© Path Press – Archive of AKALIKA FORUM – nanavira.top-talk.net 1 'Ven. Nanavira Thera for beginners' by Jack on Tue 8 Dec 2009 - 4:39 Hello there I was wondering if you helpful fellows could please explain to me in lay man's terms what are the key doctrinal differences espoused by Venerable Nanavira Thera. The subheading of this forum says "An alternative approach to the Dhamma" Is there some way this alternative approach could be explained? metta Jack
by acha on Tue 8 Dec 2009 - 14:22 Hi Jack, I was hoping someone else would answer your request but perhaps I will give you something in the meanwhile………… The first thing I would say (which might seem like an easy cop-out) is that no-one can explain themselves as well as Nanavira himself. So my best advice to you would be to read his Letters (especially those after 1960) and the Notes on Dhamma. Then it is a matter of seeing if anything resonates with you. Perhaps it will and perhaps, like for many people, it won’t (or at least not especially). Maybe Nanavira will then join the list of all the other writers who give you something (however small) and who then get forgotten. However if you want an introduction before delving further then I offer these thoughts as to why Nanavira’s approach to the Buddha’s teachings can still be seen as ‘alternative’: One reason is probably historical. Nanavira was a monk in the 50s and 60s in Ceylon in what seems to have been a rigidly hierarchical and conservative culture. He and his friend Nanamoli kicked against the system. Nanavira went so far as to dismiss all Buddhist commentary, claiming instead that he would trust his own direct experience
© Path Press – Archive of AKALIKA FORUM – nanavira.top-talk.net 2 'Ven. Nanavira Thera for beginners' as to what was relevant and what was not in the Buddhist canon. This caused ructions and was seen as radical at the time. Nanavira introduced Western philosophical thinking into his approach to Buddhism. This included the continental Existential approach in particular but (in his earlier correspondence with Nanamoli) also involved the Anglo-American analytical-logical approach and quantum physics (albeit critically). In my experience no-one else has done this in anything like the depth that Nanavira does. Sure, Buddhism is now commonly linked with New Age thinking and humanistic psychology but Nanavira went a lot deeper and made many more fascinating linkages – which no-one else has done. Nanavira (who was aware of this himself) tends to polarize people – you seem to either love him or loathe him. This is probably inevitable to an iconoclast like Nanavira. However Nanavira’s approach to the Buddha’s message seems to particularly polarize people. There is a good article on Nanavira by Stephen Batchelor (linked to the NTDP site) where he makes the point that contemporary Buddhism is generally a life-affirming, pantheistic, ‘green’, loving and positivistic philosophy – hence its attraction to modern corporations etc. Nanavira’s approach (and he would claim the true message of the Buddha) is however contrary to each and every one of these points – hence Nanavira is accused of being negative, cynical, and advocating suicide, making him an unattractive product to try to sell in the spiritual marketplace! Then there is the matter of Nanavira’s life and death – and the detached, analytical way he describes these in his writings (in particular his suicide). All of this is inextricably linked with his personal approach to Buddhism. For many people, this is off-putting. I can understand this, but would counter by suggesting that it is in fact liberating and inspirational (however challenging). Here is a man who treats his own life as one more thing to be discarded when it has no further use for him. Something to think about if nothing else. Related to this is the still-controversial matter that Nanavira makes it quite clear (in a way that I believe is still unique) that he made some achievements on the path towards enlightenment. For people like me, this is then evidenced in his subsequent writings which have an authority and authenticity that marks him as ‘different’ from other people. There are no other recent figures or writers that I can say this of – which is not to deny that they exist but only to emphasize how rare they must be. Leaving aside the dispute (going on even this year on other Buddhist websites) about whether Nanavira actually made these attainments, there are the insights he offered,
© Path Press – Archive of AKALIKA FORUM – nanavira.top-talk.net 3 'Ven. Nanavira Thera for beginners' and the behaviour he exhibited that cannot be denied and which a person has to study before they can dismiss Nanavira. Pulling all these things together, Nanavira will probably only ever mean something to a small number of people. For these people, he may be a troubling rather than a consoling figure who constantly challenges one to strive harder to understand and attain the Buddha’s message. His approach is also a liberating one in that it leads inevitably to a person becoming more and more detached from all the ‘normal’ attractions and attachments of everyday life. This can be problematical as other people may not like the changes they observe and may criticize you for being cold, aloof, cynical, unambitious etc. However it is inevitable if one is to progress in developing the insights of Nanavira, enabling one to see the structure of your life and experiences, itself so necessary if the Buddha’s path is to be achieved. Does any of this make sense or help? Regards, Acha
by acinteyyo on Fri 11 Dec 2009 - 21:06 I second that. The best would probably be to read the "Notes on Dhamma" first, and to make ones own experience. I think Ven. Nanavira's aproach to the Dhamma is way too complex to explain it in short. I'm sure that would just lead to misinterpretation. best wishes, acinteyyo
by nirodha on Sun 13 Dec 2009 - 16:25 I agree that Nanavira's views on the Dhamma cannot be described in a few sentences. When I firstly read the 'Notes on Dhamma' I didn't understood much of them what he wanted to say. Reading the 'notes' (and also the letters) over and over again made it clearer and clearer. Even by now I sometimes find phrases whose meaning I understand only now.
© Path Press – Archive of AKALIKA FORUM – nanavira.top-talk.net 4 'Ven. Nanavira Thera for beginners' On my way to understanding Nanavira (do I understand him, really?) a little book was very helpful for me. It was "The Buddha’s Teaching — Its Essential Meaning" by R.G. de S. Wettimuny, 1969, Gunasena, Colombo. Unfortunately it is out of print and out of sell in english language. A translation into german language is available for free as .pdf-file and as book (for production cost). In german it is called "Die Lehre des Buddha und ihre wesentliche Bedeutung" and can be downloaded here: http://www.dhamma-dana.de/buecher.htm#wettimuny ("acinteyyo" and "MN" may know it?) Whenever Nanavira is to complex for me I have a look at Wettimuny and mostly it will become clearer to me. R.G. de S. Wettimuny had correspondence with Nanavira (L.35-38). Nanavira told him that (from his point of view) some of Wettimuny's views were wrong. Thereupon Wettimuny corrected his views and wrote "The Buddha’s Teaching — Its Essential Meaning", which includes Nanavira's teachings in a more comprehendible form. Does anybody know if the english edition of "The Buddha’s Teaching — Its Essential Meaning" is in any form still available (print, digital)?
by Mathias on Sun 13 Dec 2009 - 16:54 Dear nirodha, yes I know "Die Lehre des Buddha und ihre wesentliche Bedeutung". Many typos (in the German translation), but apart from that I think it's a good book worth reading. Best wishes, Mathias
by Khalotus on Sun 13 Dec 2009 - 20:12 Didn't the Venerable Nanavira himself recommend reading Heidegger's Being and Time as an orientation to his way of thinking?
© Path Press – Archive of AKALIKA FORUM – nanavira.top-talk.net 5 'Ven. Nanavira Thera for beginners'
by nirodha on Mon 14 Dec 2009 - 11:58 Yes, but he emphasised that Heidegger was a puthujjana and had no solution for the problems he described. It was Heidegger's way of thinking that was instructive for him. [L.107]. And Being and Time is not easy to read and understand, see L.116 But he (Heidegger) is really first class: once I can discover through his rather difficult language (which translation does not make any easier) what he is actually saying then I find him beautifully perspicacious. Sartre has criticized him in many places (though he is very greatly indebted to him), but I now find that nearly always Heidegger is in the right (naturally, within the limits of the puthujjana's field). In a general way, if I had to name any single Western philosopher who could profitably be read as affording a way of approach to the Buddha's Teaching, I would choose Heidegger (but not in his later writings—only Being and Time). I do not mean that the Buddha's Teaching is a continuation or development of Heidegger's; by no means; but rather that Heidegger clears the ground for all those misconceptions that can be cleared away—indeed must be cleared away, if they are present—before a start can be made on the Suttas. Of course, I now find it not so excessively difficult going because I have already spent much time over Sartre and have read two separate summaries of the book, and probably I tend to under-estimate the difficulties that it presents to a reader approaching it with no knowledge at all of what it is about. And also, it may well be that I tend to over-emphasize the importance of a philosophical approach to the Suttas; but I do think that, if one is not able to get a living teacher who can give the necessary guidance and orientation, a consideration of some of these existentialist thinkers can be helpful. If one is aware that Heidegger described only the problems and has access to his diction then Heidegger may be a good choice to understand that what Nanavira wanted to say. Best wishes
© Path Press – Archive of AKALIKA FORUM – nanavira.top-talk.net 6 'Ven. Nanavira Thera for beginners' by Khalotus on Mon 14 Dec 2009 - 17:29 There have been a great many books written on Being and Time since the Ven. Nanavira's day, some very good. (I'd recommend Hubert L. Dreyfus' Being in the World: A Commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time, Division I .) It's important to focus on the early Heidegger of Being and Time, and not the later more obscure Heidegger (though even some of his later ideas are worthy of thought, even if they aren't applicable to the Dhamma.) Merleau-Ponty is another anti-Cartesian phenomenolgist worth learning about. I personally like the Ven. Bodhesako's essay on change: there's a lot going on in that little book. I'm not qualified to know whether he fully understood what the Ven. Nanavira was getting at, but he does elaborate on an interpretation of the Dhamma that I find credible -- at least more credible than any others that I've come across.
by nirodha on Mon 14 Dec 2009 - 18:07 I fully agree. A very good description of that what we call change/ impermanence and what's the meaning of the impermanence that the Buddha taught. As Ven. Bodhesako's wrote: Each of us must see for himself what it is that he is blind to. That blindness — so the Buddha’s discourses repeatedly assert — is involved centrally with our failure to see, to know, the nature of impermanence. And yet in our own experience everywhere we look we see that things are indeed impermanent. If the Buddha is correct then what have we missed? [...] So it is clear at once that the Buddha’s Teaching, if it means anything at all, must mean something other than this by the term “perception of impermanence.” What is that “other than this?” http://pathpress.wordpress.com/bodhesako/change/ best wishes