Letter 2.30

As the sun sets slowly in the west… Over the hills of Kandy, sweet and clear, a constant medley of chirps, whirrs, and other insect cries -- Ven. Ñānaponika's place, several miles outside the city, warm days and chill nights -- a panorama of weirdly shaped hills -- trees: jok, coconut, teak, mahogany -- a dazzling train ride up from Colombo -- cliffs, valleys, boulders, orange clouds, brisk air, autumnal. Walks in the forest (when dry; leechy when wet) around ponds. The city still retains a vestige of its former culture, but is very English-imbued.

The Temple of the Tooth: a great building, formerly the palace of the Kandyan Kings -- stone floor, sense of massiveness, drum and clarinet-like music -- piercing runs and trills against a thunderous rhythm -- also very solid and compelling so that one doesn't think just follows -- over a bridge across a moat -- up turnings of stairs -- into the heart of the sounds -- again through an ornate door opened by a guard -- up a narrow staircase -- with no idea where I was going, all very mysterious, adventurous -- suddenly in the center of the building, conducted through numerous doors and rooms, each with walls and ceiling covered with the Buddhist-Hindu admixture that forms the popular Sinhalese religion -- to a gold lame curtain -- people bustling about me with strange tasks -- jugs, silver, beaten and wrought, of water, trays of white flower petals, a strange unmonklike monk -- impossible to describe the whole thing because from first to last the entire atmosphere left me fascinated, exhausted, and above all bewildered. Finally led into a small room where, behind a cage of solid gold was a casket, dazzlingly bejeweled, of gold -- housing another casket, 7 caskets, and inside it the tooth of the Buddha, preserved (perhaps all the water-I couldntt help thinking, was for brushing it?). Everything very traditional –- piety and reverence with the collection plate inconspicuously (but unavoidably) close by (though I was not expected to make any offering).

A gentle old Cambodian monk I knew in Calcutta had summed it all up for me 3 years ago when he said, in a very kind, wistful voice, 'Very joyous and good -- but two tousand five hundred years -- dat pretty old for a tooth. I don't know. and he very gently shook his head, very quietly, and just a little bit doubtfully.

Both much more and no more than I expected to find. I'm glad I went.

To be more (or less?) prosaic, I left the Hermitage on the 17th, the day after the Kathina ceremony, for Colombo, spent the night at Vajirama and the next day took the evening train to Kandy, where I am briefly the guest of Ven. Ñānaponika, an elderly German (ex-Orthodox Jewish) who has a small bungalow which he calls the Forest Hermitage where he engages himself in propaganda activities as head of the Buddhist Publication Society), and dreams sad dreams. When I leave Kandy, whenever that may happen to be, I shall head toward Matale District to visit Ñānasiha, a young German monk who engages in no propaganda at all and who dreams happy dreams and who is living on a coconut estate with an elderly Yugoslavian monk, an ex-professor of philosophy, the nature of whose dreams I don't know, and after that I shall probably continue northwards toward Anuradhapura and Polonuruwa, possibly with Ñānasiha, possibly not. There, I'm told, is the test weather in Ceylon at this time of year, If either the weather or the time if year change before I get that far then I shall head for wherever the climate is best at the next time of year. I refuse to commit myself even to the extent of carrying a map. Like the smoke of burning incense, I shall drift the way of the breeze. (Howzat for writin', huh?)

Letter 2.29

Our monkey has been removed to the mainland -- just as he was getting used to his surroundings here -- and, I hear, has had to go through the whole business of readjustment once again. Anyway, he won't be back here again, even though he was finally a pleasant fellow to have around. But I expect I'll be seeing quite a few monkeys again, since I am planning on taking a bit of a trip out around Ceylon -- which, after all, I have yet to see -- starting from Kandy.

Well, Werner, a German seeking ordination, came in for a chat. He is very unhappy and makes himself unhappier by worrying about his unhappiness. Perhaps that's what he wants -- strangely enough, people do tend to act in ways that hurt themselves -- in a sense, perhaps we're all secret masochists -- but since I don't let Werner's unhappiness make me unhappy I don't mind him stopping by. Finally, he left just before the bell rang for evening chanting. I expect -- as I began to write you some hours ago -- to be going first up to the Kandy area and then going wherever the wind doth blow fair. But I shall not be leaving until the second half of November, in order to be here for the Kathina ceremony, which is held shortly after the end of Vas, and is the annual giving of robes, and will be on the 17th of November this year -- not because I particularly need a new robe, but because it would simply be politie.

I don't know quite what to say about your 'lecture' that might be of use. Of course, from your point of view you are quite right, but everyone has his own viewpoint, and it would be foolish for any of us to assume that the viewpoint of anyone else must be the same as ours. Naturally, I would like to do what would please you; but if the price be to give up the only way of life I have ever found acceptable and to adopt a way of life which makes me miserable, then I would be doing the same as Werner, wouldn't I? Of course, I am not seeking a utopia -- a perfect society -- which we know is impossible (and I had any dregs of the possibility knocked out of me in Israel). I'm simply trying to get rid of various hang-ups that I've picked up which are a source of dissatisfaction. You speak of the arts of music, painting, literature, etc., which are all fine; I am practicing the art of living. I try to shape my life so that it is ethically and aesthetically pleasing by molding a blend of such factors as graciousness, softness, equanimity, compassion, honesty, and the like. Anyone who wishes to do or create anything will naturally seek conditions which are best suited to his work and to avoid as much as possible any unnecessary distractions. So too with me. I don't reject the world, or curse society, or blame anybody: I am simply not interested. My work, the work I consider worth doing, lies elsewhere. If I gave it up and adopted a way of life that would make me miserable, then, like Werner, I would inevitably communicate my misery to others -- to you -- and that would likely make you miserable as well; so what good has been achieved?

Probably I've said nothing much that would help you, and if I were to go on restating the same thing in still other terms, it would be unlikely to be of further help. But I am not arguing with you: I am willing to accept you whatever you are, or wear, or do, or say, because I love you and above all else you are to me my parents, who did more for my welfare than can be comprehended at a sitting. But to act contrary to my own most basic needs and goals would be nothing more than a betrayal of the care and love you have given, and would not in fact be a good thing and would not, in the end, make anyone happy, better, or wiser. What more can I say?

Letter 2.28

As regards the book publishing, I have more or less cut myself off from any further editorial work (one purpose of my Colombo trip was to cut those strings); it's simply not very important to me since the whole project has nothing to do with my reason for being in Ceylon (although the contents of the work have a great deal to do with my being here). Anyway, there is no reason to regret having dropped another project (another hang-up), since it is another step forward in my project of dropping projects (which project itself will necessarily be the last project to be dropped).

Our monkey -- a young black-faced (silver-furred) male which was dumped on the island several weeks ago by an unknown party -- is tied to a post now, since he became rather aggressive: alone and apart from his tribe among strangers this was understandable, but, as he attacked several people, he had to be tied-up. (I was sitting down, minding my own business, when he came up behind me and jumped on my back. He didn't bite, but his claws tore my robe. He has bitten a few people, though never seriously and seemingly more from nervousness than from anger, more from fear than aggression.) Anyway, tied-up now, he is very peaceful, and will allow himself to be scratched and fed bits of food -- but is very fussy about what he eats. He will eat the light part of bread if it has been dipped in milk-tea, but will not eat the crust; he will not eat some fruits, nor rice (and I know that his wile brothers love rice) -- all in all a still rather neurotic monkey who would probably be better off if he were taken back to the mainland and left to rejoin his own people -- but that is not within my province to do anything about.

Letter 2.27

I was presented a few days ago with an enormous bag of peanuts, so right now I'm stuffed full of nuts -- I've been eating them all morning -- and a bit lethargic. And -- soon now the lunch bell will ring -- I've been so stuffed on peanuts that at the past few regular meals I've been a bit off ma feed, paw.

An Indonesian monk arrives here a few weeks ago – young -- but left a few days ago. Seemed afraid of the life here, always carrying a tremendous club about with him to protect himself, he said, from snakes. (In the 2,5 years I've been here I've seen -- on the island -- only 3 or 4 poisonous snakes altogether -- I frequently see a 6 feet long non-poisonous and non-aggressive rat snake -- and I don't think anyone's ever been bitten by a snake here.) Very strange that Asians, who live so much closer to the jungle, are so much less able to adapt to it than Westerners.

Also a day or two ago someone dumped an unwanted and partly tamed monkey on the island (the island is a convenient dumping ground for the village's unwanted animals: cats and dogs are constantly being dumped; but so far as I know this is the first monkey) -- black faces with silver grey fur -- apparently still young – who accepts an occasional banana and occasionally allows himself to be handled, but is also a bit too wild and will probably be removed (most of the animals dumped here are dumped right back on the mainland, else we would be overrun with them; and this is a hermitage, not a menagerie) before it takes to bounding into the kutis and breaking up the tile roofs.

Some nights I take the rowboat out into the lagoon and drift about for a few hours. Other nights I stay in my little park. Daytime, however, my park has become more of an arena: the mongoose sometimes catches one of the beautiful noisy white birds that are nesting hereabouts and drags its body I don't know how far up to the park where he putters about with it. Iguanas who happen along the path smell the body and come trundling after the scent, whirring their throats in a strange mechanical gurgle-growl, rolling from side to side slightly as they walk like some mechanical toy, their incredibly long blue forked tongue flicking in and out constantly. They have what appears to be a seam along the side of their hide and, altogether, seem to be contrivances rather than living beasts. But they follow the scent up past the kuti to the park, where there generally ensues a cold war of threat/counter-threat for possession of the field and the bird. Eventually, a second iguana may show up by which time the struggle will turn into a free-for-all. The park is strewn with loose feathers. I shall have to discourage the mongoose from bringing his lunches up here.