been a good show, so I'll sit through it again.

I can tell how hot it is by how melted my jar of coconut oil is. It solidifies every night, and on a warm day it will be cloudy liquid and on a hot day (or if I put it in the sun) it will become more and more clear. Today, it's liquid but very cloudy. But the solar heating system works well: a black plastic sheet covering a plastic bucket of water. Three hours in the sunshine and it's as hot as you would want it for bathing. On cloudy days I heat a kettleful on the fire. The rain barrel is empty, so I have to boil drinking water now.

Yes, as the Fiddler on the Roof said, 'If the rich could hire someone to die for them' they probably would. But they can't. Nobody can. This is morbid? Or the way it is? Morbid to me is the refusal to face this fact, and to morbidly insist upon living life as though it were eternal (except for those who have the bad taste and lack of discretion to die).

But who am I to convince you?

Letter 4.10

2008-11-02T06:24:00.001Z

No doubt some magazines had articles about Bangkok's hokey 200^th anniversary -- hokey because there are a lot of ways of counting, and they chose this one simply for the sake of the publicity and tourist bucks. Last March, I think it was, I met a husband-wife team on a photo assignment for Town and Country magazine -- he was gay and she was lesbian, so I guess they were a perfect match; they should get it about right.

Sri Lanka had an election about 10 days ago -- no doubt you've heard more about it than I have, since I didn't inquire about the results and nobody bothered to tell me. There were a lot of fireworks the next day, so I gathered that somebody did win it, but remained in doubt until recently I went to Kolatenna to visit some friends and, passing through Bandarawela, saw much green bunting in evidence. Since green is the UNP color I suppose they were re-elected, and that would be the first time since independence that any government has been returned to office. Nominally they would be classed as the right-wing party, so no doubt Reagan & Co. expressed their pleasure; but the truth is that that division is unrealistic; it's really a matter of Sri Lanka's two most powerful families pitted against each other, and ideological stances are strictly secondary, a matter of convenience rather than conviction. I don't read the papers because Sri Lanka's papers are too dull for words, all Tea Board quotations and mundane provincial news, lacking balance, depth, or relevancy. Foreign reportage is equally ill-balanced, since the mentality is so provincial that they can't distinguish the trivial from the momentous. But the less I hear of it the more trivial it sounds when I do. The last paper I saw was in August, and I doubt anything much has happened since then -- the football strike in the States was the international ordeal that day. (Last year, in Chiang Mai, I read Paper Lion, which I enjoyed in spite of its thinness.)

A brush with death can have markedly different effects on different people, you're right. Few, it seems, even after that, see the necessity of coming to grips with the fact of mortality, but rather something one's glad is behind one (which it isn't) and best forgotten about (which it isn't).

I'm pained that I'm unable to do anything as regards mother; but, pained or not, there seems little that can be done. You can know, at least, that which can be done you are doing.

Letter 4.9

2008-11-01T06:31:00.001Z

Why the country calls itself Sri Lanka, I don't know. The Sinhalese alphabet has separate letters for an 'S' sound and as aspirated 'S' (also for B and aspirated B, P and PH, etc.), as do many Asian (Sanskrit based) languages. An aspirated 'S' is often transliterated as 'SH' (though the H is softer than in, say, 'should' -- it is really a puff of air rather than a hard sound). Those who changed the English name from Ceylon to correspond more closely with the name the Sinhalese have always used for the country chose to transliterate it as Sri, but a case could be made for Srhi and, in other instances, is often used.

Climbed Ella Rock. 6 hour round trip. Good view. Bad day. Rain. Lightning crashing below, clouds doing weird dances as they hit the hot air of the plains just east of the Rock. Could see my cottage, a small dot identifiable by its location beside the pine forest. The climb wasn't hard, just long, up the backside (to go up the frontside -- viewed from the cottage -- one would have to be a skilled mountaineer, as it's partly very steep and partly precipitous.)

Getting ready for the rains. We've had a taste of it, but the monsoon sets in for real mid-October. Store of firewood in. Managed to obtain a sheet of corrugated plastic and now have a skylight, so I can batten darn when necessary and still have plenty of light. When it rains hard the pond turns muddy, so there is now a piece of bamboo across the roof to catch rain-water (the green bamboo hereabouts is quite large, 10-12 inches in circumference, and can grow 30 feet or more, though I need only 15 feet) and also a 55 gallon drum set up beside the porch to catch it in (lined with plastic to keep it clear).

Inside: A wooden table and straight-back chair. An armchair called, I'm told, a G.O.H. chair since it is the model used in the Grand Oriental Hotel. A sort of swing designed by myself -- a length of cloth, poles at top and bottom, and four ropes to support each end of each pole -- the most comfortable chair of all, and it rolls up and can be put in a corner when not in use. Some bamboo shelves I've built. And a bed of grass and pine needles. Nice smelling. I add fresh needles every week or so, and it gradually gets higher, but a long way from being too high.

A clover that grows wild everywhere here is not only edible but quite tastey lemony and sweet. A low-growing leafy plant called gotukole in Sinhalese (it was common in Thailand also, where it's called baaybabaw, but I don't know the English) -- makes a good tea as well as a salad ingredient. The daily salad I make of these, plus tomatos and onions, is not only delicious but healthy.

I'm also working on The Track of Truth -- not on the translations so much as the notes, which will be at least double the size of the verses. They will consist of relevant extracts from related texts, my own commentary, and extracts from relevant contemporary writers. As not all this material is at hand, I must make many detours, working around what I cannot work through, and shall later have to do much backtracking, at a considerable loss of time, and perhaps some loss of accuracy. Frustrating; though the method, it seems, of every madness.

Letter 4.8

2008-10-31T06:19:00.001Z

The weather this month has been very hot and very dry, but the porch is cool and picks up cool breezes, off Ella Rock, I assume, which I plan to climb in the next couple weeks. Better do it now before the forest on top of it gets burnt to the ground -- there have already been two fires up there (set by farmers burning off land -- and a few trees -- to grow crops), as well as several fires in the nearby pine forest. The philosophy around here seems to be, if you see a tree, burn it.

This cottage is curiously cool. Other tin-roofed houses I've lived in have been, in the hot season, unbearably hot at midday, but this one is cooler inside than out. Partly because it has a high roof, but that seems an inadequate explanation. It's dry enough so that in the afternoon my water trickle dries up and the level of the pond sinks down until, after sunset, the water starts to flow again. A minor inconvenience to me, but more serious to the farmer below, who isn't getting enough water to irrigate his paddy, (Even if I took no water he still wouldn't get nearly enough.) People say the NE monsoon is due to start this month. (The SW monsoon, just finished, affects this part of the island only in clouds and wind, not in rain.) We'll see what that brings. Nights have been noticeably cooler the last few days -- if we can call night day.

So much fruit around, I'm on a high-fruit diet. Bananas, papayas, avocados, some citrus, lots of fruits I can't even name. Plus rice, bread, roti, and various vegetables -- carrots, lettuce, and tomato salad the most easily identifiable. Lots of lentils. Some coconut. I keep discovering more stuff growing on this acre of land. 4 avocado trees. 2 naval orange trees. A lime tree. A coffee bush with nearly-ripe berries. (Coffee is very highly taxed on import, so it's definitely a luxury item, yet, until 100 years ago, Ceylon grew much of the world's coffee, no tea, and then blight and insects and planters' skepticism about their seriousness wiped out the coffee, and tea was planted as a substitute crop. Nowadays cautious attempts are made to re-introduce coffee, but with mixed results.) Anyway, I shall certainly make use of these coffee beans. Not that I'm such a coffee lover, but I love to use what's here. Along with what grows wild I have my usual failing flower garden. Main crop seems to be clover and some onions sprouted from old ones I tossed away last month. I wait for the jack fruit to ripen.

Two crows come to eat my left-overs, and are becoming less and less afraid of me. (Curiously, both of them are named Charlie.) Recently their 3 fledglings learned to fly and now appear here: they stand in front of a pile of (say) rice and caw and caw, demanding to be fed. They feel, apparently, that the world should be so arranged that they need only open their mouths and they will be fed. (We Buddhist monks close our mouths and get fed.) Their parents (Charlie & Charlie) sometimes feed them and sometimes ignore them. When ignored long enough they finally peck disconsolately at the food, complaining bitterly all the while at the injustice of it all.

Last night as I was standing outside looking at the moon (full tomorrow) a rabbit dashed past, not 5 feet from me. This is the biggest wildlife I've seen around here. He lives, no doubt, in the tea bushes, where small creatures can survive, and was on his way downhill to try his luck in the rice paddy, now all transplanted. The farmers arc working their vegetables, spending most of the day watering. I should think they would have, by now, evolved a system to lift the water from the stream to the fields (a vertical distance of under 15 feet), rather than hauling it by hand in buckets. I've been tinkering with some Rube Goldberg designs using simple materials -- bamboo for piping, etc. -- that could ease their work considerably. Assuming, of course, it doesn't lead to quarrels over water rights, and presto! the modern world. Sometimes technology can have a devastating effect on cultural mores, as in the U.S., for instance, and in these utters it's best to proceed carefully.

Letter 4.7

2008-10-30T06:11:00.001Z

Greetings from the edge. Restoration work continues, at about the same speed as demolition work. Unravelling stringhoppers and then ravelling them up again. (Ravioli?) Good exercise for my amusing muse, whoever she be. What is the Greek for this?) But which part is the restoration and which the demolition leaves me puzzled.

Things are here as always, changeless change, a bit for the better a bit for the worse, a bit closer to the grave, nothing dramatic to tell of – certainly no bullet holes through stump windows as you report, Nature's way of telling you... -- except the excitement generated by the slow cultivation of boredom coupled with a gradual distaste for everything the world has to offer and some of the things it doesn't. The writing of this letter, for instance, is an Event in my life that I shall remember, review -- oh, I could have said it that way, ever so much more clever, and I should have mentioned such and such, etc. -- as I have anticipated and savoured the prospect these last several months. TODAY'S THE DAY! Hi, Hum. Ho, hum. Something to DO. Contact (Roger Wilco) with another person. Well, it's not as great as I describe it, really. It has its mundane moments, such as the mundane boredom of studying Sinhalese – and such low-level low-count low-down kind of boredom if ever there was one -- and such as the sensual high of food every day, but there's disadvantages to every profession, as well as every antifession.

As a bullet found its way inside your stump and plugged Mirotchka's sunflower painting, have you considered hanging it on the outside instead of over your bed? Over the bed sounds like a very tough shot, even for a great billiards player. Outdoors the flowers may get enough sun, air, and bullet holes to germinate.

Well, I'd love to write more now, but my muse, my very own moose, is calling me, so I think I'll go out on the porch now and be bored some more. Ah, Wilderness!

V .

Letter 4.6

2008-10-29T06:50:00.001Z

Well, I've moved in -- for how long remains to be seen -- to the cottage I told you about, near the town of Ella, about 8 miles from Bandarawela. My German monk friend didn't want to stay here, preferring to be away from roads and RR tracks. He's found a place he likes about 3 miles away and will build something that suits him, which will probably take him 3 months. Some workmen have been here doing various work; clearing the yard, digging a hole for the pond, repairing the porch and the stone parapet walls.

Ella, as I described briefly in my last letter, is on the eastern edge of Upcountry, 3400 feet high, and there is a gap leading down to the lowland, which offers a fine view; also a large rock, certainly over 1000 feet high, with a eucalyptus forest on its side and top and a cave halfway up where, I'm told, Rohanna took refuge when his kingdom was conquered. Rohanna was the first of the great pre-Sinhalese kings, some 3 thousand years ago. The cottage looks out on this rock, and is bordered by rice-paddy below and to the right, a pine forest to the right and behind, tea on the left, and partly-wooded hills in front.

By co-incidence the manager of the estate (tea) -- a Burgher -- is a client of a Colombo man I know, and he has proven helpful in some ways. I occupy about an acre of hillside, not all at once, but such is life. A water channel from the tea above has been tapped and now there is a small 5 feet high waterfall going into the pond, and a tiny river running past my front door, over which the workmen have built a tiny stone bridge, for, presumably, a tiny Buddhist monk to cross on.

I'm about 150-200 yards back of a secondary road with little traffic but some noise, and at least double that distance from the RR tracks behind, from which comes at regular intervals a muted rumble. The tracks go around a hill, making a complete U-turn, west to east to west, before turning north for Badulla, the end of the line, about 12 miles up.

From the cottage the prospect sweeps over hills upon hills, dotted with dwellings here and there and several tea factories -- large two-and-three story structures; they're all built on the same general plan, all have many small-paned windows, and all are painted white.

Very few mosquitos or other noxious pests here. The children can be pests (though are not noxious), but the first time they came I put them to work sweeping and clearing and they've tended to stay away since then.

Today a centipede fell from the ceiling to the ground only a few inches from where I sat, and proceeded to scurry onto my lap. I shook him away and he hid in the bedding, which I had to dismantle to find him and remove him. I'm told this chap has a very painful (though not fatal) bite, but I have some native oil that works amazingly well against poisonous bites. But such incidents are to be expected from time to time, as, in LA, close calls on the freeways are to be expected from time to time. Preferably while you're not eating, however, which I was.

Ella, by the way, seems to be perhaps the only place in Sri Lanka where they don't load up their food with enormous quantities of chilis. Also lots of vegetables are grown around here (some of the paddy field below is used for vegetables), so my diet suits me. But it's still uncertain how long I'll stay in this particular cottage -- I too am not overly fond of trains, traffic, and neighbors (the nearest house is about 60 yards off) whose radios blare with Sinhalese music.

What do I know about President Jayawardene? Only that he's held in very high regard in Sri Lanka and considered their equivalent of, say, a Sadat or Nehru. I met his son once in Thailand, a very quiet and well-mannered boy about 20, but haven't felt inclined to contact him. Jayawardene is up for re-election next year. Since even the anti-government papers seem to keep hands off him I assume he will be re-elected. Obviously, he's not in it for the money. I don't know how much political power he has, if any, but I believe the position is more of a moral than political significance, as is India's presidency, for example, where the P.M. -- Mrs. Gandhi -- has great power and the president -- J.M. Reddy until he died recently, don't know who's replaced him -- has great respect. A reasonable division of the spoils.

Letter 4.5

2008-10-28T07:28:00.001Z

I left not and humid Colombo for the cool, dry upcountry, but found Kandy, on the wet side of the hills, not so dry, so, after a few days poking around old haunts, took the train to the Eastern Part, to a town called Bandarawela. There I visited an old friend -- a German monk -- he was in Kandy when I lived there and helped in building my kuti. Unfortunately, about 2 years ago he developed poly-arthritis and since then has had a lot of difficulties, particularly since he's an active sort who previously lived alone in very remote areas. Now he's looking for someplace less remote. I may have found a place for him, actually, on one of my outings: in a small town called Ella, on the edge of Upcountry, where there is a view down to the plains 3000 feet below, a sweeping panorama, I found a small cottage empty, not far from town, on the edge of a tea estate on one side, rice fields on the other, a pine forest behind it, with water close by, and some land prepared for planting. A fine spot; if it's not too noisy -- and that can only be known by living there for a while. I told him of it and he'll go to see it and decide. If he doesn't want it I might take it myself.

On another trip I went to see a place called Werakangama but missed the way and wound up walking on a steep uphill path four miles and came, quite unexpectedly, to an enormous waterfall -- 790 feet high, according to a small and ancient signpost -- which was in fine wild country just below the tea line. I've told Sinhalese about it but none of them (except those living in the area) seem to have even heard of it. Several of Sri Lanka's famous falls are much shorter. And then a local lad, as evening was approaching, invited me to stay in a bungalow. This usually means a well-made house, but I assumed he meant an ordinary shelter, but no, he led me to a fine brick house with glass windows -- uncommon in the tropics, where shutters are usually considered sufficient -- and a large stone fireplace and skylights in every room -- including one door with a sign on it reading 'SILENCE -- COURTLMARTIAL SITTING' which opened into a room with a Western-style sit-down toilet and shower fitted with a water heater. All abandoned years ago. Why, I c0uldn't learn, but because of the sign speculated that it might have been some Brit's retirement home, perhaps military, since all the doors had 7 feet clearance and were nearly wide enough for 2-abreast, perhaps someone loved Ceylon but was damned tired of always knocking his head on low doorways that had to be squeezed through and wasn't going to have that in his retirement home, which had a lovely view of the falls.

Letter 4.4

2008-10-27T17:48:00.001Z

Somehow I have the feeling I've been here before. I keep trying to analyze what it can be that gives me that feeling -- maybe it is the stringhoppers, maybe it isn't the way I sweep up leaves -- but the only result is that I suspect the feeling arises from trying to analyze it, and that if I stopped trying to figure out why I feel that way I'd stop feeling that way. But what would there be to do instead? Write indolent letters to exdolent friends, no doubt.

It's definitely a change for the better. Thailand has such a rigid hierarchical social structure, so unyielding, and so hostile to any with the temerity to not accept their proper place, let alone to not accept any place, and on the other hand so rewarding, materially, to those who do (I speak of farangs -- certainly the poor rice farmers get no rewards for being rice farmers) -- for a loner like meself it was difficult in extremis, and that's why, of course, the twits gave me the old heave ho. Others may follow, but I was clearly the worst example of a bad lot -- 'the worst of hippies', as one writer styled me in a widely circulated Buddhist journal. I would have preferred 'the worst of late-blooming beatniks', myself, but we have to accept what we can get, these days, and be duly grateful.

Anyhoo, ol' S.L. is a breath of fresh, if rather damp, air, after the stifling mentality of Thailand (not to mention the pollution), and a green and beautiful place still, showing unfortunate signs of a disease called progress, but not yet infecting the whole of it, and there are a few odd corners left where an odd person can tuck himself away, and so, after completing the bureaucratic business of Colombo, I now find myself, or perhaps lose myself, in Upcountry, walking beneath cloudy skies down little-travelled roads, all of which feel like I've been here before. I feel like I've written this before. Or perhaps it's you who has written this before and I've read/not read it before -- it's getting harder to tell who's to blame for what, these days, both of us shaping the same Carmen Vipaka[1]. (I re-read W.B. before leaving Colombo, and must admit that it was funnier to write than to read. Still, it did evoke some smiles, one or two chuckles, and assorted wheezes and snorts. But yes, the thing is open to just about any potshot, fair or foul, one might care to heave at it, and it don't mean a thing 'cause it ain't got no swing -- the shots, that is, not the book -- but there too much, plotwise, to swallow easily, and possibly not enough, characterwise, to chew on. I say it what wrote it, or atleast what partly rewrote it, so it's said with some affection and love, and if a publisher says just the same without affection and love, that's his bag, but the mss. can be made into something, there's enough good stuff to be molded fairer and finer, amen.)

And you?

The Once and Future Present

__________

[1] The name of the Israeli heroine of Worthy Bones is a pun on the Pali kamma vipaka: 'ripening of karma'

Letter 4.3

2008-10-26T06:06:00.001Z

Sri Lanka -- BEAD

The flight to Sri Lanka was comfortable, a DC-10 half empty so plenty of room, with good Thai Airlines food and service. My first flight on a DC-10, which doesn't compare with a 747 in terms of impressiveness, although -- in as much as it got me here -- quite adequate. Adequate, too, is the word for Colombo's airport. Not only not air-conditioned, but not even ceiling fans. But Sri Lanka has always been a country that scraped by on frugal standards. Thailand, of course, is given to a sybaritic luxuriousness, and can afford to do so -- atleast the Bangkok people can, because they ruthlessly plunder the labor and fruit of the countryside. But in Sri Lanka things seem more equitable. There are beggars, as in Bangkok, and poor people who live in hovels (these are, mostly, Tamils, Sri Lanka's oppressed minority); but not teeming hordes of them as in the squalid Bangkok slums and hungry countryfolk. Therefore Sri Lanka doesn't have the wealth (and perhaps not even the inclination) to indulge in the sensual crossness of Bangkok-style living.

Not that there haven't been changes. Many more cars (though Mercedes', etc., are still rare, not commonplace as in Bangkok, and many well-maintained old cars still ply the roads). Streets widened. TV arrived about 2 years ago, and the well-off all have color sets now. Such changes are found; but underlying it all is a sameness that is surprising: like a dowager aunt who has always had two biscuits at teatime, she is not going to change her habits in old age, nor even consider refurbishing all the somewhat tatty or shabby remnants of her old life just for the sake of appearances (as Bangkok has just done for its bicentennial). And, of course, the place is green. Unlike the brown of Thailand here there are palm trees in profusion, pleasant -- perceptible even from the plane (which, by the way, took 15 minutes to fly over the entire island – distances that 12 years ago took me 15 days padding barefoot).

In company with the owner of a rubber estate, I took a trip about 36 miles south of Colombo to his place, and remarked on the stability of the country-side. He repeated the fact that other parts of the country had been much developed while this corner remained ignored -- sounded promising -- and ominous. I've also visited old acquaintances in Kandy and have taken the first steps towards finding a suitable place to stay in the upcountry. Kandy, having been a pleasant small town, with some sense of itself in style and history, showed more signs of 'development' than Colombo: construction despoils nearly every hillside, save the tall mountain to the Southwest. I went to the clearing where my old kuti used to stand, but the clearing had been replanted in pine and was so overgrown with dense stands of elephant grass that I couldn't even force my way to the old site to see if, perhaps, a wall might not yet stand... So much (or so little) swept away by time, the earth overgrowing our traces. A breath of relief, somehow...

As for mother... what can I say that I haven't said (and thought) so many times before? It grieves me that she should be in such a state; I'm only relieved that she has you to look after her, for no one else -- let alone hospital staff -- could do so with such love and care and attentiveness to what is needed.

Letter 4.2

2008-10-25T06:09:00.001+01:00

Bangkok -- BEAD

It's come down to the crux and so it's the end of the road here in Thailand for me. Next stop: Sri Lanka. Well, it's changed its name and I've changed mine, so we might still have things in common, even if they are uncommon things. However, I've still got a month on my visa, so I'm going to spend this time in the North backwoods country wandering, which is a complex form of walking and sitting. Complex, but not complicated.

This will be the first time I've returned to a country after a long absence (except for the U.S.), so it will be interesting from that point of view to see what changes have gone on there, and how conditions might have to be adapted to. And, of course, I'll be arriving with a rather different set of intellectual baggage -- it's a good thing that the airlines don't charge overweight for that! -- and be in a very different mind-set than 15 years ago too. (I like the way certain epochs of my life have worked out in round numbers. It makes accountancy so much easier. I think this is a gratuitous or accidental feature of my life-script. Act 97, Scene 16 finds us back in...)

3,5 years in Thailand. Well, that's not a round number, but that's because Thailand (unlike Sri Lanka) is not a round country, nor is 3,5 a whole or rational number, for the same relationship. It's a country fragmented into area vs. area, city vs. country, new vs. old, M16 vs. AK 47, and getting more fragmented. It seems clear that the divisive forces dominate over the cohesive ones, so Thailand, too, will come to the end of its road. Nor is it a rational country, even -- I'm sure -- by its own definition of 'rationality'. Emotions which cannot be expressed lurk beneath the surface of every relationship, an unseen motivator making situations forever irrational.

But my time there has been of use to me in a number of ways. It's a strong contrast to Sri Lanka, and so gives me a broader perspective of the way I can relate within different systems, a more coherent set of values about what is truly of value to me, and it's given me, until 6 months ago, the space (and time) I needed. Also some more difficult lessons, the one of the past half year perhaps the most trying, and still leaving much to be learned about it.

As for writing, I've mailed the lot off to Sri Lanka, including your conclusion to Worthy Bones (which I haven't had a chance yet to go over carefully). I think the book needs to be re-conceived in certain ways. (That's a new one, eh?) The characters need to be more human, less character-ish. The plot needs to be honed down. A lot of extraneous matters needs to go – e.g. Carmen's Israeli experience, a real shift for Jizi, and Mohel has to be less a Batman and more a real person with a problem related, somehow, to the matter at hand. The philosophy must emerge from the story, and not bury the story. And the tone, in the middle chapters, should be lightened up. We'll see what kind of set-up I can arrive at in Sri Lanka, and whether the space I'll be in there includes paper and ink. If so, I'm thinking of a few things -- revising Getting Off, some short stuff, carrying on with my Dhammapada verses -- here's a couple.

326.
Once this mind fared as it wished, quite free
to wander where it lusted, as it pleased.
Today I shall restrain it properly,
as the mahout trains the rutting beast.

327.
Be watchful of the mind.
For non-remiss aspire.
Rise above the unrefined
like a tusker from the mire.

'That life is worth living is the most necessary of assumptions and, were it not assumed, the most impossible of conclusions' – Santayana

How's the old sod near Sooke?

Chapter IV: Letter 4.1

2008-10-24T06:49:00.001+01:00

Chapter IV
Come Back a Long Way

Hindu mythology tells how a wrathful, avenging god set fire to a glittering pleasure city on the island of Ceylon. Today the exquisite island is called Sri Lanka and it is again aflame with violence.

The mythical demon-god of Ceylon kidnapped Lord Rama's wife from India and imprisoned her in what now is Colombo, and history records that on the island Buddhist Sinhalese kings fought Hindu Tamil kings from South India before and after the birth of Christ.

____________________

"...Heller presses his point home by telling us (on the same page) that Catch-22 is like the flies that Orr sees in Appleby's eyes.

"Oh, they're there, all right," Orr had assured [Yossarian]... "although he probably doesn't even know it. That's why he can't see things as they really are."

"How come he doesn't know it?" inquired Yossarian.

"Because he's got flies in his eyes," Orr with exaggerated patience. "How can he see he's got flies in his eyes if he's got flies in his eyes?"

It made as much sense as anything else....

Yathābhūtam na pajānāti: he does not see things as they really are: the phrase -- so typical a Sutta description of the puthujjana, the unenlightened commoner -- is used here by Heller to illuminate precisely the characteristic of being entrapped in a situation. Not only does the puthujjana have flies in his eyes, he does not see that he has them, and he does not see this because he has them. His dilemma is that though he must find a way to see, yet he cannot find that way precisely because he cannot see. Indeed, he cannot even see for himself that this is his problem. And this is the dilemma which, at its most fundamental level, is the specific concern of the Buddha's Teaching. The structure of avijjā, the structure of Catch-22, the structure of "having flies in one's eyes": they are one and the same. Catch-22 is avijjā. The title character in both the novel and in our lives never appears and yet is omnipresent..."

Sāmanera Bodhesako,
from The Buddha and the Catch-22

END

2008-10-24T06:45:00.000+01:00

End of Chapter III

Getting There

Letter 3.73

2008-10-23T06:41:00.001+01:00

(Culled from Thailand's English-language press, came the last news from that fabled land, as my legman was about to take up his new Sri Lankan beat. 'Khomeini objects to the bureaucracy because they are competent,' 'We didn't recommend it, we didn't approve it, we simply endorsed it.' 'No one told them what they had done wrong apart from performing official duties.' Former Prime Minister Moraraji Desai, 84, says the young generation should not feel discouraged, because India cannot get worse and the situation can only improve. 'We have kept going downhill for the past 2,000 years and now we have reached rock bottom. There is no way except to go up. So don't feel discouraged,' he told a meeting of his Janata Party youth section in Bombay. -- Húm)

Someone from Radio Thailand came through and asked me to write some 'Five minute pieces on Buddhism'. I bet he's sorry now!

PEACE THROUGH SIMPLICITY

Can we be at peace? Not only with others but with ourselves? Is it possible? Or must we always make war with ourselves, always separating what we want from where we are? For a long time now we have been at odds with ourselves, restless and dissatisfied. For a long time now we have filled ourselves with praise and blame, attraction and aversion, love and hate. For a long time now we have found ourselves as if entangled, caught up and not free, and we haven't found any way that didn't lead to new entanglements, new bonds. New entanglements? Not really; just variations of the same old entanglements and bonds, the ways we've been confined all our lives. So: we haven't even found a way that didn't lead to old entanglements, old bonds. Can we do so now?

Can we do something new? Something truly new? Enough of the old: entanglements, loves, hates, dissatisfactions. All of that is just different ways of being filled with ourselves. Perhaps filled with ourselves to do good, perhaps filled with ourselves to do bad, but always full. Can we, instead, be empty? I don't mean empty of everything whatsoever: that's too difficult. Let's just say, can we be empty of ourselves? Everything that's not ourselves can stay: that's not our problem, we don't have to worry about what's not ours. Others can take care of that, or we can take care of it later, So first let's just deal with what is ours. And let's try a brand new way of dealing with it, something we may never have tried before. Okay?

Let's make things simple. Do just this. Let's close our eyes and empty our hearts of everything that has to do with 'me' and 'mine'. Nothing more than that. It's that simple. If we see a revolting sights -- say, a decaying corpse -- we can easily avert our eyes. If we smell a bad smell we cover our noses. There are lots of bad smells around, but when we can avoid them it's certainly more pleasant to do so. If we accidentally touch a hot stove we pull our hand back quickly! So let us turn away from these thoughts of 'me' and 'mine' in the same way, just as if we touched something burning, or smelled something foul, or saw something revolting. Do this right now, please: don't wait. In the next minute you may be dead. Then you will have missed the chance to do something truly new.

Close your eyes. That way it's simpler. Forget about what your ears hear. Pay no attention to smells, tastes, touches. If the wind touches you just let it be a touch. Don't take it to be my touch, 'Oh, the wind is touching me!' It's just wind touching skin. It's just a perception, just like a rock is just a rock. Don't make it more than that. Let it be simple. Any time you see a complication, watch out! That's a good hiding place for 'me' and 'mine'. 'Me' and 'mine' love complications, so if we are to succeed in this new thing we'll have to avoid complications. Wherever there's a complication, that's the old way. Leave it be! If you try to 'do' anything with it you'll just make it more complicated! Treat it like you would a tangle of barbed wire. Did you ever try to untangle a bunch of rusty old barbed wire? Hopeless, isn't it? So leave all that aside. It's hopeless, these complications, so let's empty ourselves of it all. We can do that; just let the mind turn away from it, let the mind turn away from everything that's the old way, the complicated way, the way of 'me' and 'mine'. Okay?

So... What's left? Is it like we expected or like we didn't expect? If it's like we expected, we've probably made a misjudgment, because what we expected is the old way. Only if it's what we didn't expect can we know that this is, for us, a truly new way, a way we've never before imagined. If it didn't work for you then try it again. Keep trying it until it does work. Keep trying, because there's really nothing else worth doing. Everything else is the old way, the way of dissatisfaction. Maybe even trying is the old way too, but if it works, then it won't be the old way any more, the way of dissatisfaction. Then it will be a new way. So keep trying.

Only one thing to remember; don't be like a man looking for silence. Everywhere he goes there's too much noise for him, and as he goes along he keeps shouting, 'SILENCE!' at the top of his voice. But he can't find silence anywhere. Don't be like that. But then this man, one day he stops calling for silence, and he hears that it really is quiet... everywhere. That silence, that's not what he'd been expecting, is it? He'd always thought that silence had a voice. But it doesn't even have a name. Or if it has a name, it's a name that's not spoken. 0rif it is spoken, it is said without echoes.

Letter 3.72

2008-10-22T06:56:00.001+01:00

Several glorious months up at Wat Palad, outside Chiang Mai, came to a sad end when my visa contracted what may yet turn out to be a fatal illness, terminal. Red Tape-itis. I'm in the middle of one of those interminal oriental intrigues, this one designed (by the Director of the Department of Religious Affairs) to kick out all foreign Buddhists without anyone who cares knowing about it. Some of us have banded together to try to Do Something about it, but Doing Something in Thailand is a very difficult matter, not at all like in the West, and though we're not defeated, we're rather stymied, after several months of fairly intensive effort, and it seems a possibility (to say the least) that a few of the most expendable of us (of which I'm at the forefront) may have to leave soon enough, the rest to follow in dribs and drabs as the Director, a xenophobe if there ever was one, can manage. It's a very long story, so naturally I consider writing it up. Difficult to start it, though, when it hasn't yet ended.

What is this about a publisher interested in Bones? A hell of a thing to mention it and to say no more. Well, say more. Please be less cryptic than usual. I know the world suffers from too much straightforwardness, too much prosaicness, too much detail, too little fancy, etc., but You have a Golden Oppy to add to the mess, and I'm surprised you would pass up the chance to leave your portion on the pile. Please don't keep me posted. The cancelling machines are hard on my fingers. But if you write fairly soon I'll still be in Occupied Palestine, oops, Siam, since I expect to hold out till the end of the year before giving up the visa -- the modern equivalent of giving up the ghost -- and transmigrating to Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Sikkim, Bhutan, Bangladesh, or Tavatimsa [1].

I always thought a Sooke [2] was part of a town; the part where they sold not Buddha bones but Mohamed hairs.

Yours in falchah shovelling,

__________
[1] Tavatimsa: the Buddhist 'heaven'; a blissful, albeit impermanent, place or state of being; highly dangerous as it may sap the will to break through it to liberation, nibbána.

[2] A play on the Arabic word souk meaning bazaar or marketplace.

Letter 3.71

2008-10-21T08:24:00.001+01:00

Still in Thailand, as you can tell, but also still only on the edge of Thailand, meaning the visa situation is not yet resolved, though I have some hope of a favorable outcome, since a number of people are helping me. It would seem that something has to work. For example, I know the 2nd-in-charge at Immigration, who has agreed to submit my application to the committee with last year's letter. (The problem is that I need a letter from a certain department before Immigration can officially give me a visa and that department has so far refused to give me one, for reasons which are too complicated to explain in a sheaf of aerogrammes, but they gave me a letter last year, and it's that letter that my friend in Immigration will use to see if it can slip past the committee which decides on all visa applications.) Also, someone who knows the boss of the man who refuses to give me the letter said he will speak to the boss (who is the Minister of Education)... But... enough of all this...

Bangkok is having its bicentennial celebrations, both of Bangkok as capital and of the Chakri dynasty as kings of Siam. This means that after a few frantic months of attempting to cover two centuries of filth with a coat of white-wash and patches of cement and plaster, there is now a hokey month of festivities, noise, crowds of tourists all trying to figure out what is happening (answer: nothing worth bothering about), and where it's happening (nowhere/everywhere), herds of hustlers all out for the main chance, and more traffic and turmoil and pollution than is normal even for a place like Bangkok, which, you may have gathered, is not my favorite place to be. Later this month the city will experience its annual floods, which submerge parts of the city in inches and sometimes feet of filthy water, so perhaps the parade will all float away like a bad dream (inspired by indigestion, no doubt).

The Thai baht, by the way, continues to plummet, and Thai upper-classes continue to seek foreign shelters for their (usually ill-gotten) gains. It may not be long before visas aren't worth very much. Meanwhile, the far-right-wing forces, under a general named Arthit, gather their strength. These are really vicious people, the sort who are quoted in interviews as saying things like 'I am bored with humanitarianism, very bored.' Not exactly the sort of people who would bridge the mammoth gap between Bangkok's very rich and the countryside's very poor (and, because of the encroaching technology of Bangkok, the countryside becomes poorer even without the rapacious rip-offs of the government forces). But then the very rich aren't interested in bridging any gaps in this country, only between themselves and the U.S. (or Australia, England, or whatever, but mostly the U.S.)

No doubt I could continue to struggle on in Thailand with short visa extensions; however, this would tie me up indefinitely in Bangkok, and I've had quite enough of that, so I'm more and more inclined to choose a country where, from all reports, these visa hassles don't exist, and that country looks more and more (for more than this reason) like my old isle of Serendip... Ceylon... Sri Lanka...

To bow out of society in style, this evening I shall be having tea with the family of a princess. English-educated, and though directly descended from King Mongkut -- the King of the ling and I -- yet very remote from the present royal family. Her husband is English. She makes a living as a batik artist. I'll tell her about a man who looked like a fisherman in a Chinese painting: my teacher in Jogjakarta. Perhaps even demonstrate his silence.

Letter 3.70

2008-10-20T06:35:00.001+01:00

If you think winter was great, wait until you try a sweet-&-sour stringhopper: guaranteed to draw a fine line between (or is it around?) reality and illusion. Only trouble is, which side is reality?

What do you mean did I get the tail-end of Bones? If you mean did I finish writing it the answer is no; if you mean that you mailed me something more, the answer is still no, but with a question: what did you mail, when was it mailed, and where was it mailed to? And does the 'tail-end' suggest that you've mailed a middle-end and/or front-end as well (or would it be tail-middle and tail-beginning?)? Well, I haven't received any of that either, whether or not you've mailed it. That makes it serious. Waylaid by a brown-nosed coprophile (coprophobe?)? Hope not. Bless you and your 'feeble hawkings'. Spit for shit. That about sums up the selling of delusions. I'm especially interested in the negative commentary of readers and form letters which so carefully avoid saying anything in as few innocuous words as possible. So keep them cards and letters comin', folks.

So you woke up one morning laughing and nothing mattered in the slightest? Wunderbar! (But why laugh, then?) Did the woman appear because of, as a result of laughing/waking up/nothing mattering in the slightest? Or co-incidentally? Subsequently? Hyperspacially? (Land o' goshen, don't that beat all? Hyperspace would be merely an excuse for hypershit.) But then you say this woman wasn't actually there in the flesh. What was she there in? What is allowed now that wasn't before? In short, brother, whatever has or hasn't happened to you is all great and good (it's all perfect, it's all perfect), particularly so if I rightly interpret your statements as meaning that you have seen/do see Dhamma (it's all suffering, it's all suffering), but I'm not sure that that's what you mean. (Perhaps you're not sure either?) But then again I'm not sure about a lot of things, but I am sure that it's time to start a new paragraph.

I'm staying outside of Chiang Mai, about a 1500 feet climb from alms round every morning -- does my lungs and sweat glands a world of good, though it's hell on the knees and ankles -- in a square but decaying kuti. The carika was very good, found some fine places, including one actually inhabitable, which I may return to, and lots of adventures and experiences ('But what's so great about adventures and experiences?' you may ask; to which I reply, tellingly, 'Well you may ask.') of no use to anybody, and more on the way. Why do I do it? Hell, I haven't even figured out (yet) how I do it. In fact, I'm only a shade on the side of thinking that I actually do do it, or at least that it's done (but not over and done; perhaps under and done).

I agree Something Happened didn't measure up to Catch-22 (from an overblown wordiness, trying to tell too much, but not from a lack of trying). Catch-22 is still, for me, one of the great influences on my life (an adventure and experience both?)

Letter 3.69

2008-10-19T06:31:00.001+01:00

The mountain to the east of Pai (the provincial capital) is gorgeous: heavy jungle in parts, forest in parts, and parts of it like grassy parkland with enough trees for shade but no undergrowth. Wide vistas. Very steep in places -- sometimes switchback roads pass the same viewpoint 5 or 6 times, each time from a higher vantage point, before moving on to the next hill.

The whole area from about 5 miles west of Pah Poe (i.e. about 10 miles east of Pung Duat) to the final downgrade of the mountains descending to the Pai valley floor (a very steep descent of 15 miles) is the finest country I've seen in Thailand.

Pai is a small town, about 3500 population, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, very ordinary, sleepy, old clapboard beside new concrete, tar roads needing repairs, an agricultural center of the only substantial valley between Mai Mali (where the westbound road began, 25 miles north of Chiang Mai) and Mae Hong Son (which is about 15 miles east of the Burmese border).

A night there at a temple, then over the next mountain on the most difficult day of the trip: walked 25 miles over the highest mountain in the area and through heavy rainstorm and clouds, simply because there was no place to stop, and the entire day there wasn't one single vehicle going my way (which will tell you how well travelled the road is, though there were 4 vehicles that day going the other way -- I find it an invariable rule of walking or hitching that no matter which way I'm going there's always more traffic the other way). Anyway, I reached the summit and looked out on a magnificent view of range after range of mountains -- I'm sure I could see well into Burma -- and a valley before me, and after a 5 mile walk I reached a village of Lisu people about 7 PM and spent the night there in the school house.

The Lisu are hill-tribe people who wear very colorful dress, have their own language and customs (animistic), live in bamboo and thatch houses, quite large but without windows, smoke opium, are quite clean (which is no easy thing in the hills: their village, after the storm, was a quagmire), keep a lot of animals (pigs, dogs, cows, horses, but I saw no buffalo, and of course a lot of hens; I also saw several cats, an uncommon sight in Thailand), most of which roam freely. The boys all have their head shaved saved for a square patch, about 2 inches on the side, in the front center of their skull. The children all wear pullover dresses, boys and girls alike. The men wear baggy pantaloons and shirt, the women skirts (black), blouses of many colors, and a brilliant light-blue apron, long hair in a bun. They eat white fluffy rice, unlike most of the Thais in the north of Thailand, who eat brown glutinous rice, and meat of course, and I was given also some sort of root, not potato but not too different, fried with chili and some type of green all quite spicy and also quite dry, so I couldn't eat much of it and drank a lot of water (which fortunately was available outside the schoolhouse in a rain-catchment tank). The food also was quite clean.

The people were hospitable but, aside from the curious children, they left me alone unless I approached them. Few of the women spoke Thai and the men spoke with more of a Bangkok accent than the heavy and hard to understand Northern dialect -- obviously they've learned their Thai in the school house (where the Bangkok dialect is taught, compulsory since various regions cannot understand each others' dialects), rather than through much contact with Thais. Also, their Thai is, in sore cases, not even as good as mine, though a few can speak quite well. I saw one vehicle in the village, a Jap pickup converted, as is common in Thailand, with two benches and a roof into a sort of jitney or small bus.

From a distance I saw some fields, but couldn't make out what they were growing -- obviously not rice, which requires bottom-land -- probably some poppies. The school was staffed by 3 teachers, all Thais from Chiang Mai who had no ties with the Lisu. The school had posters on the wall teaching the children to give respect and allegiance to the King and Queen, and to brush their teeth properly.

The village had about 30 to 40 houses, all on stilts about 5 feet off the ground in standard Thai fashion. This is very different from the Burmese style, which is to be found in the older buildings of Mae Hong Son (which, I believe, used to be part of Burma), where buildings sit flat on the ground. The old Burmese temples here, for example, rise in layers, like a square multi-layered cube, each level smaller than the lower one, with gingerbread fancy work on the eaves and other fittings, and ending, on top, with a spire or cupola. Navy gray de rigueur. Wood planks run vertically, not horizontally. Tin roofs always. (Thai temples all have tile roofs in a particular pattern of green, red, and yellow, and curlicue fancy work on the eaves rather than Burmese lattice-work.)

The tail-end of the trip was spent among the Shan people (who call themselves Tai-yai) who live around the border of Shan state in Burma. Some of these people have been there many generations (the border used to be farther east, I believe), but some of them are recent refugees (in the last 10-15 years) from the fighting in Shan state, where they are faced with a hostile Burmese army on one hand and a collection of various political and opium -- financed armies on the other.

The Burmese, who look upon the Shan people as inferiors, to be kept in their place and exploited, have been fighting a shifting panoply of revolutionary and mercenary armies since 1958, when Shan tried (as it still tries) to secede from the Union of Burma. (The Kayah state, south of Shan, also tries to secede, but though they have not succeeded either they are less harassed since they're not an opium-growing region.) The other armies, such as the Kuomintang, Communist Party of Burma, etc, control their various territories, collect taxes (mainly off the trade with Thailand, which profitably feeds a strong black market, and from the opium trade: the farmers have little left to give other than forced labor), but the Burmese army just takes over a town, confiscates all livestock and property, and tries to force the unwilling farmers to accept the government's socialist-collectivization plan, which is a tool for robbing the farmers and forcing them into a position of helplessness.

So some of the people have fled and settled in Thailand as refugees, living in remote border areas where conditions are very harsh (walking to one village the footpath was so muddy and tortuous that it took me 30 minutes to go half a mile; there are no facilities, schools, communications, etc, for these people; yet their life here is better than their prospects in Burma).

The one ray of hope in the situation of the Shan people is the Shan State Army, which seems to be, from what I can tell, to be a true people's army, with principles of democracy and freedom, and who are scrupulous in their relations with the people. They refuse to participate in the opium trade, so they are poor and poorly equipped, yet in the 10 or so years since their founding (mostly by disaffected students) they have grown into the second largest revolutionary army. (The CPB, funded by China, is twice their size, at about 15,000 men. The Burmese have 50,000 soldiers in Shan state.)

The refugees I've met (who sometimes return to Shan for visits) generally (but not always) speak well of the SSA, so if they can continue to grow in strength there may be a less than tragic conclusion to the Burmese uprising. Politics -- no space left to remark on the appearance of the refugee villages, their social structure, the more settled groups, etc., nor to speak of the Kayah village I visited, which underwent 7 years ago a remarkable mass conversion from Protestant to Buddhist. Only to say I've been collecting medicine from various contacts I have in Thailand, which are passed on to the refugees from Shan state. As bad as the Cambodian situation was they still got some international aid. The Shan get no aid at all. Many have illnesses, including malaria and typhoid. So I'm glad to be able to funnel some medicines their way.

Letter 3.68

2008-10-18T07:41:00.001+01:00

Two days after writing the last letter, I was walking up the track to the hotsprings when I met a Landrover returning from there. The Landrover had been rented by a group of Europeans. The person I talked with was a French photographer free-lance but on assignment to do a photo article on the most difficult roads a Landrover can travel. He told the car rental agency that he wanted rough roads and they told their driver to take him here. I was surprised that the river was fordable and even more surprised that they were able to get past two particularly bad points, one where a culvert -- the only one on the track, had collapsed (but they managed to squeeze past it, going over a mud flat with 2 wheels) and another where a huge tree root covered most of the track (but they squeezed by, with 2 wheels going on a rather steep incline). The photographer took a few pictures of me, so perhaps in a few months I will appear in a French automotive magazine. And he also took your letter to mail.

In the month I stayed at Pung Duat there was only one other vehicle on the track, a Jeep which seems to belong to the son of one of the villagers -- a rattletrap affair held together with wire and bubblegum -- which for several days, at odd hours, carted odd goods from one place on the track to another. I don't know exactly what that was about.

And those were the 2 most exciting events of my stay here, which is coming to an end, for tomorrow I expect to continue on my way to Mae Hong Son, near the Burmese border. Either despite or because of its lack of eventfulness, Pung Duat has not only been very pleasant but very useful for my practice. I'd certainly stay longer, but as it happens I have to be back in Chiang Mai by the end of June if I'm to stay the rainy season at Wat Palad. I'd stay the rainy season at Pung Duat if it weren't that (I'm told) it's already reserved and the next most suitable forest hermitage I know of is Wat Palad. So I'll have a look at Mae Hong Son before I head back.

Letter 3.67

2008-10-17T07:51:00.001+01:00

First I went north about 40 miles to Kaeng Pan Dao, which you may recall, is the place I was staying at about 2,5 years ago when I was robbed twice, and learned so much about how the police work in Thailand. Now, however, I found that since the abbot has left (about a year ago he went to France, which I already knew, where he now teaches) the place is totally deserted of resident monks. There were 3 carika monks there, out wandering like me, who'd been there about a week already, and so I stayed a few days and then left. The villagers didn't say anything directly about it, but I suspect they recognized me. I'd hoped a few of the monks from 2,5 years ago would be there, but as it was there was the chance to cover once-familiar ground and also to speak with the 3 monks, who gave me some useful 'tips for the road'.

After leaving, I headed west, and walked, in 3 days, about 50 miles over rolling scrub bush interspersed with buffalo grazing and cultivated plots; just clusters of a few huts and small houses on stilts passing for villages. As I went on the country got a more and more primitive feeling to it, until there was a very fine feeling to the land: the people seemed different, more open, more accepting, helpful but not pushy, and the land, on the verge of mountainous, felt fresh and clean, well irrigated, not overpopulated, smelling of the elements not oil fumes.

So I was very pleased to be walking through this country when, some days ago, I came to this place, Nam Pung Duat, which is on a dirt road about 3 miles north of the main (partly paved) road (which goes through Pai to Mae Hong Son, near the Burmese border -- my destination), and there I've found what is to my mind the finest forest hermitage I've come across in Thailand. A hermitage, indeed: there's no one living here so I have the place entirely to myself. (I later learned it's used almost exclusively by carika monks, who come, stay for a while, then leave.)

The wat consists of 4 small bamboo cottages and one spacious hall, also mainly bamboo (though it has a corrugated metal roof and good timber in its framework). The bamboo around here can often have a circumference of over 12 inches. Used as whole lengths it provides a slightly springy base for a floor. Split lengthwise and opened up, it makes large panels which can be used for flooring or as walls. It's easy to sweep and comfortable to live on and around. The hall is very open (though it has an attached room which is enclosed where I've set myself up), with a fine view of pine forest, dominated by a verdant and precipitously steep mountain. Clouds like to pass across the belt of this mountain leaving its upper reaches exposed but no longer grounded, afloat in the clouds as it were; bamboo stands, wild banana plants in the lowlands, papaya trees around the hall, and no sounds other than forest sounds, and those muted and discreetly orchestrated.

Near the main road there's a village (15 houses) and another one about a mile north of here (10 houses) where the people are very rustic, with little or no formal schooling, but they are openly glad to have me here (they are careful to leave me undisturbed: they know the ways of wanderers, and I'm not the first farang -- foreigner -- to stay here), even though they know almost nothing about the outside world. Almost everything they have -- even their rifles -- are of regional, if not local, manufacture, houses are of forest material, they roll their tobacco in slices of cut and dried banana leaf (which, when dry, separates into thin layers), and even the women smoke large -- 10 inches long -- conical cigarettes. They carry short jungle knives in unwieldy rattan cases on their belt and hunt with their front-loading rifles (i.e. they load it by pushing a bullet down the muzzle) small animals and birds, which seems to be the only game left alive in these parts. (In Ceylon it was unknown for a villager to have a gun, and Ceylon still has lots of large wildlife; in Thailand everyone has guns and the animal population has been decimated.)

About 2 miles north of here are some hot springs, small geysers, water churning as much as 10 feet into the air from a few of the pots, steam visible a long ways off, and a river of hot water running off of them. By going downstream until the water is at just the right temperature for me, I took a fine bath in a pond of hot running water (maybe a couple gallons/second-quite rapid). Nearby is a (cold) raging river, with impressive rapids and falls, and a pond, and a fine flower garden kept by an old man who, I assume, is in the hire of the government: a few facilities and sturdy bamboo bridges were paid for by someone -- I suspect that when the main road was built, about 7 or 8 years ago, someone thought to make a park out of the springs, but since this dirt road is motorable (by Jeep, at best) only in the dry season (otherwise the river it crosses up near the main road is too deep for vehicles, though wade-able) the plan seems to have deteriorated, which means I've got the place pretty much to myself whenever I want to walk out there and get a hot bath.

I do have one new friend at the wat: a porcupine. He takes food from my hand and even lets me scratch him (a tricky business, let me tell you). He has no quills under his chin or around his ears. On his back I can scratch between the quills; his skin is baby-tender. He loves fruit, especially papaya and rambutan.

Another extraordinary thing about this wat: many fireflies at night. In front of the hall, in the clearing, where they can see each other, they tend to gather, and also tend to flash simultaneously. It seems to be line-of-sight, so sometimes different clusters will each have their own rhythm, but sometimes the different clusters get synchronized, and then it's quite extraordinary to watch.

The place has such a good and magical feeling to it I expect to stay for a spell. However, I haven't yet found a way to send mail from here and suspect there isn't any, so probably this letter won't get posted until I push on to Pai (another 40 miles), where there's a post-office.

Letter 3.66

2008-10-16T08:26:00.001+01:00

Despite the Reagan shooting, and the endless instant replays on TV, riveting the nation, perhaps there's been some mention in the US papers of the trouble in Bangkok -- practically on the eve of my departure for the North.

First there was the hijacking, ending in a deadly shootout, and then the attempted coup, which saw fewer fatalities, but a lot more excitement. The latter came close to a shootout too, but Sant, the usurping general, seems to have lacked sufficient strength and his troops, understanding that they were something less than a quarter of the army, and that neither the navy nor the airforce supported them, seem to have refused orders to fight Prem's troops (Prem is the PM) when several thousand of them actually entered the city.

That the navy and airforce were opposed to Sant was clear from the presence of some large warships in the Chao Phaya River, which flows past Bangkok not far from Wat Bovaranives, where I was staying, and from the fly-over of a number of F-5A fighter-bombers, who executed mock bombing runs over several of Sant's strongholds (all of which are within walking distance of Wat Bovaranives, which is on the 'government' end of town -- the business end being on the East Side).

Nevertheless, even if fighting had broken out the wat would certainly have been safe, for neither side would endanger a place whose first 3 abbots were crown princes. (The King of 'The King and I' was a monk, as you know, before he was a king and he was, as a monk, the first abbot of this wat -- the present abbot is the 6th.) So we had grandstand seats for a show that was better off not having happened. Still, there was a little nervous rush, what with the announcements crackling over the radio, sirens, sounds of distant gunfire, leaflets dropped from planes, etc.

The King of Thailand came to the wat the night before the coup attempt. Obviously he knew what was up and wanted to consult the abbot, who is his special adviser. He looked bewildered; now I know why.

Far from the King's bewildered face, I sit 350 miles north of Bangkok -- not as far north as Chiang Mai, but most of the way -- in a spacious cave in a limestone hill overlooking a forested valley. On the other side of the valley rise a fairly steep range of hills, running north/south, and on this side of the valley a lower range runs parallel. There are several caves in this hill, some as spacious as this one, but this one goes all the way through the rock and out the backside (maybe 250 feet), and, in this hot season, it's delightfully cool. Far better than the heat of Bangkok even with an electric fan. No bats seem to share this abode. The Northern RR line runs along the valley floor and I can see but only hear like a whisper a train at this moment. It's a 5 mile round trip to the village for alms, but I do it early in the day (leaving about sunrise) to get back before the heat. A small stream nearly dry each evening but fresh and clear each morning provides water. Since I'm unlikely to find another place as pleasing as this, not for a while, I'll stay here a while before heading north to Chiang Mai and beyond before I have to stay put for the rainy season.

Letter 3.65

2008-10-15T06:10:00.001+01:00

What's a falchah? Choose one and only one of the following:

a) a Turkish sweet
b) a Japanese religion
c) a Soviet official
d) a species of ginseng
e) a Yiddish word meaning 'brother-in-law on the mother's side'
f) a Hebrew word meaning 'fields of grain'
g) a Swahili word meaning 'my neighbor's garbage'
h) the sound a person makes when he tries simultaneously to gargle and spit
i) none of the above
j) all of the above, including i

Any more questions?

Motto of the month:

Gather ye hens' eggs while ye may,
for the clock it is a-tickin',
and that same egg ye seek today,
tomorrow will be chicken.

(A toss up between an Egg-McMuffin and Colonel Sanders.)

Rains. Wandering. Here and there, Walking. Sitting, Carika (in Thailand miscalled thudong -- a corruption of dhutanga) in Northern Thailand. Hills. Cool. Soon rainy season retreat. Where? up in the air, No, no, actually, I'll stay on the ground. But where? Still up in the air.

A few ideas keep arising, but instead of chewing on these old bones, I just let 'em fall.

Yes, sure, but... but what's it all about?

Letter 3.64

2008-10-14T06:43:00.001+01:00

(Atleast there were some bits of world-shaking news to pass the time, judging from the clippings stuck to his next letter. 'Even someone who falls off a 15-story building bounces a little bit when he hits the sidewalk'. 'Under Taiwan's martial law proceedings, defendants are not regarded as innocent unless proven guilty'. Visa problems, no doubt: 'The numbers of Sumatran rhinoceros are dwindling fast and there are only about 4O left in Malaysia,' 'There is no report of progress, but there is also no report of no progress,' said a spokesman for the union. 'We live in a complex world. Some may be saying, We want out. But this is 1981. The complications are the price of civilization as we know it. You can't get out.' ISRAEL FOR EVERYONE. -- Hūm)

Yes, I'm still waiting for it (the f/Future!). How much longer, please? I remain in Thailand (as a samanera, by the way, got rid of some baggage in Bangkok, but picked up a new name -- a lighter carrying-case -- Bodhesako; where do I put it now?), but things are still precarious.

My mother, who has been in poor and failing health for years, has now had to be put in a home because her mental state has deteriorated and my father, exhausted, can no longer care for her. He is very pained by the whole situation. They (he, my sister, and presumably my mother) want me to return, perhaps for some prolonged (years?) deathbed vigil, and I am reluctant to do so, for obvious reason although I love them all and feel in many ways that I ought to go in spite of my own feelings that it would be a perilous journey -- and one that would only add more pain and complications to the situation. I don't know what to do; it may depend on what pressure is put upon me. There's nothing they can say that won't make me fee guilty (even that they don't need me) -- how cleverly we arrange our lives -- but obviously some techniques are more effective than others. I'm not unhappy where I am, aside from this matter, and fear I'd be most unhappy, indeed, in L.A., but it's entirely possible I will go anyway. My father has given his all, and, I'm told, is aging rapidly. It's a difficult and painful matter, perhaps least for me but there it is. And my interests are divided so neatly in such a way that every decision seems to be the wrong one.

Meanwhile, visa hassles continue but, because of the robes, may have a satisfactory resolution.

Letter 3.63

2008-10-13T06:20:00.001+01:00

Your Bones arrived, a Worthy supplement to my own narrow marrow. Not yet had time to do more than gnaw a bit on the joints, but it's my hope to have time (Time!) to swallow, digest, and shit them out again, to re-fertilize this old (Old!) earth. (!) What I have seen of them so far, they remind me of a fellow I once met in Afghanistan... who had a good story...

Glad you liked my story, Vision. I think it has a maturity and depth that much of my previous work lacks. And since I know exactly how and why it does so, it may be expected that future (Future!) work will have or strive for the same. But I write only when the daemons drive me to do so, or boredom, or (rarely) vast inspiration, and these days there is not much of any of those, so it may be a while before anything more turns up.

Your letter was even more Worthy than Bones (more Worthy and more Bones?). Indeed, I think you (and perhaps me too) are most lucid when your audience (potential audience, that is) is the smallest (for both of us our actual audience are about the same whether we write letters or novels). Nevertheless, John Barth seems to have killed off that genre (or at least laid it to rest for a while) as he did with the Great American Historical Novel (though the GAHN was done in with wit, humor, grace, complexity, etc., whereas the epistolary novel was bludgeoned with a long-handled solipsism that only an omphalophile could love.

Meanwhile, back at the monastery... we last left our hero he was striving, pen sharpened and at the ready, to do battle with the evil monster, Paranoia, and his scurrilous master, Chauvin. We remember how our beautiful heroine, Visa O. Lovely, was in danger of being done in by the monster: chained down, stripped to her bare essentials, and guarded by a Passport About to Expire... And our hero's friends, a motley (but lovable) crew of eccentric seers, visionaries, do-gooders, do-badders, do-nothings, and (zippity) do-dahs, were striving mite and maign to help our hero rescue his beloved from the maws of an Expiration Worse Than Death... And how breathlessly we awaited the next installment of this thrilling (and seemingly endless) episodic soft-soap opera. Well, we're still waiting, we're still waiting, we're still waiting, 'cause nuttin' ain't happened yet. (Gorsh, maw, I can't hardly stand the excitement. Now let's go watch an ice cube melt.)

Well, it seems (Again!) hardly no trouble at all to fill a letter with the most pointless inanities and mealy-mouthed moronisms, so I can only conclude that in this case I must have slipped up and said something substantive, for I find that hardly halfway through the available (indeed, virtually obligatory) space of this aerogramme I have nothing more to say, and am forced to close. The rest of the paper will be fine toilet quality, void of black ink (with life as complicated as it is already, who needs a black asshole?) for the only thing left to say is, love you brother, and dig your trip and wish you a fine and error-free winter.

Letter 3.62

2008-10-12T06:24:00.001+01:00

It's always too late. You can always write. I can always read. And, as if happens, vice versa as well. It wasn't the Bones that didn't want to get connected, but a Bone-crusher interceded in the matter. Sorry it cost you such a bundle to be parted for 6 months from the last third (knees down) of Bones. Just think how much it would cost you to be parted from them for a year? In any case, I never received any shin-bones, ankle-bones, or foot-bones, connected or disconnected. If you can give them another go-round, even by surface mail, I'd be willing to wait patiently (for about 3 months), but if you can't I'll still be willing to wait patiently, though in the end with much less to show for it.

What leads you to believe any Canadian publisher would give a puck about Bones? Something up front? Down back? I'm glad if it's true, and I'm glad if it's not, but some gladness is more equal than others. As for establishing the H/V Foundation[1], it sounds as mysterious to me as the Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism, though presumably it's a foundation established on a different (though equal) footing. But the idea of investing what I don't have fascinates me. If I had it I might be less interested. Doing Business As? When I was a little kid with a new puppy my mother told me (and told me and told me) to train the dog to go outside to do his business as. There was a suitable place to do his business as. And it was okay to spread a lot of newspapers on which he could do his business as. You might consider whether the last third of Bones are enough papers to do business as.

This is Be Kind to Neutron Bombs week (Day? Hour? Minute? Millennium?).

Meanwhile, back at the monastery... I continue to hang on, but prospects remain (as always) uncertain, and though I'm ever being reassured that all really will work out for the best, there seems to be some perverse nugget in my gullet that makes me hack out a doubt or two, particularly when the sky is most blue. Besides, I can never really decide which course would be best for me. Perhaps it will be a misfortune to finally get the visa? ow can I ever know? Even getting it won't tell me, for I'll never know what wonderful, terrible, or totally mediocre things might have happened if the visa hadn't been issued (as it hasn't). And vice versa, as well. Which brings us full circle, and now we can go around the second time. But we always do go around a second time, don't we? Perhaps that's why it's always too late; or perhaps, again vice versa. Anyway, I see I've said nothing at all so far, and so without marring a perfect record, adding only that my own plans, such as they are, aren't -- still not the foggiest what will become of me -- I bid thee an fond one.

__________

[1] A non-prophet organization stillborn for lack of sense -- Hūm.

Letter 3.61

2008-10-11T08:15:00.001+01:00

Bangkok's not a healthy place. You walk around the city for a couple hours and you're covered with a gray film. The city strangles on its congestion, which it brought on itself by rapaciously robbing the countryside of its wealth and, subsequently, becoming filled with rural migrants who can no longer survive. (Farmers are required to sell their rice at government controlled and artificially low prices. This is only one of many techniques by which Bangkok middle-men get rich.) The result is that the city can't keep itself clean: the air is full of garbage, I invariably get minor ailments here, infrequently in the countryside.

If my visa hash is ever settled, and I'm allowed to stay on, I expect to find a fairly remote area, so some knowledge of Thai will be necessary. Consequently my intermittent and floundering efforts to learn the language have been revived. Unlike in Sri Lanka, it's rare to find any Thais in the country -- side who are competent English-speakers; in spite of the fact that they are required to study English for 5 years in school, few of them seem to have progressed beyond 'Hey you', 'Was is your name?', and 'Where you go? Where you go?' -- This question being, in Thai, the cultural equivalent of 'How are you?' -- i.e. they don't really care where you're going, they're translating their form of greeting -- 'Pai nai' -- literally, not understanding that to a Westerner they could be giving an impression of rudeness or nosiness, arousing suspicions in this bandit-plagued country rather than allaying them. Some countries -- e.g. Pakistan -- have exactly the opposite sort of greeting: 'Hey, you! Where you come from, huh?'

Thai script is incredibly complicated. Some of the complication is due to the necessity to indicate which of the 5 tones in Thai is to be used, but a lot of the complication is just plain complication. For example, there are 7 ways to represent the short vowel a (irrespective of tone) and the short vowel a is the most common vowel in the language. The various tone markers, or absence of them, affect different letters in different ways, and also the rules change according to what letter a syllable ends with as well as the letter at the beginning of the syllable (which is the letter that has dominant rule over the vowel and tone markers, although these markers are not necessarily written together with that letter. Got that? OK. Vowel markers are written before, behind, above, below, or in various combinations of these positions, and are sometimes not written at all. A final consonant can change the tone (and change itself; if it's a d, for example, it can change to a t). Also a low tone can be made by a tone marker. Etc., etc.

Probably there are exceptions and further complicating factors to these rules that I haven't learned yet, so I wouldn't place too much trust in the above brief explanation. Also Thai writing doesn't separate words, only sentences, so not only is it uncertain, unless one knows the words already (shades of Hebrew), where one word ends and the next begins, it's also uncertain, sometimes, which word, or which syllable within a word, a vowel marker belongs to. Does it follow the preceding letter or precede the following letter? There are 44 consonants. The number of vowels is indefinite, depending on how they are counted, but at least 9 and as many, perhaps, as 33, in addition to which are 4 tone markers. I'm trying to learn to write 'Which way out of here?' and to learn to read the directions.

Recently stopped off at the USICA library to see what's been happening in the world, and was shocked to learn of the murder by the Guatemalan government of a U.S. priest in the town of Santiago Atitlan, where I lived for about 3 months while in the country. It seems, from the report (in Time Magazine -- hardly a radical rag) that the priest was put on the death list for having reported the Guatemalan army's previous murder of about 30 villagers (although that incident doesn't seem to have been previously reported in Time) for having 'wrong' political views. I've written, while in Guatemala, of the fear and repression I saw around me; it seems, though, that the situation is far worse now than it was then (at which time there was a change of power and a new president was just coming into office: though the various presidents are carbon copies of each other and there is only one political party with any effective power, a transition of of government every five years usually means a pause in the machinations of the powers-that-be). At that time there were about 4 political murders per day. Now, according to Time, the figure is about triple that. The situation in Thailand, though always tentative, doesn't seem so bad as that, though this country has to have one of the highest murder rates in the world (everybody seems armed). Even a town like Chiang Mai, with perhaps 500,000 people, has about 3 murders per day, and certainly individual police do a good share of the killing, they being by far the most corrupt people in the country; and yet none of this seems approved of and directed from the top, as it certainly is in Guatemala. When I leave Bangkok, by the way, it will probably be for a spell of wandering in the hills around the Chiang Mai area.

Letter 3.60

2008-10-10T06:25:00.001+01:00

In Bangkok I met with some friends who've been involved with the refugee camps, and they know a bit more about the country they're in. You may have heard of the 'voluntary' repatriation of the Khymer. It was of course far less voluntary than the Thai government tried to make it sound like.

At Sae Keo camp, which is controlled internally by the Khymer Rouge, the government was expecting about 25,000 of the 32,000 refugees -- soldiers, their families, and isolated family-less persons -- to return to Cambodia to take up positions fighting against the Vietnamese. Much of the aid that had come into Thailand for the refugees has of course been used to provision Pol Pot's people. They're re-armed, rested up, given surreptitious training, and sent back to fight -- a policy Thailand vociferously denies it is following -- and only a small amount of aid gets to non-participant refugees.

A great deal is skimmed off the top by the Thai bureaucracy and higher-ups, and Thai villagers near the border are also demanding -- and getting -- aid: perhaps not unfairly, since they've suffered from both the war and the presence of refugees; but there is a great deal of anger and it has happened that Thai villagers have harassed the refugees and even fired rifles and thrown grenades into the camps. Every Thai has a vast store of armament. But what the villagers are doing in the Northeast is, apparently, child's play to what the Thais living on the Gulf islands are doing to this years crop of boat people: yes, there are boat people again, now that the currents and winds have become favorable again, though not in the same numbers as last year.

Anyway, the people I know have been working to provide the real refugees with some possibilities: training programs, language programs, etc., and of course a religious program. (The Khymer are a devout people, and all their monks were killed or forcibly disrobed many years ago. Quite a few of the men in the camp would like to ordain as monks, but the Thai government will not allow it, ostensibly for the reason that as monks they would have to be allowed to remain in Thailand and that the Khymer would be ordaining not out of religious motivation but from a desire to be free of the camps. Another reason, though, is that these men as monks would be useless as a buffer between Thailand and Vietnam. The whole point of Thailand's allowing the refugees in in the first place was to be able to support the Khymer Rouge as a buffer force.)

So... my friends were doing obvious good in the camps, and had an established position, and so they were watched carefully to make sure they didn't get out of line and were tolerated. (Once at the wat -- temple -- inside the camp -- founded by them -- a number of Khymer men shaved their heads and the Thai government got very upset, accusing them of plans to be secretly ordained in the night and the government needed to be re-assured that things weren't as terrible as all that and that at any rate the men's hair would soon grow back, which in fact it did.)

Then when this repatriation thing came up -- because of the beginning of the wet season, when the heavy equipment of Vietnam is of less use against the Khymer Rouge -- neither the Thai government nor the Khymer Rouge leadership inside the camp (this leadership is carefully controlled by the Thai government, of course) informed the refugees that the proposed repatriation was voluntary -- as was insisted by the UNHCR, IRC, etc. -- but simply that they would be repatriated, the refugees didn't know they had any choice in the matter. Therefore the government expected that some 25,000 would go, leaving only those who were too old, too young, or too sick to go. 'Going' meant, of course, not just going back to Cambodia but going back to Khymer Rouge-controlled Cambodia and fighting again, or supporting the fighters. So what was done was that Rob, an Australian fluent in Thai, wrote up a leaflet (in Khymer) informing the people that they couldn't be forced to go back to Cambodia, and he and Bent, a Swedish journalist, began distributing them, having first received the customary clearance from the camp commander.

The commander was immediately besieged by refugees declaring their unwillingness to be repatriated, and when he realized what was happening the commander flew into a rage. He ordered that Rob, Bent, and their leader, Peter, an American minister (and, also, the step-son of a former U.S. ambassador to Thailand), be arrested. Peter was arrested and held in jail five days, during which he was harassed and intimidated and some very heavy charges were laid on his head.

Rob and Bent managed to escape from the camp before being arrested, and made their way to Bangkok, where they hid out. Word came through that the orders at the camp were that if they showed up there they were to be shot on sight. After five days Peter's friends got him out on bail, but everybody was very upset, because now instead of 25,000 Khymer being repatriated from Sae Keo camp only about 8,000 went voluntarily, and fully 17,000 refused to go, all as a result of these leaflets Rob and Bent distributed. They figure they probably saved about 10,000 lives, but the Thai government sees it differently: to them it's a betrayal of Thai security.

Rob, who was the prime mover in this particular incident -- which none of them imagined at the time to be particularly significant or telling -- has been in Thailand for some years (he can even type in Thai, a rare skill for a foreigner) -- has had to leave the country and is now back in Australia. (Previous to the refuges situation he had been working, as a monk, with the hill-tribes in the North, doing social work.) Bent has been cleared and is still in Thailand, willing to go back to the camps if he can. Just before I got to Bangkok all charges against Peter were dropped and he too is now in the clear. The camp commander was fired -- someone's head had to roll -- and just before I left Bangkok Peter was on his way back to the camp to see if he would be allowed back in, and if so what he might still be effective at. I haven't heard anything further about this.

Because of all this, the Thai government has become even more uptight and paranoid than usual about foreigners messing around with their plans, and even though they would acknowledge, if asked about it, that foreigners such as myself are not relevant to their border problems, nevertheless their paranoia extends in all directions and affects the uninvolved as well as the involved. They have established a new rule with regard to foreigners connected with Buddhism: they will grant visa-extensions only to those who are monks.

After doing some running around in Bangkok I learned about all this, for of course they could never explain to me. Rather, the way it worked was that a) the World Fellowship of Buddhists, who had previously sponsored my applications for visa extensions, told me that Immigration no longer accepted sponsorship from them but rather required it non from the Department of Religious Affairs of the Ministry of Education. b) the Department of Religious Affairs maintained at first that they were still studying the regulations and would not be able to respond to my application for sponsorship for at least 3 weeks. When I pointed out that my visa expired in 12 days they informed me that I could leave the country and come back in 3 weeks. I told them that by doing so I would lose my Non-Immigrant visa status -- which was no easy thing to come by -- and would have to revert to Tourist status, which limits visits to 2 months. They said it was no problem, and of course it wasn't for them.

After further visits -- during which the Director-General refused to even see me -- they finally admitted that they were not studying the regulations and point-blank refused my application unless I ordained. Actually this was a step forward for me, for an application 'under consideration' is moribund even if its fate is known. Once it's refused then it becomes possible to explore other avenues. c) I then went to Immigration, who told me that they couldn't consider my application unless it had the approval of Religious Affairs. I told them that Religious Affairs had told me that they (R.A.) had been ordered by Immigration not to approve any applications by laypeople. So sorry, they'd like to help, but what can they do? Can't I see that their hands are tied? Who, I asked, has tied their hands by making this rule? The Police Commission, or one of the Police Commissions, or something like that, I was told: I don't understand the various levels of authority that were being discussed (and, perhaps, neither did they, though they knew what they didn't want: me).

Anyway, the upshot of it was that eventually I got to see a big-shot who I'd seen before (on previous visa application sojourns) and who was not unsympathetic to my plight. 'It's because of all the drug addicts,' he told me, as if laypeople living in temples was the source of Thailand's drug industry (the relationship of the government to the drug industry is another interesting topic). But of course he couldn't tell me it was because of the Cambodian situation, or more precisely because of the paranoia that has resulted from the situation, so he told me it was because of drugs. So I appealed to him on the basis of my past record in Thailand and long-time connection with Buddhism, and he looked sympathetic and said he would present the Police Commission, or whatever it is, with my appeal for an exception, and that he couldn't promise anything, but that he would do that, and he gave me a 2-week extension of my visa so that I could stay in the country until the decision was made (instead of having to go to Penang), and so I'm still here but on a very tentative basis.

Letter 3.59

2008-10-09T06:26:00.001+01:00

The banalities of Bangkok pound my brain like .45 slugs made of cotton. It's over 4 months here now, but how ya gonna keep 'em down on Patpong after they've seen the forests? I'm Thaired of it.

Managed to learn a bit of the lingo in the last few months, what with a classroom situation and a good teacher, and expect, d.v. as they say, to leave next month for the hills of the North -- no idea where yet, or maybe too many ideas -- and be clear of the heavy vibes of Bangkok, where I've managed to do exactly no writing (hardly even answering correspondence, as you already have guessed), although I have learned to endure adverse conditions, in an intense form the jungle seldom offers.

I'd love to see what you're doing with Bones. No hurry -- until I have an address mil will be held here at Wat Bovaranives for me -- and expect to send you what I'm doing eventually, maybe even with Bones. Maybe we can both rewrite it simultaneously and then collate our efforts, you can do odd f pages and I'll do even # pages. What a collaboration! On the other hand, I my pick up Getting Off, in which case a collaboration would produce either Getting Bones or Worthy Off, I can't figure out which. Track of Truth needs some pottering too. I grow geranium alongside the roadway, wave to passerby, snigger at their idea that they're going somewhere, at my own idea that I'm not.

Shit's good fertilizer. Shovel some on my geraniums. We all shovel our shit, of course, but few of us get paid for it, many of us pay for it, and pay and pay. I trust you're not being paid more than you're worth. Is the shit better (or even different), after all, from printer's ink? Or is it that printer's ink is unused shit? Lose a newspaper and find a farm?

Worthy Bones -- love Mohel/Carmen/Jizi, stick with them, let them relate together, quarrel, see things same/different, love, let them be the story and let the bones be the background to their story. Let them seek truth between themselves, and learn the price of their illusions.

love, brother

Letter 3.58

2008-10-08T07:26:00.001+01:00

I've had a bad case of visa-itis, which required emergency treatment at the Thai Consulate in Penang. My file received an I.V. solution of 5% black ink and 3% red tape and is now recuperating. I've managed to get back to Suan Moke with an interrupted past and an uncertain future. Not a great deal to say for the present either. (Although one thing about the present, you can't fault it for endurance.)

Could your 'gift' of Bones (if such a gift can be made), besides being graciously magnanimous and possibly saving complications (I've got an excellent collection of complications which I must show you some time -- I save them, like bits of string), also have been inspired by the suspicion that by the time I'd finished with it it would be too removed from your intents and attempts to want anything more to do with it? (When either of us whistles now, what comes?) I have, I see, made it a rather different book. Or, atleast, more like a book I remember... once upon a time, I've not put a highway through your jungle, but I've cut out everything that looked to me like undergrowth, trimmed what was left, and did a bit of planting myself. Perhaps everyone needs his own jungle. Your comments (cloud gristle) have contained some useful suggestions, however.

By the way, I beg to differ with your friend, Polly Ethyl Lean, in her crusade to stop the slaughter of the naugas for their hides. I refer to her uninformed comment about 'placid herds of naugas'. I have a friend whose grandfather was killed by one of those placid herds. Stamp out the menace, I say!

Letter 3.57

2008-10-07T06:52:00.001+01:00

(Sometimes running around the margins of Bob's letters were postscript bugs, which seemed to be chasing one another, or perhaps were bugged to keep circling the square edges of their paper world. 'SLOGAN OF THE MONTH: A GAPING CHEST WOUND IS NATURE'S WAY OF TELLING YOU YOU'VE BEEN SHOT'. After reading a book on St. Francis by Chesterton: 'Francis is the greatest Hindu Italy ever produced.' And... 'If the Buddha were alive today he'd probably get arrested for insighting the people to quiet,' -- Hūm)

Okay, I'll try again. The complete incomplete Worthy Bones has, I gather, not settled well in LA, so maybe it can be coughed up if my feather keeps tickling that distant throat. Beyond that I've got notes and scribblings which I'll send to you if you ever decide to do anything further with it. For my part, unless some publisher takes a definite interest in it I doubt that I'll find the enthusiasm to go back to it. This isn't because of the story, but because of my telling of it, which I feel has gone downhill more and more precipitously as the story got along. Not bad, perhaps, for half of it, but then somehow it lost energy, picked up a lot of heavy weight and lost a certain essence of human interaction which had been its motivating power earlier on. It got too plotty. Ponderous. Some good moments, perhaps, but essentially static moments: the book doesn't seem to be moving along, and that's why it got to be such a burden. I had to push it along, whereas in the early part it had its own momentum.

I think any reader would sense this, and find the reading as tough going as I've found the writing. If you are going to do anything with it, strive for dynamism. Sure, motion is illusion, but that's what people are after, after all: illusion. Nobody's gonna pay hard-earned money for reality. Who needs to? Reality's free. It's everywhere. We've got more of it than we know what to do with. If you can slip a little uneasiness into the illusion, make them feel not quite so sure of themselves, that's about all that can be hoped for.

I think Worthy Bones -- for both of us -- has not been remiss in the uneasiness department. I think it needs to be more illusory, and that means more believable. The plot is absurd, of course, and I've known this from the start, but then I know of some very successful books with very absurd plots. (Slaughterhouse-5, for example, going from WW2 to another star, and all that.) But I think in order to make a plot believable you gotta skim over it lightly, not pay so much attention to it, and what I've been doing is delving into the details of the how's and wherefore's of it, trying to establish its reality through accretion instead of suggestion. Some good accretions in there, but that's all they is, accretions, and they don't really succeed in making anything more believable, do they?

On the other hand, of course, it's entirely possible (though, I think, unlikely) that I'll wake up one day full of enthusiasm and see clearly what needs to be done to correct what's been done poorly (I don't see this now; perhaps you will: you have a much lighter touch than me) and set to work. But barring that, or unexpected publisher interest (in which case I would finish it even if I knew it to be a flawed finish) I'll likely be finished with Worthy Bones. It was fun for a long while, though. Thanks for letting me play with your toys.

I leave in a few days for Malaysia, where I'll get a 60 day tourist visa and -- hopefully -- be allowed to re-enter Thailand for that time, I figure I'll probably do that twice -- once now, and once again early in November -- and then I'll make some sort of decision. The logistics of various things seem to make it preferable for me to delay such a decision until November, Bureaucracy Willing. Until the November trip I'll stay at Suan Moke. Then I'll move up to Bangkok to settle my hash.

I have no choice but to make some sort of change in my life now. It's been a rather good life, quite suiting me, so far, and I wouldn't want to do anything too different. Considering the options available to me, the least different thing I can think of is ordaining again. Perhaps I'll think of something less different in the next 2 months, or perhaps I'll decide to try something more different anyway. But that seems to cover the range of my choices. It's enough to make my teeth itch.

Letter 3.56

2008-10-06T06:30:00.001+01:00

(Enclosed with this letter was a copy of Bob's formal come-on to the mean offices of NY publishing -- Hūm)

A breather, it was. Having caught my breath, I'm back at work. Not on the book, mind. But the publisher's mind. No need for you to do anything, since this effort is intended to be decisive. If I get no more than nibbles, you can finish it, fiddle with it, or flick it aside.

From W.W. Norton comes these encouraging discouraging words:

'...We have decided against an offer of publication. This is a witty, well-told, and extremely inventive story. But it is also unbelievable. Mohel, Jizi, and Carmen are reminiscent of Batman, Robin, and Batgirl, as they wheel and deal in the power politics of Samadhi. They are all cartoons of real people. The plot is a fantasy. One is not sure it's tongue in cheek or for real. With no apparent purpose other than entertainment, the novel cannot succeed, for its lack of credibility alienates the reader.'

You should have by now, or soon, my contribution to this fantastic purposeless incredible alien entertaining failure.

A metaphysical bricklayer, Thomas Mann? Who said that? You? Him? My hope is that Worthy Bones is not just some metaphysical bricks. Anyone can shit metaphysical bricks all day long, pile them up, and call it a novel, but it's just a pile of shit. I tried to include not just the shit, which is certainly needed to create whole characters, but also the flesh, blood and gristle and bone that are needed to support a brain and an alimentary track.

And to do that...well...my problem's not with the Editor in me (who's often overambitious but can be controlled) but with the Creator, who's a lazy little fellow who has to be practically beaten or cajoled before he'll do fuck-all. Or else just wait patiently until he's in the mood. Or?

Letter 3.55

2008-10-05T06:23:00.001+01:00

For your various missives and hitives, too, as well as hard-to-come-by 9X12 envelopes, in one of which I'm posting another installment to be Xeroxed and thence dropped (by carrying crow) on your stump -- for these and thou, saaam... And they say that serialized fiction is out of style. Gosh, I had a list of points on which I wanted your opinion and info, and now, of course, I can't find it. I even emptied out the top half of my overflowing wastepaper bag. Not there. Well, poor old Mia Memory isn't much given to total recall, never has been, poor dear, but one of them was about the 'King Oliver on Trumpet' quote: where did it come from? It's beautiful, and if I see a chance I'll work it in, but, is it your own original, or, as it sounds, is it from Shakespear or the Bible or James Branch Cabal or something? Also, I don't know if there is any meaning to some of your names that I could have (easily) missed. Such as: Jizi (other than 'thief' in Swahili, is it involved with 'righteous'?)

Of course, if you see a place where a character isn't drawn in well, where motivation is misdirected, confusion reigns (and rains), or whatever, give me a tweak; and if you have a handle on how to set things right, give 'er a crank. Or two. Yes, actually the only major characters of your version I've killed off is the entire diplomatic corps. In this regard I may be outdoing Joyce himself, who avenged himself on an outrageous British diplomat in Switzerland by portraying him as a drunken sailor (in Ulysses). Anyway, too many characters spoil the book.

Your piece about Mohel's Spanish scam brought back memories... that I don't even have yet. Certainly a place for them in a prequel: Falangista Mohel. Mohel meets Gidgit? Mohel and Gidget Get it On with Godzilla?

Letter 3.54

2008-10-04T06:25:00.001+01:00

Sometimes after reading your flights of fancy, all very clever and what-not I feel like a dung beetle busy rolling my little piece of shit in an unimaginative and mundane manner, just trying to get to wherever it is I'm trying to get to. Plodding. But those clouds that you swoop in and out of, and roll up into balls, and push them to wherever it is you're trying to get to -- they're too light and airy for a stolid down-to-earth (in-the-ground?) type like me, who, though not unimaginative, prefers to imagine things with lots of gristle, and whose imagination is constrained, perhaps – 'flightless'?

I've read Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and liked it mucho, but now must -- with a bit of anxiety -- not read Another Roadside Attraction lest I find myself using up energy in going around non-existent obstacles. Or do they exist? Like waking up in the morning to find an elephant in your room...good grief... Just the other day someone asked me if I'd read so-and-so's account of when he was a Buddhist monk.

There's been talk of Achan Cha going to Vancouver, but I guess not. Yes, Groucho would have had a terrible time if he wasn't there. And when a wealthy dowager looked down 6 yards of nose at Stan Laurel to tell him how delighted she was to meet him, he replied, 'I'm not either'. Ah well. If I get the energy I may send you an unpublished short talk of his (A.C. not S.L.), which will at least help keep the P.O. solvent. I'm not pushing him like I was Ñānavīra, mind you, but... well, I liked the old gaffer, and he seemed to be pretty sharp. You won't find any Big Macism in him.

Bones still needs to get hold of the right piece of gristle here and there. Trouble is, cloud-gristle is so hard to get a hook into.

But you got a hook -- a nail -- in a package of dates? Were you charged extra? A special on Khomeini Suppositories?

When I was in Guatemala there was a S.F. fag type who claimed to be Tom Robbins, and who did a very effective impersonation, but who was probably a fake. Perhaps Another Roadside Attraction is also a fake? This fake T.R. said that his next book would be called 'Divorces'. Sounds like Siamese twins are only half as Siamese as once believed, I haven't heard from my agent in nearly a year. Maybe he died? Maybe I can help? Maybe I did?

Abrazon,

Letter 3.53

2008-10-03T06:22:00.001+01:00

(More news of the world reached the Sooke hills from Suan Moke. Some of the clippings read: 'If you get unemployment down too quickly to full employment of, say, 6 percent, you will have wasted this recession,' Mother Teresa, of Calcutta, when asked if she doesn't become discouraged in her work with the destitute and dying; 'God has not called me to be successful. He has called me to be faithful.' 'What we want to achieve is a balance between gross national product and gross national happiness.' 'Calling Hussein a "schizo", Sadat expressed confidence the Jordanian monarch would join the peace process.' 'When you have a hammer in your hand everything looks like a nail. That may be the gloomiest prognosis of all.' -- Hūm)

Oh? Do you really think most of my letters are questions? Am I anything but a quest-ion? Anyway, since you're a garbage collector (or didn't you get the job? overqualified?), here's another piece of garbage for your collection. I've tried to get you a really decent collection -- a hundred pages or so of Worthy Bones -- but, it seems, without success. Too bad. It would be suitable as toilet paper, or may be suitable as part of those rolls of old paper used in India to make tubes in which to place a dose of salted peanuts (to go with the monkey that didn't come with your spitting hurdygurdy) Or...

Ever thought of writing a comic book? That might be more on my level. As for me -- ain't writ nothin' nigh unto these 3 months now, and aside from some flavorsome feelings of guilt, couldn't care less. Worthy Bones's within a hundred pages or so of the end, and slowly losing ground. The characters seem to no longer have dialogues: their talks are parallel monologues.

Did I hear St. Helen fart? Can't say I did... though, last night, a whiff of something in the air... Bad case of gas, was it? Poor old girl, being a saint and all... Just dump a few plane-loads of Nigel in 'er and that should do it.

May not be around here too much longer. The old bureaucratic boot. You may have heard of Thailand's efforts to 'repatriate' the Khymer -- it was less than successful and so now since they've got to get rid of somebody... Accordingly, my visa is being given a hassle, and then they try to get me involved in it too. We shall see... I might just ordain again and teach the bastards a lesson.

Letter 3.52

2008-10-02T06:28:00.001+01:00

Contemplating a clearing around the hut which was slowly growing back to the jungle, I glanced at my thumb and noticed it was turning green (Ein Gedi disease?); in jig time I had it cut back, transplanted a few jungle flowers and plants, and put in some flower and vegetable seeds. The seeds are from Bangkok -- so far, of the flowers, only the azaleas have even sprouted, nothing at all heard from the zinnia, phlox, pansy, or sunflower. There's not much available in the way of flower seed, and what is available seems, mostly, dead. Of the vegetables, the plum tomatos are promising, and there's hope for the carrot. The cauliflower sprouted up quickly, but is now threatening to die, as most of the onions have. The eggplant may be a slow starter -- it's just beginning to show -- as are a few of the regular tomatos. The corn is coming up like nobody's business, just the way the watermelon and honeydew began, but the melons seem to be going, now, the way of the onions. The squash seeds are trying hard; in 3 or 4 months I may get a few squash. And that's the whole garden. Some sees remains for a second try, and I'll probably see if I can't find some beans and things when next I go to Bangkok, which will be in a few weeks to apply for a new visa.

In season now are mangos, which I love, messy as they are to eat. Some pineapples, but very few bananas in this area, for some reason. There are several fruits I've not seen before and don't know the name of: a fruit with a thick purple skin (inedible) and a sweet juicy white interior of segments; a fruit like a lychee nut but with a red/green bristly skin, juicy translucent meat around a single seed; a small brown fruit with orange custardy pulp around two longish seeds, like a miniature zapote, a Guatemalan fruit, but better. Durian, called the 'king of fruits' -- I know someone who should be named Durian -- but which is a bit strong for my taste: as a flavoring it's not bad, but by itself it's rich in oil, very odorous (cheesy -- like, perhaps, limburger), and overwhelming in flavor. It can be smelled a block away. Some people are fanatics about them.

On a clear day (it's been raining much of the time lately), I like to climb to the top of the hill in back of the wat) where I can see the roads and fields, and, about a mile away, the Gulf of Siam, with some small islands looming darkly above the haze which rests on the water. There are hundreds, or thousands, of islands in the Gulf. The coastline is under heavy guard these days, both to prevent the 'boat-people' from landing (stories circulate of the coastguard deliberately sinking boats and letting the boat-people drown) and to try (with little likelihood of success) to capture the pirate boats which have come to the coast to prey on the boat-people (mostly middle-class/upper-class ethnic Chinese who would rather flee Vietnam than go to work on the new collective farms -- a desperate choice).

Letter 3.51

2008-10-01T06:25:00.001+01:00

The electricity is out tonight, for reasons I've been unable to discern, so this is a candlelight letter, flickering somewhat, but not yet guttering out.

This is a really big wat. (A big wat? sorry, the flickering). I haven't yet explored in any direction (except the front) to the point of finding its end. I'm told that in the back it includes a small mountain from the top of which one can see Chaiya (4 miles away) and the sea (? miles away). The wat's also a famous place and every day cars and buses of tourists (Thais) arrive to look about -- they usually stay in the front areas, and don't bother the residents, who live in tho back (maybe 50 people; 35 monks and assorted creatures). In front are many sculptures (copies mostly of famous ancient Indian artwork), and a museum (original paintings on Buddhist themes, a sound/light show, and other 'Buddhism-in-art' type endeavours), for the place is the center of the 'Buddhism-can-be-creative', or 'ethics-through-aesthetics' school of thought, founded by the chief monk here, Buddhadasa. Perhaps a good atmosphere for my own creative efforts. Certainly not a bad one, though some of what passes for creativity is a bit ludicrous. But, then, imitation rather than originality was always the focal point of much of Asian culture. Innovation for the sake of seeing-what-will-happen is not often smiled upon and, indeed, this place had some hard times in its earlier days as a result of that sort of thinking -- thinking which it is hardly free from.

Still, I'm left alone to my own devices, except one day a week when we all participate in group work (putting up a 2-story brick building these days, since now brick is cheaper than wood -- in fact, the building, intended as a dorm for overnight guests -- Bangkok students by the busload, etc. -- has no windows; is this innovative, or just forgetful?), and also though I've not been invited to share in the food here (unlike all the other wats I've stayed at) there's a restaurant just outside where the owner cooks not just the same tired old fried rice with an onion and a tomato, but a nice variety of vegetarian dishes (for me only, apparently -- everybody else expects meat, chicken, or fish, and gets it), and Buddhadasa speaks English, which helps a lot, as do quite a number of the other monks, also unlike most other places I've stayed at.

So my inclination is to stay here, though, of course, it also has its defects, mainly along the lines of the people pouring through here. But I want to park myself for a while so that I can arrange my situation to be the most productive -- re Worthy hopes.

Unfortunately, there's the visa hassle, and I can only stay if I can get a letter of sponsorship. I've not asked for it yet, preferring to make myself known first, but I'm told it's not likely I'd get one, since Buddhadasa as a general policy doesn't do that (I'm not the first Westerner to pass through here); but I'll probably ask anyway. If he says no, I'll have to consider my next move -- it may take a bit of juggling.

Thais, like Chinese, have, in their language, a sound between our 'L' and 'R', which makes it difficult for them to distinguish the two sounds (just as we have trouble distinguishing between the various tones of Thai and Chinese languages). I wasn't aware until lately that this problem extends to writing as well. But how else is one to understand a shirt with a picture of a pair of cute and cuddly little cats, underneath of which is the legend ANGOLA KITTENS. Or is this some new breed?

Letter 3.50

2008-09-30T06:47:00.001+01:00

I think you're right: our virtues and vices complement each other, at least in the realm of what you call scribbledehobble (I haven't yet decided what I call it, but it won't be nice). Well, I've done my half, and since you said you were starting at the other end and working forward, you will presumably be meeting me very soon in some dark volcanic tunnel somewhere. So I'd better stop and let you get on with it. But that, of course, is making a virtue of writer's block, which may not be necessary but what else can a poor lad do when he comes to feel that it's all vanity, all a useless exercise in manipulating, and all so obvious? And so poorly spelled? Even with characters killed off. Worthy Bones is overstaffed. In fact that's the problem, or part of it. Too many characters spending too much time explaining to each other a plot that's too involved and doesn't spend enough time happening, what with all the talking about it that goes on. You and me are the only ones who like the book, and I'm not so sure about me. The few others who've seen it try to find something nice to say about it. It's a good title. That Bourree Jizi plays is groovy, too. Good use of the semi-colon. Keep it up and it'll be just the right length. Not that praise would eliminate the blockage. Maybe a plunger is needed, or a roto-rooter. (Actually, though, it's not a blockage at all; it's emptiness. There's just nothing left to squeeze out except words, and there's already so many of them... Think I'll take up painting. Particularly since I ain't got no paints. Just brushes.)

Oh, I'm going on with it, atleast for a bit, but it feels flat now and dry. The dryness can be solved by soaking the mss. thoroughly in a bucket of water; but what about the flatness? Yeast? Maybe, I'll save it for Chanukah. It would go great with bitter herbs. And how can I concentrate with all those people meditating out there?

what I really need's a stringhopper.

(What's it all about, huh?
What's it all about?
What's it all about?
What's it all about?
What's it all?
What's it?
What?
huh?)

Letter 3.49

2008-09-29T06:43:00.001+01:00

Forty years old today. Stocktaking. Thinking of what I'm glad for, what not. One of my most glad things is your friendship.

That said, everything else seems trivial: reports on the condition of the jungle today.

By now you should have the first 200 pages or so of Worthy Bones. Probably, the most intensive stretch of writing I've done: a pace I'm already unable to maintain. But while it happened it was exhilarating to see it coalesce -- perhaps as it was, in the beginning? I feel pretty good about it so far, but of course don't know whether that's anything more than throwing myself a bone for the trick. Does it in fact seem to be 'taking shape' instead of just being a pile of shapeless old clothes thrown into a forgotten corner? Have I dropped any stitches? Probably be a peculiar hump-backed critter who'll wind up fleshing out the stitchery, but can he walk, does he have bad breath, dirty toenails and warts, or is he just a slab of meat cooling itself in the butcher's display case, on its way to becoming shit? Maybe I should go back to poetry.

Letter 3.48

2008-09-28T06:22:00.001+01:00

BEAD [1]

Your miscellaneous variety (or various miscellanies) received with thanks. Bits of transparent obscuration through which I get glimpses of...what? Style? Fact? Poetry? Truth? Why did you quit the local rag? Feeling too secure? Forced to take a raise or go? Or just tired of inky thumbs? Anyway, glad your Passovers are regular. Saves the need to swallow Pax Lax. There is no coprolite at the end of the tunnel. You'll see. Or you won't.

Khomeini would hate Bab Khatmo.
Bab Khatmo would love Khomeini
Bani Sadr would try to work with both.

A few of your good solid clues as to what it's all about have been useful, but nothing more gossamer, please, as there are plenty of cobwebs here already. Aside from the odd good line (which I will steal), what's it all about? I'm beginning to wonder the same about Bones Redux. Pity...

The troglodytes are in bloom again. Pterodactyls sing their rhymic songs. Secretary birds take dictation. Sumerians cum in.

__________
[1] In Worthy Bones, Sir Makepeace Gravenhenge, the English collector, who hires Mohel to pinch the Buddha's bones, dated his letters BEAD -- Before Enlightenment After Death. My letters to Bob were dated likewise: good luck to any chronicler of them. -- Hūm

Letter 3.47

2008-09-27T06:39:00.001+01:00

Part of the Xerox machine -- the human part -- seems to be non-functioning these days. Since that means nothing is getting sent to either friend or publisher, I'm trying a remote repair, like with space satellites (except that it's the satellite that's sending out repair-instructions to ground control); but it may be all the thought and typing I've put into marketing may be for naught. A pretty depressing thought after a year's work. So I won't think about it for both of us.

I'm about 100 pages ahead of you having a hard time working out a plausible sequence for the Big Scene -- i.e. when Khalid and the army and everybody confront each other just before the cremation. It's complicated. Motivations -- both the characters' and mine -- seem a bit forced. Fortunately, I can soon start killing then off wholesale (if they don't get me first) and thereby simplify all future action. Your min-autobiography of Mohel -- M by M (M²) -- received, which marvellous piece seems to have just tripped off your fingers in one sitting. I don't even see you chewing the end of a pencil . How do you do it?

(Thanks, too, for Freedom at Midnight -- loved it, especially the raja with the toy trains that ran amok. I think anyone who has read this would be saddened at the killing of Lord Mountbatten. Shed a tear for your Sufi saint, too. Khalid just killed Bab Khatmo.)

Letter 3.46

2008-09-26T06:30:00.001+01:00

Your encyclopedia arrives and arrives and arrives. Helps in many ways, of course. For instance, to my question of why Mohel didn't fly to Samadhi, your reply that he likes 'boat lag' explains everything, and no further explanation is necessary. On the other hand, the explanation that you once saw a bomb-scare at a U.S. consulate explains nothing, for the question here, as elsewhere, is not the question of 'is it possible?', nor is it the question, 'is it in accordance with the philosophy of the book'? ditto for your 'holy-man-bullshit' explanation. It may very well be the point of the story, but is it the story? If the story isn't a coherent story, its point isn't a coherent point. How does the holy-man-bullshit routine help Mohel get the bones? Regardless of the point of the story. (I can invent reasons, of course, or else change the story; but I'd like to have your reasons, either on the level of 'he did it because it accomplished -- he hoped -- this and that...' or the 'he likes boat lag' level. But to say that it's philosophically correct is merely philosophically correct. What you say about the 'nursery-school notion' of cause-and-effect is perfectly true, and also beside the story. Perhaps to the point, but beside the story, which at least creates -- or tries to create -- the illusion of reason, connection, one action following another not merely sequentially but with some logic, moving with reason and economy towards a definite stated and promised goal. More gristle, please! More, more, more...

Your 'overloaded oakie in his old Model T' simile was excellent -- I had visions of you breaking down yourself when seeing all the paraphernalia I've unloaded from the story to lighten the load on the axles so it'll go somewhere -- that's what happened to me when I unloaded Getting Off, and it was me doing the unloading, not some stranger sleeping with my book -- and am now glad that you'll be glad to sec it lighter.

what fun it is to rummage through the pile, seeing what can be used here, what there, as I lighten the load and head that ol' Tin Lizzie into the westering sun...

Letter 3.45

2008-09-25T06:23:00.001+01:00

I've finished Bones now. I must be in very select company, having read it twice -- once in Ceylon. It's the only book of yours I've been able to read through. The density of your prose requires an effort that few will care to make, even if assured in advance of the value of the effort. For myself, I could only make such an effort when in very suitable surroundings, such as the monastery I'm now at -- Buddhadasa's (you may have heard of him).

When I read an earlier draft of Bones in Ceylon I recall a much stronger plot line than I seem to find in this version. Indeed, on reading this version quite carefully, and spending some time considering it, there are still some points of importance that are not at all clear to me. Now, no doubt I could sit dawn and invent what needs to be invented to fill in these gaps (and no doubt in some cases I will), but still this book has been with you for many years now, and I'm sure you've got it figured out in your mind, even if not on paper, to the point where all action and motivation (apart from language) are clear. (I remember in Afghanistan you told me the whole plot, quite coherently, in about 5 minutes. Something like that would be useful to me in writing.) Therefore, I pose to you the following questions and ask that you reply in as mundane a vocabulary as possible, being as specific as possible. Your collaboration in removing these uncertainties (or, atleast, raising them to a higher level than the mundane level of plot and motivation) can best be affected by replying in this manner...

Why does Mohel have to go through all this holy man shit, or even talk with Premier Takataka, as part of his effort to get the Buddha's bones? His doing so is great, but it must be believable; i.e. we must feel he is acting sensibly, with suitable motivation to reach the goal set for him, in the most efficient way. If we can be made to believe that the holy-man-cum-politics is the only way the bones can be had, we'll love it; but first we're not made to believe this and second, Ven. Tanha's offer, with no apparent motive, completely undermines all these efforts, making them seem pointless posing or lunatic activities which, somehow -- how? -- manage not to destroy the purpose, but waste our time in trying to get to the point of the book, which, whatever it is, has to do, surely, with obtaining the bones...

I could also use more about the political involvement of the various characters. Like a chronological account of the Samadhi political events, as if it were a magazine account, say -- identifying the various factions, their main interests, strengths, and weaknesses, etc., and what they do-with/to each other.

If the story hangs together in a coherent context, it's beautiful. If it doesn't, it's just a lot of beautiful words floating past in the gutter.

Consider these questions and comments no put-down of your work on Bones, but a real interest on my part to find a way to retell what I remember to be a good story (good stories are always worth a retelling). You've got much of your story in your head, and the book is for yourself. I'd like to share the story around and need to have some answers to do so -- your answers if I can get them; otherwise I'll have to find my own.

Love to you, brother,

Letter 3.44

2008-09-24T06:23:00.001+01:00

(Sometimes news of the world took its time to get to the Sooke hills, so I was always glad when Bob included a few newspaper clippings with his missives. The two enclosed with this one informed me that an eight-year old elephant named Jumbo, who had perhaps the world's biggest sinus problem, died of a heart attack during tusk surgery; and that to mark the occasion of Karen Ann Quinlan's 25th birthday a mass was celebrated at her bedside where she'd lain in a coma for some years. 'We have so much to be thankful for,' her mother, Julia Quinlan, said. She never thought Karen would celebrate her 25th birthday. -- Hūm)

Wat Suan Moke -- '79

Yes! I've always (!) thought that if Achan Cha ever went to India he would promptly be re-named Achan Acha[1]. Even his name goes around twice! He too goes around twice: having been once to the West, he goes again, at the end of the month. And, possibly in late June, he may be in or around Vancouver. If you can drag your hill over there (will the ferry take it? would it float? are there city ordinances about hills walking the streets?), it might be worthwhile to meet him. (He also brings his hill.)

I'm at Ven, Buddhadasa's place in the South. He has no plans to go anywhere. Neither do I. It's flat, nearly sea-level, and muggy, but it has a distinction only shared by Kandy, in Ceylon and Almora, in India, both in hill country, among all the Asian jungle I've been in: no mosquitos, I haven't figured out why. (Maybe the mosquitos are still figuring out me.) Gnawing on Bones, I also haven't figured out how the hip bone's connected to the thigh bone, or any other, for that matter. Where's dat ol' heart bone? Amazing how bones can be fleshed out.

On this long narrow isthmus if I go long either east or west I'll soon be in the sea. Up or down -- the yoyo bit again (again!) -- is the only way, I can only be lost in half as many ways. Lost? Isthmus be de place. Merry isthmus!

(Dr. Johnson met Descartes: I stink, therefore, I am.)

__________

[1] ah cha (Hindi) Yep! OK! Right-on! etc.

Letter 3.43

2008-09-23T06:24:00.001+01:00

(While caroming cross-legged between wats, Bob was not only gnawing on Bones, but had picked up his verse translation of the Dhammapada again, which he eventually completed and called The Track of Truth. -- Hūm)

102.
However many verses one might say,
set, to no set purpose, side by side,
far better is one line about the Way
which, having heard, one's pacified.

171.
Come, behold this world; 'tis as
the well-wrought carriage of a king.
Where fools are lost the wise man has
no desire for anything.

172.
He who was heedless before,
but is heedless no more,
illumines this world,
once dark and in shrouds,
like the moon freed from clouds.

212.
Sorrow is born from what's dear.
From attraction springs fear.
When from that liking one's fled,
there's no more sorrow. Whence dread?

174.
This world is blind; there's few with sight.
As birds, escaped from nets, take flight,
those few go to realms of light.

179.
His victory no one can alter or change.
No part of his conquest partakes of this plane.
That wakened one is beyond measure or range.
How trace a trackless one?
Where's that domain?

Letter 3.42

2008-09-22T06:23:00.001+01:00

Wat Pah Barn Tard

A rough one hour flight in a sputtering 2-engine prop over heavy cloud cover up north to Udorn Thani -- spent more time on the ground going through formalities than in the air -- glad to land, 'cause I was getting tired of paddling.

Now it's noon. I'm sitting underneath the hut (in Thailand houses are almost always built on stilts: this one rests about 5 feet off the ground on 9 substantial concrete pillars) in a chair whose legs each sit in a cup of old engine oil, to keep the ants off. It's about 105°F, down here, and a lot hotter upstairs' A breeze is like sitting next to a giant 1000 watt hair dryer. About 1:30 we'll gather for a cold drink (assuming the ice that's been ordered has been delivered as ice, not cold water) to manage the peak of the heat. Mornings are crisp, evenings pleasantly cool, nights edging toward chilly. Lizards don't mind the heat -- they scuttle about in the sunshine, then pop down holes or chase each other about, seemingly not in play. They have green markings with an orange band on each side. Strange swift movements, then long pauses. Pineapple plants and mango trees (with fruit still too green) surround this hut -- others have bananas, coconut, papaya. Oddly, there are few birds, perhaps it's the off-season. But the continual squawking of a couple tame parakeets fills in. The sand here, too, is bored with hermit spider traps. The spiders live hidden below their traps, waiting for an unwary ant to slip in. There are plenty of ants, though I've yet to see one get caught. The other day I left out a square of chocolate laxative. Within a few hours the ants had eaten a large portion of it. For the next two days there was ant shit everywhere.

This place is more intensively directed towards meditation than any wat I've seen yet. There's no routine other than morning meal and late afternoon leaf-sweeping and water hauling. No chanting or other group activities. But the sun is fierce, and so too is the teacher here. I'll sit a while longer he then likely go to the South, although I've just received an invitation to go to a place near Chiang Rai beside a waterfall on a cool hillside, and this off is presently rather tempting.

Letter 3.41

2008-09-21T06:22:00.001+01:00

I'm still in the Northeast at Wat Boong Wai. The Northeast is very different from Bangkok and the North -- the people are of Laotian descent and are much like the Laotians I met in the refugee village in the North -- the finest people I've met in Thailand, though I believe they're scorned in the city as ignorant village peasants. Not to say there isn't banditry etc. around here (though I've not been bothered), but the people seen naturally friendly and helpful, not reserved. They have ways different from Bangkok and foods also. For instance, their staple is a heavy sticky brown rice that I quite like -- the light white rice will seem insubstantial after this. We get one meal a day here, but the food is good, and vegetarian for those (like me) who wish it -- fresh green leaves of many strange sorts (including the touch-me-not plant that closes its leaves when touched-I never knew they were edible before, but now I know why they close their leaves), some of which take some getting used to, are steamed and eaten spinach-like. One villager brings a pot of soy milk every morning, and we each have a glassful. Eggplant made into a kind of spicy paste is common. Fried crickets are considered a special delicacy (I'll try one when they come up with a vegetable variety). Also a sort of olive that, pickled, is quite tasty -- sharp, a bit musty. Only after I ate some did I learn that they're pickled in urine. And then, there are other delicacies that not only will I not even consider trying, I wouldn't even consider describing to you. Fortunately, I can depend on plenty of less exotic fare for my meals-bamboo shoots, yams, boiled pickles, fried cucumbers, boiled peanuts, raw ears of baby corn, about 2-3 inches long and eaten cob and all -- all quite satisfying.

Bits and pieces of fact and rumor about the trouble in Vietnam filter through the jungle, but it doesn't affect us here though we're closer to Saigon than to Bangkok -- not only in terms of miles, but in terms of culture too, perhaps.

Letter 3.40

2008-09-20T06:23:00.001+01:00

To my paper bed of dormant intentions, I add your generous letter. In NY the bums use the Sunday NY Times for keeping warm. In Thailand, I've got words to heat my brain, if not my body, that neither they nor I (but you) have ever heard of.

Last month I was robbed, while chanting the evening chanting. The thieves took the costly goodies, the cheap goodies, the useless stuff, the indispensable stuff. But, among the few things they left behind was your manuscript, Bones. Talk about devastating literary criticism!

This month I paid a visit to Achan Cha (Ajahn Chah), the meditation master of NE Thailand. Most impressive dude. No time, no place, for scribbledehobble (as you call it), save on the sly or on the run. Day starts 3 AM -- much group work, not my bag, but, they say, put aside your ego, your wishes. Do it this way and see, so I do but don't see. If you feel like doing it, he says (about meditation), do it. If you don't feel like doing it, he says, still do it. Put aside this ego -- 'I want my Dhamma this way -- I like my Dhamma hard-boiled/ soft-boiled/ sunny-side-up/ all of the above/ none of the above/ etc. etc.' First see Dhamma, he says. Then decide how you like it. What a way to spend a February! From 9 PM to 3 AM I can do as I like, except on the full, new, and 2 half-moons, when we stay up all night, chanting and meditating (and drinking a lot of tea). The Western followers of Achan Cha include some of the most impressive of the Western monks I've met in the East. Too bad. If it weren't so I could dismiss his way as so much self-abnegation as to be unworthwhile. But he is not so easily dismissed, this Achan Cha... What will I do next month? (Hmm, dormant intentions?)

Don't see any universal truths I wouldn't see.

Letter 3.39

2008-09-19T06:20:00.001+01:00

The postal system, inscrewtably, has coughed up (with much clearing of the throat) your Bones, and I sit in my kuti sucking on the marrow, even after midday. It's a big book and with all the fat on it, it goes well with the lean diet of my morning meal. The book -- like much of Joyce -- is unreadable without the help of a dictionary, a Britannica, several Who's Who, a What's What, a set of almanacks, and primers for Greek, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Arabic, etc.

I remember when my agent (who may be, like yours, dead, for all I hear from him) told me that Getting Off was badly overwritten and had to be cut, my reaction was -- How could I possibly cut any of those sweat-drenched words, all so... so... so expressive of the very being of my soul... And I took the knife (Occam's razor) and carefully sliced a word -- and it hurt, and I bled, but when the wound healed (I heal fast) I saw that maybe there was, well, just a slight superfluity -- maybe this sentence here wasn't truly essential. Another lop.... And after a few days I was going at it tooth and nail, slash and burn, rip, rend, and reduce, cutting away all those joyful words that, beautifully organized as they were, had nothing to do, actually, with the story I was trying to tell....

I've still got many of them, in an envelope in my sister's garage. (My mother saved my baby hair, baby shoes, etc. -- the habit comes to me honestly.) About 25%-30%, in my case; I lost a lot of words, a lot of pages, and in the end Getting Off was a lot lighter and a lot healthier for it. It doesn't need to include every witticism, every verbal cleverness, every show of dexterity of which I'm capable. It can't, It need only be a spare sparse and straight story. (No doubt there's still some veins of marbling through it, but that's another matter.)

What I remember about Bones -- from the 1st time I read it, back in Ceylon -- was not all the verbal play (which is mostly unintelligible to me, lacking the erudition which you acquired – how? -- in the Canadian woods) and association-through-sound (which is soon wearying), but the story of the search for dem bones, and a large (but definitely unstated) body of implications which grows (in my mind, not on paper) from that story, and, which, 10 years later, is still remembered, and that's what I intend to rediscover from your mss. (which, thick as it is, also makes a nice desk on which to write this letter) and that's what you'll get back from me... Alam.

The Schizo Expert, by the way, is Silvano Arieti; the book is 'Interpreting Schizophrenia', You might find it worthwhile. Elsewhere he writes: '..There was nothing for her to look forward to. It was the end of her time; if by time we mean dimension in which we wish and will.

As for myself, Thailand is long and narrow, not straight and so I seem to imitate a yoyo (like Yoyosarian) or a vertical ping-pong ball bouncing about between the wats of the North and South, caroming cross-legged from kuti to kuti, and shedding a certain amount of superfluous weight with the exercise.

Letter 3.38

2008-09-18T06:19:00.001+01:00

(Between Wat Suan Moke and the Sooke hills Bob and I winged our dispatches about Worthy Bores, after he started to see if he could get the head bone atleast not connected to the butt-bone -- though perhaps it ended up that way on purpose, and consequently most of the correspondence would be incomprehensible to anybody who hadn't read half a dozen drafts over 15 years of an unpublished novel -- among whom was, perhaps, neither of the co-authors. Nonetheless some of the shop talk is amusing, even if incomprehensible, so I've included snippets of it for my own perverse pleasure, -- Hūm)

Thailand feels like the end of a long trek from Indonesia: no more borders to cross for a while. There's a very deja vu feeling to the whole trip, since it touches in so many ways upon that trip in '66. Yossarian was also involved in going around twice. Bangkok, however, offers a totally different contrast than Calcutta: there the overriding factor was the contrast between the wealthy few -- the old elite and the nouveau riche -- with their highrises and edifices -- and the utter poverty and squalidness of millions of lives, and the inescapable awareness of the wretchedness that could be, that was... here the contrast is between the quietness of the forest places and the feeling of the city temples (noisy, but always a relief from the wretched traffic noises and fumes of these clogged streets) and on the other hand the utter accessibility of means of gratifying any of the sensual pleasures. Abstinence and indulgence. Abstinence -- a withered and sere old crone. Indulgence -- a seductive young wench if ever there was one. Why do I keep entertaining this notion for the ugly one? There must be something perverse in my nature.

Meanwhile, I guess I'll wander over the P.O. and see if there are any Bones there for me. If there be and they don't slap me with death duties or bust me for grave robbing, I intend to spirit 'em someplace I can set for a spell to gnaw on 'em. I've just noticed my handwriting. If it keeps getting smaller as I near the end of the page it will eventually become illegible, but that won't matter for I would never get to the bottom of the page, where this letter will end.

THEREFORE:

Consider the extraordinary implications of this statement, made by one of the world's foremost authorities on schizophrenia:

'The ability to pretend, or to lie, is a good prognostic sign. Delusional life is reality for a patient, not pretension. When he is questioned about his delusions, he cannot deny them or lie about their existence, even when he knows that admitting them will have an unfavorable result, such as the rejection of his demand for discharge from the hospital. He cannot lie or pretend because he cannot shift to an imaginary assumption. (Schizophrenics treated even with moderate amounts of tranquilizers often reacquire the ability to lie.) The denial of delusions, which are so real to him, reacquire a power to abstract or to shift to a set of facts that from his point of view are unreal. At times, when he knows that admitting his truth would mean being kept in the hospital, he will try to be as evasive and defensive as possible, but he will not actually lie. When the patient is able to lie about his delusions, he is in the process of recovery. He will not have to lie for a long time, because the delusions will soon disappear...'

Letter 3.37

2008-09-17T06:23:00.001+01:00

A few days ago I was only out for a couple hours and came back to find I'd been robbed. They wiped me out of any items they could fence (cassette recorder, camera, and electronic calculator-alarm clock) and that I intended to sell, when I was finished playing with them. Now, it seems, I've, indeed, finish playing with them. Fortunately, I had my money and passport on me. I reported it to the police, of course, who made some show they were doing something (although it was I who was doing something: filling out useless reports) but really had no intention of actually catching a thief, finding and returning my stuff, or anything of that nature. I thought maybe because I lived at the Wat (temple) they might atleast put on a good show.

Since then the thieves haven't stolen anything more from me (though given their taste for substantial item, I don't know what I have left). One resident sage suggested one should always give the thieves more than they expect, so they'll be satisfied and won't return. Sage advice, indeed, if you haven't been robbed, or have something left to give (allow to take?). Just what do thieves expect, anyway? Whatever it my be, I doubt it promotes satisfaction, or they wouldn't be thieves (i.e. not return). Obviously, I didn't understand the sage advice.

Perhaps, the thieves wouldn't either, as they've been around the Wat atleast 4 times since my robbery. Once they tried to break into the kitchen through the front door (they cut a hole in the screen) and once through the back window (paint chips from the locked shutter could be seen the following morning), but failed both times. Simony doesn't appear to be a motive, further evidence they don't appear to be religious thieves. (I use the plural because there seems to be more than one of them; perhaps a small gang.)

I went back to the police to ask both what had been done towards following up the leads they had on my case, and what was going to be done towards ending these continuing burglary attempts, and, as I wouldn't fill out any more useless reports, they seemed slightly offended and definitely disinterested, so the next day I went to the US Consulate in Chiang Mai. The Consul told me right out that she'd been in Thailand 3 years and could offer no help. (Such a response from a U.S. Consul was atleast refreshingly honest.) The Thai government was generally corrupt, she said, but the police were the most corrupt of all. If I wanted them to protect me (and the others at the Wat) against the continuing harassment of the burglars I could get them to do it for about 100 baht ($5) a night, but otherwise they'd prefer to sleep on their desks. But she did send one of her Thai employess with me to the Provincial Cop HQ and we spoke with the chief, who said he'd speak with the Chiang Dao chief, etc., etc.

My last night in Kaeng Pan Dao I heard a lot of stones, or sticks, or something striking the roof of my hut, and I'm sure they were thrown from the path above, but didn't go out to investigate. The next day one of the monks (not the sage one) said he'd seen two men on the path at night, who ran at the sight of him, Were they cronies of the crooks trying to lure me outside to seek revenge? Village kids playing a prank? Whatever, I've decided it's over and done with, and to forget it.

The political situation here hasn't affected me as yet. The Vietnamese, who don't: seem able to stop fighting, still haven't a complete hold on Cambodia. (Though after Pol Pot and the Khymer Rouge one wonders what there's left to hold.) There are various insurgents (Communist and Whastnot, especially the latter) in Thailand, but Vietnam is so far, it seems, not in a position to aid any of them. The Thai government is so corrupt that many people will welcome a change. (This is the real reason why Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fell -- corruption, not ideology.) But I don't see this as becoming a problem here for the immediate future, and by then it's possible other factors will come to dominate considerations -- China, famines, who knows.

So it goes.

Letter 3.36

2008-09-16T06:17:00.001+01:00

In Thailand, I've noticed, dust pans have long handles on them (unlike in the States) so that one doesn't have to bend down when sweeping up the dust. The brooms, however, all seem to have short handles on them (unlike in the States) so that one does, after all, have to bend down when sweeping up the dust (just like in the States).

The Immigration Department no doubt sees the wisdom of it all, for they have said that they will consider my application for an extended visa and to report back to them in 30 days. In the meantime they committed me to a firm address (even a P.O. box wouldn't do, which, in any case, costs and doesn't leave much leg room). That'll be the hermitage in Kaeng Pan Dow, a place that pleases me, and since I expect someone will be checking up on me (though they haven't yet, not that I know of), it's probably a good place to be.

Letter 3.35

2008-09-15T06:36:00.001+01:00

After breakfast, last Thursday, I walked out to the road, and before I could set down my rucksack I picked up a ride north to Thaton, the end of the road, north of Pang. At Thaton the river Kok flows east past Chiang Rai, and into the Mekong. I took a river boat to Chiang Rai, through some swift rapids, past jungle with small tribal villages here and there -- 3 to 10 houses make up a village -- for a 3,5 hour trip.

Chiang Rai, the 3rd largest city in Thailand, is not much more than an overgrown village pumped up with a few government facilities and offices. The main streets are not clogged with cars and motorbikes. A quiet and comfortable provincial place by all appearances. In the morning I took a bus east to Chiang Saen, a 40 mile 2 hour ride to the end of that road.

Chiang Saen is an ancient capital, but today it's just a town at the end of the road at the Mekong River with a few ruins. From there a dirt road parallels the Mekong and I went along it another 7 dusty miles to a village where the Mae Sai River joins the Mekong. Across the Mekong is Laos and across the Mae Sai is Burma -- both of them jungly hilly country. In Laos I could see a village. At night drums summoned the villagers to their nightly indoctrination meeting.

A party of trekkers arrived, with guide, at the same time as I did, to a collection of bamboo shacks that calls itself the Golden Village -- the only place to put up. The trekkers had been out 4 days going cross country to various remote villages. The usual intrepid band of odd travellers one encounters around unlikely bends of the world. That afternoon I joined them in a trek to a Laotian refugee village about 4 miles off, where we net the villagers and had a look around. The people of Chiang Rai, I'd thought, were the most attractive I'd seen in Thailand, but the Laotians were simply beautiful, fine, simple people. we were invited to stop for water at one of the houses, all very spontaneous, and with the guide translating there was a chance to ask them about conditions in Laos, what they've found in Thailand, etc. How they escaped, who they left behind -- it reminded me in many ways of the Tibetan refugees of Nepal, another very beautiful people.

I'm full of disorganized impressions, information, and tales of what is actually going on around here, and it's all quite astounding just how basic and difficult and dangerous a life they lead. (There's quite a bit of guerrilla activity in this area, not to mention out-and-out banditry by heavily armed bandits -- it's not rare for trekking parties to get held up, and once in a while people are killed or disappear.)

We lingered until we had to hurry back to return before dark, for in this neck of the jungle doesn't go about after dark -- there are not only guerrillas and bandits but also government patrols, Thai, Laotian, and Burmese, and one doesn't want to meet any of them. So after a bath in the Mekong -- at this point ¼ mile wide, muddy, and shallow -- we sat around a fire in the evening and swapped tales.

The next day I returned directly to Chiang Mai and then went out to U Mong, an artist colony/temple, where to sit myself for a bit. Galleries of paintings on Buddhist themes, some fine forest walks, and a gibbon who is very friendly and whose best friend is a puppy dog.