[Early March 1960]

Colony Motor Hotel

3250 Euclid Ave

Cleveland 15, Ohio

Dear Jack;

In one sense I have no time to write but this is such a crazy city that I cannot withhold sending impressions. I do not mean to say it is really “crazy” excepting that it does not follow patterns, and at the same time it is utterly a slave to patterns. If your brother were here he would probably accept immortality because such a place has no room in his private philosophy or in the private philosophies of a lot of other people who have different private philosophies.

The top of the social scale reminds me of Hollywood in the Chaplin period with the very wealthy and even the very eddies strong for Soviet Russia. I was shown recently USSR with copies of articles concerning the longshoremen of S.F. whom I have met personally. The difference is that here it is the capitalists who are for Russia and who read the magazine.

At the opposite end we find refugees from Hungary, Slovakia, etc. etc. who are fairly strict Catholics and severely strict anti-Russians and who work in the steel and other mills. You might understand how this State could send a Lausche to the Senate on the Democratic ticket and the head of the Republican Party is the highest paid labor lobbyist.

As this city sprawls, running East-West you have to go long but linear distances from here to there. I am slightly on the East Side. Off the main thorough fares you find nothing but colored people. I never heard much about this in Cleveland. I knew all about the Middle-East Europeans, but this city seems to have far, far more refugees from Dixie than either New York or Detroit. In Detroit there is an area, say 5 miles square (not 5 square miles) and beyond that the Balkan people on one side and the Poles on the other. But here you can go and go and the only Whites I ran into spoke Yiddish, and it was not a New York Yiddish either.

Of course you can better understand in this maze or miasma of unsanity that the Adenauer-Ben Gurion meeting would be almost impossible in New York and almost un-impossible here—it would be a typical Cleveland-like gesture. But the hostilities here are not against Russia or Germany but against the South. This is a fairly well integrated city and the college students are pretty unanimous against the South. This may even react against Lausche who is timid in such matters—the young here are not timid. They might welcome both a Adenauer and Khrushchev but if anybody came from South Africa, it would be impossible to prevent rioting.

The newspapers are amalgamated and blow both hot and cold and neither hot nor cold at the same time. Today’s paper has articles proving we are far ahead of Soviet Russia in science and we are far behind them, too. This is possible because the papers, amalgamated, are very, very long; and the writers, neither of them scientists of course, do not give a single objective example of anything scientific in either country. This means the rousing of ignorant emotions, but I doubt whether the papers have the influence here that they might have in New York City. There they must be hot or cold or else.

It has been fluctuating between 0 and 30, not too cold for me, but the snow does not melt and so one cannot size up districts too much. There does not seem to be much poverty but on the other hand the general standard of living does not seem so high. The down town is restricted and there are resemblances to Los Angeles and Tokyo and not to San Francisco or Philadelphia or even Detroit in this. Shopping centers are scattered.

I have not yet been able to contact the cultured groups. My own contacts run roughly 2/1 White and all Americans—no refugee types yet, not even from the South, the colored peoples having long established themselves here. They are rather pro-Gana and pro-Guinea but here, too, the Whites are not opposed to this outlook and have rather a benevolent attitude toward the rising African States. There was a big meeting on this 1st night but I could not go as I was with old (and very true) friend. I shall, however, check on this as soon as possible. But even in serious discussions the White people hope that it will be possible to improve the soils of West and Tropical Africa, and this interest is unusual. California looks to Asia, New York to Europe and I suppose if I sent a report of this to “The Nile” on Grant Avenue they would eat it up. Men like Gunther are very popular in the circles I have contacted, but again these are restricted circles. I have not yet met any Roman Catholics here.

I have not had much time for research but find my way entirely clear. I expect to visit Michigan University soon as my friend, Dr. Park is there, who is an expert on the village life in South Asia generally. I want to reach the World Affairs Council here before I make that trip.

Both the news and magazine reports indicate a tremendous rise in Japan and West Germany, both far outstripping either Russia or the US. in certain fields. Japan’s greatest increase is in shipping and in a week they will be opening a shipping line here! And there are very few of them here. There is a small Chinese section which I have not visited, practically no Asians of any type—just a few scattered individuals. And even some anti-Asian feelings due to presumable aid to certain corrupt governments in that part of the world.

The Finch Case got plenty of publicity here; what is going on in the world does not get in the news. Editorials would be good but editors often give opinions and fairly fine opinions on events which they have failed to report! I think this is typically American and pretty awful.

I am not starting any diary but will when I visit the universities. Most important, will be going to Columbus (Ohio State) next month. It is curious that this university and our own Cal. which do so much in the biological sciences are in the headlines—because of their basket ball teams. Against that, surprisingly, there are efforts being made in Cleveland to encourage students to go to school to learn something! We beat Russia in basketball and hockey but not in much else.

Cordially,

Sam

1088 Fulton St.

San Francisco 17, Calif.

17^th April, 1963

My dear Jack:

On: The Buddhist Encyclopedia and other matters.

Last week I went to the village of Mendocino about 300 miles to the North and spent four lovely days with friends and artists who have established a colony there, yet unspoiled. The previous artist, now arts colony is to the South of here and Mendocino is to the north. At the former place you can hear a lechers adulterer lecture on Zen or Buddhism or Cosmic consciousness; or one of your fellow countrymen by birth tell us what drug produces what samadhi. The respectable people go and go now in large numbers because there is no question that in this region the prevailing religions are on the downgrade.

The surprising good time contrasting with years of difficulty caused me to change a method of living. Now the interpretation I have of the crucifixion is that it means the full an-atta life. I therefore resumed a practice I learned from Sokei-an Sasaki of anatta in everyday life, and the abandonment of effort and especially the aiming at success.

The first thing that happened was in going into Fields book store—where you can buy an assorted number of books on Zen and Buddhism written by people from almost every country in Europe and a few Americans. Up to this time there was none by any Russian and I saw one by a Russian, which I purchased immediately: Buddhist Logic by T. Stcherbatsky, perhaps the one man on the whole continent I really respect.

Sometimes I feel like establishing on Arya Dharma Society devoted to anatta, anicca and dukha. It is certain that as mushroom organizations and anti-social speakers are offering all kinds of things called “Buddhism,” the contemporary discoveries in physics and cosmology are sustaining this Arya Dharma no end, just as the previous work in Genetics, Biology, etc. did. And later on I hope to review the Buddhist Logic for you, for I feel it will apply to contemporary physics and psychology, and Psychology, and equally will not apply to much which is offered as “Buddhism.”

I next received a report from Paul Reps who is now in Honolulu, which is enclosed. The receipt of this activated prajna—and I suddenly changed plans and went to the meeting of the combined Bhinest Buddhists, excepting the Fung group. It was well I did.

Wesak Day. In my absence the Soto Zen group took over the celebration of Buddhists birthday according to the Japanese calendar. I am told it was the largest gathering ever in this vicinity, which confirms my statement that the prevailing religions are going down and people are seeking. Sensei Suzuki is going to Japan, and I’ll find out more later.

It is very curious that while Paul Fung is the vice-president of the International Buddhist Congress, all the other Buddhist groups have united to some extent here and have joint meetings of all kinds. Leslie Lowe of Los Angeles died in my absence—I have known him for a long time, but not too well. Iru Price has taken his place and here I am more fortunate than you, for the mehta which existed between Phra Sumangalo and myself continues now in this Sangha, so to speak and I have the same feeling both without reason and without ego to Price, Wagner and Goode here.

There is compromise Wesak festival to be celebrated here in San Francisco on May 5, and it is hoped even vice-president Fung may attend. All the other Buddhist groups—Chinese, Japanese and Caucasian, are reuniting, and I think this is remarkable and the dream of Dwight Goddard, so to speak, has come true. I have volunteered to help and was put on the program.

This is amusing to me because again I have been given the brush-off by the Americans and the professors. But now my relations with all the Chinese Buddhist groups is excellent and they recognize me as the representative of Phra Sumangalo, as the agent for “The Western Buddhist” and my own right.

Next week the program will be in the hands of the Neo Dhamma Society which is trying to revive a Sangha-less Tipitaka Buddhism, with a combination of morality (badly needed), contemporary culture, and, alas dialectics. Americans simply cannot face anatta, anicca, and dukha and they want to be Buddhists and I want to face anatta, anicca, and dukha regardless of any appellation.

In the course of the service Iru held up the first fascicule of the Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Well, I have waited forty years, and “Je l’ai, or “Eureka” or whatever you want.

One looks over the Advisory Board and the Board of Honorary Editors with some (not too much) satisfaction. Humphreys is there and Daisetz Suzuki is not. Edimann is not there and there are more articles by one H.G.A. van Zeyst than anybody else. He appears to be a linguist and a dialectician, so business is back at the old stand.

In the section on the “Absolute” Brother Van Zeyst has abstracted Buddha right out from India and made him a good nineteenth century German. However he has fairly successfully handled the whole thing from an an-atta point of view. This is followed by a longer and finer historical article by one Yoshiro Tamaru who tells us all about Buddhism and then plunks right back to Hegel. No more Samadhi, no more meditation and of course, no Prajna!

Finally there is another article on the “Absolute” by one Andres Bareau, translated into English. He puts the Absolute of Buddhism back where it belongs, not to Hegel, nor to reviewers abstractions from a lot of nonsense, but to the four noble truths and the Udana and he quotes the Udana and after reading a mass of speculation, you have it in clear language, in language also that I believe is accepted by all true followers of Arya Dharma: “There is, O monks, a non-born, non-arisen, a non-made, a non-compound, for if there were no non-born, no non-arisen, no non-made, no non-arisen, what is made, what is composed.”

The article by Bareau is much shorter, more succinct and more apt.

I may give a partial letter review of this fascicule. But h t I am concerned with, is have you either this or the Buddhist Logic is above?

Sunday I go the Universal Church. They are announcing themselves as the “Pristine Dharma” and at the same time using the Diamond Sutra and the Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch which, whatever else may be said, are anything but “pristine.” Fortunately on May 5 somebody is giving the main Sermon on “The Life of the Buddha.” We have had 5-11 speakers—probably more on “Zen,” “Buddhism,” “Cosmic consciousness,” and nobody has spoken in English on the Buddha.

Theologically I don’t care but psychologically I do and here there is a growing amount of delinquency, promiscuity and vileness, for which the churches have no answer. At the same time there is growing interest in the practice of meditation. The “Yogis” are too concerned with postures and the Soto people so far are too “Orthodox”—i.e. they do not take into consideration the difficulty facing Americans who cannot do lotus-posture.

Incidentally I now have so much material on the lotus that I shall have to cut down rather than otherwise in my book. The people in Mendocino wish to print part of it as re-view material.

This is good surprise.

Faithfully,

Samuel L. Lewis

50 Harriet St.

San Francisco 3, Calif. 8

October 8, 1963

My dear Jack:

You will mind enclosed an article which appeared in yesterday’s paper, in re: Pual Fung. I am writing to you for write different reasons, however, as you shall see.

a. Mme. Nhu is preparing to come here and the communists and follow-travelers are preparing to take over the demonstration. There are, at the moment, an increasing number of people attending Buddhist meetings and they certainly have in common reprehension of what is taking places in South Vietnam, and elsewhere. I am preparing to see James Wagner soon and will be guided by the wisdom. But I shall also contract other Buddhist leaders.

b. “China World,” the editor of which is a very good friend of mine, has been taking “queezy” view of the Fungs and would like to get them out in the open. It is peculiar situation. Paul Fung is Vice-President of the World Buddhist Federation and is not recognized as such by our officials, government or institutions. And on the other hand there are three loose federations of Buddhists here. One is the Fungs, another is the Japanese group that includes previously but not now, all the Japanese; the third is the loose federation of those who followed, in a sense, Phra Sumangalo or Dwight Goddard, or both, etc. Both of the latter have held religious meeting. Their relations are nebulous: the Nichirens, partly in protest no doubt, have cooperated with the federation now headed by Harold Priebe, in which Iru Price has been active. The Vietnam situation may bring them all together, “China World” hopes so, but I have not seen Paul Fung in conferences.

c. There is often a complete lack of “The Three Jewels” at some of the American meetings. But here is no use to protest unless one translates the Jewels into actualities. Therefore, in view of vows, I am inclined to go along with Jimmy, and will report later. As Buddhists have a tendency to meet on Tuesday night when I go Mudra class I cannot work with them much, and on Wednesday night I go to school. So I often debate on Sundays.

d. There was suddenly a large gathering at Master Too Lun last Thursday and I suspect these came from the Federation. All of them showed interest in both lecture and mediation. But Sunday an entirely different group showed up—they looked like the “Beatnik Zens” and only one stayed to the end.

e. The translation work of Too Lun simply substantiates what we have been holding: the phony Bodhisattvas: Watts, Humphries, and Suzuki, stand in the way of proper understanding of the Dharma. The Chinese do not tend to accept the Japanese anyhow, and Christian’s work has gotten mighty shellacing, as we way and I could not help smile for you in absentia. But this is in the interest of both honest scholasticism and true Dharma and not just against egos, excepting—against we both have held—that Buddhism is not a product of egos, no matter how famous, and that éclat stands in the way of enlightenment.

f. I am at the moment in a strange position. For the second time a Sufi Teacher has affirmed what are substantially Buddhist vows. One must write there is only one truth and the Eka-yana of the Buddhists is not different from the Tauhid of the Sufis which ends in ji-ji-mu-ge. This has compelled me to take some outer beatings, but it also does not regard these outer beatings as of the slightest import. The only one in question is that of the man who has been spreading ugly rumors about me, and who attends all the Dharma and Dhamma meetings which are concerned with letting off steam and not discussing Dharma. I am now occasionally taking with me my written credentials, but even if it is duplication I am going to have more pictures made of myself on Mount Takeo—you have the one with friends and self before the stupa of Lord Buddha. This was a grand adventure which might be dramatized. It was a real Holy Grail and no symbolism, and all symbolism together.

g. The above leads to the crux of the problem which seems to irk you about the Fungss. They are always speaking about Diamond Sutra. If so, what is Anagamin? Is it concept? Then they are talking nonsense. Is it percept? Then either Paul is Anagamin or they must point out Anagamin or the whole thing is nonsense, utter nonsense and we are back where Alan Watts was.

Now Anagamin is not one who is coming only “once more” but Anagamin is one who is coming “once more” under Karma. But the Bodhisattva may come many times and coming many times how can he ever have been Anagamin? For one does think, as Diamond Sutra says, Anagamin thinks yet if one says the vow as above is an Anagamin vow, not a Bodhisattva vow, it looks like a logical enigma; and it is a logical enigma, but not an enigma at all.

h. In the translation given by Master Too Lun yesterday which is so very different from Christmas Humphrey, “I” should say that not only Master Too Lun but even his similar disciples have a better view of true Dharma—and I say this is both simplicity and sincerity than the learned and worthy or unworthy C.H. Indeed it bore out your contentious more than all you words. The whole spirit is lost in the translation of Wei Leng (Eno) to very marked degree indeed. And here even the Fungs—and I guess all Chinese depart from both “Masters” C.H. and Daisetz-san.

i. Against back to the Sangha then. Mrs. Siguliev is the Oldest Buddhist Upasaka and she was thrilled by the Master. On account of “her” both Mrs. Lottie Fernandez and Sam go to meetings, but we are like one person. We are all old describes of Nyogen Senzaki and we all have objections to the three non-authorities on Dharma, or rather on those who laud “Buddhism” but omit mention of Dharma.

After the meeting Lottie told me of personality-worship that permeates so such “Buddhism” here and her meeting with Suzuki-san and Asahina in New York. Her report on Asahina was wonderful and so was old Nyogen in her last meeting.

j. There are several things to report about master Too Lun. To begin with those people who are protesting against Mme. Nhu quite overlook that Buddhists are often getting the same treatment in mainland China or in Vietnam, but they are not concerned.

The repercussions on his book—which I have not sent, causes me to smile. For, as I have said, he breaks all the rules laid down by meta-physicians and dilettantes. But in going to his meditation hall I definitely feel: Peace, Power, Bliss—this is in the Hall whether he is there or not. And I am hoping others feel.

But he is also against “Zen.” Now, Jack you hold a synthetic-integrative view about Buddhist school and methods and that is exactly the Master’s outlook. He keeps telling us that meditation is the method, not the goal and keeps on saying there are other methods. He believes for himself and for some others that meditation is the best way, but he recognizes the other methods as integral parts of Buddhism. Of course this may be a destination without a difference and better leave it there.

Will inform you concerning Mme Nhu and anything else.

Faithfully if not respectfully,

S. A. M.

October 3, 1964

My dear Jack:

This is written as if from Bodhisattva to Bodhisattva. If there are tinges of dualism in it, they are not to be taken too seriously. I was initiated into the path of Fudo in Japan, a matter taken most lightly here, though not quite so lightly as the Sutras which are not taken lightly as the Vinayas which are now on the index expurgate of a whole lot of movements in this country, each and all rivaling each other and each claiming to be presenting the Dharma. But before taking up the position of Fudo, or while taking up the position of Fudo, it is better to give some news and go into the most serious matter of Maitreya Buddha.

Last week we had the ceremony of acceptance of a Buddha statue from Thailand in Iru’s “Home of the Dharma.” There was a very satisfying address by Brother Eugene. There were also present a Korean monk about whom I may write at a later date and Dr. Neville Warwick who has been invested by both the Red Hats and the Soto Zen monks. And I could see now, regardless of all my wishes and desires that Iru has been pushed into somewhat independent efforts by facts, factors and circumstances which have nothing to do with spirituality.

I have tentatively proposed speaking on “Buddhist Masters I have met in San Francisco,” and I split the communication between the Maitreya them and that. I have presented Sensei Suzuki the Chinese version of the Prajna Paramita Sutra which you have reviewed; it has at least four fundamental differences from the version used in Sokiji Temple here. I am to see Rev. Suzuki this week but I now go with extreme indifference. I am presenting him with the Fung Translation of the “Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch.”

The establishment of Buddhist circles with the complete omission of the vast body both of literature and wisdom presents to me nothing but more circumstances in which karma will act and it will act exactly as it is set forth in the Sutra of Forty Two Chapters. According to the Dharma of Nyogen Senzaki, Buddha Maitreya was not so much a person (now our anatta disciples in Buddhism love personalities!) as the supreme state to which mankind might attain, living in this world either according to the Four fold Bodhisattvic Oath or Eighteen fold vow of Samantabhadra.

It is most fortunate that Brother Rickei has come forth with a real not stinking verbal non-dualism which is being accepted by the universities and which shall soon displace all the tripe of a lot of brand names whom you must not criticize before audiences which consider the Sutras secondary and the Vinaya as little better, if even so good as pornographic literature! This is not sarcasm. This is the way of life in a part of the world where “students in Buddhism” real “The Dharma Bums” and Henry Miller, but are all but frightened to read the Tripitaka.

Brother Neville has had ordination and training in both the Red Hat and Soto Schools (maybe more). According to the training from both Senzaki and the negative one of the Roerich School, he represents to me the “coming of Lord Maitreya.” He may be very far from Lord Maitreya but if so, it is according to the matrix of the Sutra of Forty-Two Chapters and not from any positive of negative ego value judgments.

The difference between the metaphysical and scientific people can be summed, in that the latter have ears and the former have not. If a stranger comes and offers teaching, we should listen to it. People who would not dare criticize their chemistry teachers, who have had experiences they have not had, criticize anybody coming from the Orient who have had valid experiences they do not have. And according to whatever I have gained, the Dalai Lama or anybody connected with him represent an incipient Lord Maitreya. And if the person is not the Lord, not withstanding, by the right receptive attitude one may himself advance to that grade of understanding or wisdom, following the vows mentioned above, by which he may and can save humanity.

There are so many Sanghas here, and I guess all over, who have few members who have studied Buddhist literature at all.  I have half of my acquaintances irked because of my devotion to the settling of food problems which is my fulfilling of the teaching of Jesus Christ—which has nothing whatever to do with the Christian religion. Not only that in all my scientific work, be it in programs, in literature or in laboratory research there is one thing outstanding, and that is the cyclic laws encountered are exactly the same as in the Sutras and Vinayas, long discarded. The principles of causation are most certainly found in the Nitrogen and Carbon cycles, ignored by the peoples of India, who are getting their own karma out of karma because they don’t understand karma at all.

And the solution of some of the problems of India is very simple—it is nothing but the adaption of a widened program of the Dharma as verbalized by Lord Buddha in his time, applied to other fields than that of anatta human personality.

Now you have always upheld the dharma transmissions in the forms they reached Tibet, and I am compelled both from reason and experience (outer rather than inner) to support you position. My “sixteen” fold dharma transmission, which may have a relation to the Eightfold Path, is based on the historical, hierarchal, and literary evidence if several forms of expression of Dharma, theoretically or actually given first to the advanced disciples of the Lord.

As the law of karma operates, all those intellectuals and pretenders who have given us ego or false versions of dharma are being removed from the scenes. The universities cannot stand for nonsense. The weakness of the universities is in the opposite direction, their adherences to literature and scriptures. At the moment I am being welcomed more and more by the universities which for wise or ignoble reasons wish to relate religions to the scriptures thereof.

I am shortly going to Berkeley, site of the University of California, to see the new instructor in Indian cultures, as a sort of advisor. All that nonsense of professors and “experts” refusing to accept any real reports from me either on my outer experiences (meeting Masters) or my inner experiences (awareness of worlds or universes beyond “this”) is now reaping the simple natural moral results. And if our experts refused even the simplest reports, they have gone now only contrary to karmic righteousness, they are now being displaced and removed.

Taking Dr. Pandey to dinner last Friday week I found he was a devotee of Ramana Maharshi into which school I have been initiated—a fact rejected by and all “experts” who preach about morality (!). To my amazement Tuesday I received two copies of a new magazine they are publishing. I placed these in brother Neville’s hands because first there is an article by the Dalai Lama; and second, because I found this article extremely tenable. The Dalai Lama is in total opposition to the universal Buddhists who flock all over and reject each other. He has presented a positively valid, cosmic Universal Buddhism, and I can see—though I shall lose the and perhaps friendships, because I object to narrow sectarian people calling themselves, and deluding themselves that they are universal. One can have far more respect for the Nichiren-shu who make no pretense at being universal.

We have in this state a peculiar type of persons Home pseudo-spiritualis californius. They listen to delight of stories of the burning of sutras or Buddha-statues to make a fire. But breathe one word against (and I name them) Manly Hall, Yoga Yogananda and Jiddu Krishnamurti and you are out! But this magazine not only names them, it calls them to account and calls Gurdjieff even more to account for veiling the public against any sight of spiritual awakening. It has accepted—and no nonsense or pretense about it—all spiritual schools which have provided myself in the religious field as well as in the scientific field with sound allies and brothers.

A very humorous series of incidents had led to my credentials being accepted in another university in the southern part of the State where they are going to have a parliament of religions next year. As the World Congress of Faiths has become provincial, there are now three quasi-independent movements toward the actual study of religions, one in India; one in this country by historians and another by scientists. Nobody is going to get away any more with the empty phrases of “non-dualism,” “spiritual knowledge,” “satori,” etc., with some evidence of realities.

I understand more clearly every week why they told me at Kamakura I was two grades above Brother Daisetz. There is a lot more to it than that but I prefer to refer to L. Adams Beck. When I was young and we did not have Watts, Humphreys, Herrigel, Benoit, etc., etc. we did have L. Adams, Beatrice Lane and Alexandra David Neel (also Mrs. Rhys-Davids, the “expert”). The former three women evidenced Samadhi and the work respected them. No doubt we had to have “the cloud-men of non-Yamato” come and befog us so the sunrise would not be too terrific. But today the clouds are being dispelled.

I have proposed, half humorously, the game of “Bodhisattvic Musical Chairs” especially for those people who think that by rubbing bricks you can gain enlightenment—the common attitude today. At the Zendo when somebody mentioned Sokei-An I gave a cat’s yawn! Now in New York, to have done this would have been to be graciously received, but here when they study (?????) mondos and repeat this “Prajna” Paramita Sutra, not a single person reacted! So out with the koans and what have you?

Both as Fudo and Sam Lewis I don’t want to see Brother Warwick go the ways of Phra Sumangalo and Dwight Goddard; I want to see him live. It has taken years before I could present to Eugene a portion of the Dharma transmission from Nyogen Senzaki. To him, Brian, Iru, the few disciples of the original Zendo and now to Dr. Warwick I may present any dharma transmission as if they were brothers (or sisters) in Sangha, without any obligation. I think I can “unload” on Eugene and he will then understand the Prajna-Paramita Sutras more clearly.

What is called “enlightenment” today does not coincide with either the Buddhist art transmission or my own experiences or a large portion of the now discarded Vinaya. Churches are being established in which orthodoxies are being fixed. Rituals are being substituted for the dharma transmission. The Triratna and Pancha Sila are very heterodox and the vows practically unknown. Even Rev. Tobase gave the vows.

But the worry is no longer in my hands. I am pleased to see that Brother Neville has seen Bodhisattva Erdmann and has made the same conclusions I had years ago. My next step will be to take him some time to “the other Sam” who is in hiding and will not associate with “dharma-Bums,” who has very, very dim views of popular book writers’ and very high views of those who understand dharma. He too had to retire while the world, especially homo pseudo-spiritualis californicus, applaud book readers.

Brother Warwick’s main beef is against the low respect for Pancha Sila while mine is against the low respect for Triratna, which is the same thing. We are having extracts passed off as Buddhism—you know all the groups I have reported to you about, and these ease their consciousness by adopting the term universal.

With all its merits Sokiji Temple is so universal you cannot even bring up Sokiji! So how can you bring in Rinzai! And they are now giving out—and this has nothing to do with doctrine or upaya, a totally false history of Zen in America. The outcome can only be a fierce and very unnecessary rivalry between Rinzai and Soto. I reject that mere sitting in a certain posture produces a higher elevation of enlightenment. Many people become enlightened merely by coming into the presence of Lord Buddha. I could write books on “Samma Drishthi” but will not.

Besides the intellectuals, now at a very rapid rate, both at home and abroad, there is a gradual acceptance of this personality as a spiritual teacher. This will not be among friends and acquaintances, though I am now tacking a fierce social problem.

I do not get “Diamond Sangha” but these remarks harmonize with their conclusions, but remember this, is only the Fudo view. The Samantabhadra view is still to be given. At the moment I am no more assured of converting Buddhists (?) to Buddhist literature than Shaw was of converting banker’s clerks to socialism. But the younger people are more honest, so why bother.

Faithfully,

Samuel L. Lewis

October 22, 1964

My dear Jack:

This is a letter of the parting of the ways. In 1926 Nyogen Senzaki suddenly gave up everything and started a career of a homeless monk. Now your country has selected C.P. Snow to be the Ministry of Culture. There is a vast difference between those who experience and those who speculate, between those who know ant those who believe. Religion has been invariably based on “Believe and thou shalt be saved.” I do not know from what but as one looks over the world there is nothing but turmoil, dissatisfaction, distress in one direction and in another direction children play together, scientists meet together and during all the troubles in the Near East the Arab Cultural Center has not lost a meeting.

I have here two totally different sorts of experiences. When I went to the Forestry Division of the United States Department of Agriculture, they cancelled all appointments for me and I have still to see somebody in the Departments of Social Sciences and International Affairs at the University of California Berkeley. It does not matter because the corresponding departments at Los Angeles have already accepted my reports.

In a similar way I walked out on all the Buddhist groups. One does not mind sectarianism, one does not find over-emphasis, but excepting the Nichirens who admittedly are sectarian there is an over growing movement toward narrowness coupled with an even greatly zeal to call oneself “universal,” and all alike ignoring the laws of karma.

A resolution to walk out on society had an immediate reaction that suddenly I find myself a spiritual teacher with a small following not of “metaphysical old ladies” but aspiring young men. And three calls for “help”—honest, genuine calls for help—and they will get help, the nature of only one of them need concern this correspondence.

The strange behavior pattern that knowing the late Nyogen Senzaki as far back as 1920, excepting a few of his older disciples, nobody has ever come to me in doing any thesis on him and some persons were ever warned to keep away: and the refusal of even Zen friends to listen to any experience, or enlightenment not only of Kamakura, but even of Tsurumi, makes one question these totally separative Zen movements, one now preparing to call itself “Universal.”

I have joined two movements of cultural people, one for the historical study and the other for the scientific study of religions. In line with these I was able to go to Rev Eugene Wagner’s home and to a small group of five people—some of them heard for the first time in their lives the words of Lord Buddha! This is not nonsense. This is the world of 1964 when both the world and the WBF is caught in the clutches of samsara and taking to get out of samsaras by samsaric methods. I see this in each and all the religions, although in the wider domain of Hinduism there is a peculiar “out”—one which I do not wish to take.

The replacement of Europeans by Americans at some of our Universities in the Oriental Departments have led to induction of more Orientals and in the case of Indian Studies they want Indian Studies and not masses of German speculations of whomsoever. Not only that the leading professor today believes the experiences of moksha, mukti, enlightenment are possible and continuing—and he is right.

If one were to place an acorn and a young oak sprig near each other, would you say they are the same or different? If you have an acorn and the tree-shoot and finally the oak with many acorns. Are they the same or different? This shows that we do not understand the Vijnana or Integrative languages. The mathematician and engineers express their findings in terms of the Integral Calculus, the biologists have not, the psychologists certainly do not.

Jesus said, “ I am the vine and ye are the branches thereof.” Abdul Baba said,” People of the world you are as the branches of the tree and leaves of the branches.” This is the Integrative or Vijnana language. It has its own place, its own logic. Bertrand Russell disclaimed Aristotle and Korzybski followed him. “A thing cannot both be and not be” is silly. According to the analytical-Aristotelian knowledge we have a “truth” and when we come to the Integration it does not mean anything. St. Paul constantly used the Integrative language: the term “Catholic”—to which term we react—means the same thing. We translate it also “universal.”

People who talk liberty and freedom and self all were subject to the same hurricanes. In the face of danger we recognize the Vijnana, but in face of property we do not.

Dr. Suzuki—who was considered my inferior at Kamakura and is considered by the world as my superior—sets up Vijnana against Prajna. And by discarding Vijnana he lands back into analysis and thing-ness and personalisms and gets far away from prajna.

At the opposite extreme you heard on Sri Aurobindo and the Indian philosophy, and most certainly followers go to the opposite direction. They place Vijnana above analysis—in which they are correct. They are correct also both according to the actual teachings of the actual Upanishads—which I doubt you have ever heard despite all the courses at the American Academy of Asian studies—and they are in accord with modern sciences. But they are not in accord with Patajali or Buddha for they omit all reference to Samadhi, or Samyak, and of course to Satori.

It is very difficult to convince the world about the position of Vijnanavada which came to its fruition in Buddhism in Patriarch Vasubandhu and the Yogacara School, but here again, one is confronted by a lot of names—Watts, Saxton, Burns locally; and Aldous Hurley, Blofeld, Ames, Holmes, etc. whose words are accepted, whose writings are read and there is no recognition of the Yogacara teachings or anything but the self-of-Vasubandhu as a Patriarch, without even knowing what a Patriarch is.

Or we might come to Prajna and with Prajna, “ji-ji-mu-ge” Which is the tail of the dog, but not the dog. The history of Nyogen Senzaki deserting Kegon for Zen illustrates this.

But if spiritual strives studies some of the latest advances in sciences (not “science”), or scientists looked into Dharma they would see endless wonders even in “ji-ji-mu-ge” and Kegon, which, to me, is quite superior to Vijnanavada either of Vasubandhu or Aurobindo.

For it is now demonstrated in the laboratory under exact test conditions that all complex organisms—bodies of plants, animals and man, have potentially or actually all chemical elements. And it may even come to be—and we can do it even now, that there are measurements of the traditional Iron, Copper, Silver and Gold in the bodies and it may be found that Gold-assimilation is in proportion to spiritual development! This could be, you know; nobody has bothered about it.

Or again, we might even now measure electrical and light vibrations. Every body (two words) has some Potassium in it, but ordinary people and the press entirely ignore that Potassium gives out radioactive vibrations. And with the discovery of trace-elements in bodies, including the much discussed “Radioactive Strontium” we may be measuring these and other vibrations and may find significances in them.

This shows we must lay aside traditional logics. But despite the acceptance of the “wavicle” we do not accept the Buddhist logic of Dignana. We sometimes accept Daisetz’ attacks on Vijnana or Dr. Chaudhuri’s elevation of Vijnana while the above applications of Vijnana are ignored by both. And we thus are stuck with “names.”

If we study the flow of blood in the flesh we find that not only does the blood touch all organisms and makes no distinctions, there is even a supplementary blood system which stimulates the veins and arteries themselves. This brings us closer to ji-ji-mu-ge. And if we meditated on breath and breathing we could see that all sentient beings, not just human beings, partake of the same ocean-of-life. This is the external, but it is certainly real, much more real than common sense, or logic, or even Vijnana.

This book, Anthology of Zen combines Rinzai people with intellectuals. I do not know if any of the Japanese are disciples in Soto. But all my Roshis in Rinzai did not announce one most fundamental teaching from Kato’s Roshi at Tsurumi. You have heard me talk of my visits to some Zen monasteries—small audiences, but the external-transmission I have been unable to give out, silenced by the audience and the world and certainly not by Roshis.

It has only been after many years that I was able to give a portion of Senzaki’s teachings to a single person who was not one of his Sanghas. I studied with him for years and nobody even let me report. It does not matter, for the list of his teachings are in Anthology of Zen so far as words can be considered. And here we reach an impasse.

The Upanishads, which we do not study, set forth a universe of many grades, and planes and steps in evolution. We verbally mix them up. No mathematicians would confuse terms like +, -, Integral, differential, approach as a limit, transfinite, etc. They are all words but they don’t belong together. Each has its plane, its level. In the Upanishads there are more levels than human-analytical, Vijnana and Prajna, but all fit into either One Cosmos or what appears to be Duo-Cosmos. Even Plato knew that.

For purposes of communication we can call these Maya (measurable) and Paramita (immeasurable). What have they in common? Prajna!

Now we are still using words, and this does not mean the experience of grades and processes from one plane to another. But in Anthology of Zen there are the verbal skeletons of actual Dharma-transmission “from” actual Roshis by this “person,” accepting that he is a different person and ignoring for the while either “I am the vine and ye are the branches thereof” or ji-ji-mu-ge. Unless we get them all together we have not the Dharma.

As this fusion generally comes “in the hour ye think least the son of man cometh,” Zen is called “The Sudden School.” You can climb through all the grades and planes of Maya and yet get turned on the wheel. Although in the Upanishads (which we do not study) there is one outline of getting from Maya to Paramita, even as I showed you there is the “Primary of Breath,” and we look at the “Primacy of Breath” as a philosophical dictum and not as a medium or method which is certainly posited by the great Zen Schools, and also by other schools of transcendental mystical development.

You will be reading in the papers about an attempt toward “immortality” by freezing. You will not consider the possibilities or even the “truth” of immortality through and in the breath.

In writing “The Lotus and the Universe” I shall restrict myself to the actual training from actual Roshis and not with speculations of any. But this will include the Soto-transmission. Actually the step Soto-transmission is already in this paper to this point but it is not indicated as such.

I have shown Sensei the Chinese-Sanskrit version of Prajna-Paramita Sutra. It is the super-logical outcome of the Benares Sermon. If you can follow the stages in logistics from analytical, through integrational to Prajna, logically also you come to this sutra. The same Sanskrit terms are there almost as in a Paramita-syllogism if that were possible. But there are two differences between the form I received from Nyogen Senzaki and the form in which it is used at the temple. Both of these have been discovered by Dr. Warwick, definitely analytically and perhaps functionally, also. There are two functional differences, and in this sense I find the Rinzai superior to the Soto, but this is a bad use of the word “superior.”

There are terms which you find in scriptures common to Buddhism and Hinduism such as “Mantram,” “Dharani,” and even “Moksha.” They remain as terms. You get no idea of their levels, and whether they are static, dynamic, or transcendental words. And if you go deeper, you will find that all differences had with all persons in re Buddhism or Dharma has been because they both ignored those words and the possesses involved. And when Dr. Robinson came and took the opposite view, there was entire concordance.

I commend all the words of the Rinzai Masters in this book. Where there are “differences” with Soto, I commend the Rinzai teachings to the Soto, but also the Soto to the Rinzai, There is only one Dharma.

Samuel L. Lewis

May 8, 1966

My dear Jack,

In the name of the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. This is a very serious letter and it leaves you ample room for some decisions before I send out certain materials. I have a friend, Ted Reich, whose favorite cartoon is a monk stretching his arm to the ceiling and the caption is "Zen monks do not perform miracles." And what this letter is, is in a sense that miracles do perform Zen monks, if you wish to call me.

I had asked a teacher is she wanted some material on the German explorer Kempfer who was in Japan in the 17th century. A few days later two copies of "The Cat's Yawn" arrived and there was plenty of material, so much so that the book has been borrowed, which is what I wanted.

But the mere placing this book in my hands brought back to memory two of Sokei An's early lectures (I have reported this to you, don't you remember?). One of these was on the Ten Stages of Consciousness. It is on this point I find myself at variance with nearly all the groups calling themselves "Buddhists" and also one man has accepted the Truth here which is enough, but that is about all at the moment.

There is being arranged here a conference on LSD drugs and I wrote on this and one other subject (Vedic rituals). It is tiresome to be turned down constantly by ignorant people who will not admit that other people know much. So I pulled strings, but the director of the conference himself is a Buddhist. And today I received my card of admission (you have no idea how many times I have been turned down).

Last Sunday, at the end of the Wesak in Golden Gate Park I was surprised to learn that the late Nyogen Senzaki had left some lectures to be published and only three or four of us had permission to act as intermediaries. Five of these lectures should be combined with my autobiography ("Dharma Transmission").

As to the rest, when there is time I shall send you a list. But this brings up another subject which is very delicate and almost 100% nonsense. In class the other day when there was a discussion of "Buddhism versus Science" I said, "The subject of 'Buddhism versus Science' is valid but the subject 'Buddha versus Science' is not, for the spirit of Buddha was, among other things, also scientific." This was followed by illustrations.

"Buddhists," while advocating anatta do not recognize each other and scientists, while not claiming anatta, do. Buddha taught salvation through experience ("Work out thy salvation with diligence") and scientists demand experience. But you can get into a Sangha today without even accepting Triratna.

You can see why one has to go to the scientists and scholars with "The Ten Stages of Consciousness" and why I should prefer your decision if you wish this paper before it is submitted. There are today too many great scholars who claim to be "Buddhists" and some do not even accept Triratna.

In another class I was permitted to speak on "Esoteric Buddhism" to clarify some serious complications introduced by the late Karl Jung who was not an initiate. Here again one finds the scientists in agreement, because one had the experience; and large segments of "Buddhists" along with the metaphysical and Cloud-nine folks taking the way to confusion. Jung has left room for everything but anatta.

Tomorrow I am joining in Iru's presentation of "Wesak Day." But today I have inherited so many Dharmas—Shaku Soyen, Sokei-An, Nyogen Senzaki, the experiences with the Japanese and Vietnamese, etc., etc. And I personally consider both the Enlightenment and Parinirvana more important than the birth. This emphasis on the baby Buddha throws us back into the atwa-doctrine and one cannot get away from it. Scientists encourage those who know to talk and inform. Devotees discourage saying that those who know never tell. This is utter nonsense based on the very ignorance which Tathagata taught.

The other lecture which comes back to me is Sokei An's explanation of Tathagata, and now also this one on Dharmakaya. Having the Alya experience raised one before the sages and lowers one before the public.

The Sufi leader, Musheraff Khan was here recently. He drew the old. There will be many elderly people at the meeting tomorrow night. But this one is drawing young, the inquirers, people who wish experience and not speculations.

To sum up, I shall continue to send copies of my autobiography, having Phra Sumangalo to complete and then "Buddha Hridaya" concerning Nyogen Senzaki; the lectures which he wanted published, and finally those which have for the moment been turned over to me. There may be others later, but quantitatively there is more than enough.

His last lecture will be mailed in the next enclosure.

Faithfully,

Samuel L. Lewis

May 9, 1966

My dear Jack,

Last night was the celebration of Wesak Day and program is enclosed. The sermon of Rev. James Burkey was very good. But neither the selection from Dhammapada nor his contention that Buddhism is scientific is going to catch on as it should.

During the week in class study on Ceylon I stated, “Buddhism is not scientific but Buddha was a scientist.” The teacher replied: “Yes, that is true and I wish more people knew that.” For science demands anatta, scientists accept the experience, the experiments, the conclusions of other scientists. And religionists do not accept the experiences, the experiments, the conclusions of others.

Here we are stuck for Buddhists not only align themselves with their enemies, the other religionists, but proclaim anatta also. If they did not proclaim anatta this might not be so bad.

Here I have to prepare few social events. First a leading philosopher is coming and he will present the same teachings as Samuel does and people will accept it. But if one were to go into his part of the country and I presented the same teaching people would accept it and would not from him. This strange behavior pattern may be part of our mores but when Buddhists follow it, proclaiming anatta, they destroy their own principle.

We had about ten groups represented. This excluded the Fungs, the Nichiren and a few others. The representation was broader than those aligned with Harold Priebe and there is one notable ting, that there is no American Sangha. Eugene memorialized Nyogen Senzaki as well as Phra Sumangalo and Leslie Lowe. It is only now that one finds the omission of Dwight Goddard, and the truth is that I would have done the same thing—it is only hours later one realizes this for Goddard reached the minds but not the hearts of people. Goddard was a stickler for anatta and demanded from people and so contradicted anatta.

The second event will be an LSD conference. (I have always humorized that by saying that LSD used to refer to the British monetary system but no more.) A strange series of events, almost miraculous, brought the material from both Sokei-An and Nyogen Senzaki. With “The Cat’s Yawn” in my possession, the quickening of consciousness brought about the Alaya stage and several of Sokei-An’s early lectures came back into consciousness.

Here is where the anatta-Buddhists and the scientists part company. The anatta-Buddhists will accept the papers from these Monks and the scientists will accept a lecture from Samuel L. Lewis backed by his own experiences. The anatta-Buddhists will reject Sam Lewis and the scientists will reject Sokei-An and Senzaki-san. It will be the same subject but the scientists want living evidence and the anatta-Buddhists will want some grand-name of the past.

You can understand now Nyogen’s last sermon and already I have started the “breathing with the feet” which will be open to any and all who know as the Lord said, “They will know the truth and untruth in untruth.”

In the outer world when Rev. Neville was challenging Rev. Iru, irreverent Sam called out, "Where is compassion?" But in the Alaya review Rev. Neville called out, "Where is Fudo?" There is no nonsense in the Alaya and no abiding ego-self but there is the alarming verbal acceptance of this with utter psychological rejection. And in the Alaya one has to face the whole accumulation of his life-stream of consciousness and no nonsense; and also be in the presence of powers and personalities when we may regard as unseen but who nevertheless are. It is something like going into the Judgment Hall of Osiris.

Lama Govinda has selected from time to time no less than five persons 'to represent him. It can well me that the appointments of some have run out either because of the passing of time or failure of function. The latest seems to be that regardless of this the Lama has tied himself down to various monetary-centered promotion corporations; and various monetary-centered cultural groups without any regard to the Dharma or customs of holy men in regard to financial contracts. Phra Sumangalo was very careful here and avoided the terrible history of Master Tai Hsu.

The so-called "Maharshi" who was here and whom Iru accepted and respected, has now repudiated himself. Actually he had no spiritual message at all. He was decried by Robert and adored by Iru and this is something very queer for a Sangha-leader ad boy, if that story gets out, and it will, it puts Iru in a very strange position, to go contrary to his own initiator. But this is not the only incident and I am keeping my "secret weapon" until I face the Lama and ask him some solid questions which could verily effect the whole history of the Dharma here and no nonsense, no nonsense at all.

Having partaken of the melodramas of the Roerich Museum and later life of Dwight Goddard I refuse to make the same mistakes or to partake in a repetition of them. In good faith the Lama has initiated some persons but I do not accept streams of transmission which cut themselves off from other streams of trans¬mission. I shall hold to Ekyana.

I have therefore asked for an audience with Lama Angarika Govinda but not alone. If he has selected individuals to act qua re their being what they are he himself has gone contrary to the Triratna. I don't believe he has but I reserve the right to skepticism because at least one of his really initiated disciples has been hurt. No one has any right to participate in the hurting of their disciples. I made this clear Sunday after a non-disciple had challenged a disciple. I refuse to judge; either my disciple is correct or I am out of it. And either the disciple of the Lama in question is right in which case by the principles of initiation, Hierarchy and Dharma trans¬mission must support him; or the disciple is not so right and the Lama must blame himself. Otherwise the whole anatta principle flops and with it claims. We are no longer in that day.

I am busy increasing the scope of Jhana instruction and it looks as if it may come out into the open and on many sides. There are also signs of a vast financial or personal support; I shall not count on it until it comes but the signs are tremendous. Look, here I am one of the top cultural advisers for the Temple of Understanding and little people will not even admit me as equal. This is the "moral standard" of some and boy, what a karma is coming. I wish to save them from their own dire karma but I wish even more to stand by my oaths of initiation and Fudo ordination too. So you may see a marvelous drama as witness. You are not involved but I shall keep you informed.

Mehta,

Sam

772 Clementina St.

San Francisco 3, Calif.

October 13, 1966

My dear Brother-in-the-Dharma:

I am always glad to hear from you and so long as you adhere to Shaku Soyen’s “Think this Oneness.” I am with you and for you and am you. And I am going to ask you a favor and you can decide: Who is your Vietnamese contact? I wish to try to raise funds for the Vietnamese Buddhists but I shall only do it through you or an assign. Otherwise I shall continue to try to raise money for Iru, only I want to see “Kwan Yin” institutions all over.

It is quite evident from the latest WBF’s publications that there is only one Dharma and all this division into “Mahayana” and “Hinayana” is nothing but the operation of the manasic limitation in man. I shall make no effort to “prove” to Buddhists that Lord Buddha was a Hindu and not a Chinese, or what is more fashionable now in California, an Englishman. You ought to be proud, you are the only Englishman who teaches the Dharma who is not an “expert.”

The deaths of Suzuki and Blythe will do much to clarify the atmosphere and make the Dharma scientific (which was intended) and not personal, which it is very much so.

I was down in Ojai where “there is no god but Krishnamurti and everybody is his prophet,” and facing a certain lady told her: “You must choose between Krishnamurti and Sam and there is no way out.” Actually there is a big way out and she chose that: The Bodhisattvic Oath. This is something our dualistic friends and especially our “anatta Buddhists” do not understand at all. They deny the ego and assert themselves.

This lady by that simple method knocked me out, and I have seldom been knocked out. Anyhow the Kingdom of God has come and to Avichi with all those self-centered people who say that those who know never speak. So I shall not address myself to the “anatta Buddhists” who ignore each other.

My theme: “Science is greater than Buddhism because scientists accept other scientists and Buddhists reject other Buddhists is coming to a head on a vast scale. After getting knocked all over the place for daring to be present when history is being made, I received beautiful letters in turn from Dr. Radhakrishnan and Master Seo.

There is now a definite movement to bring mystics and scientists together without the (dis)grace of metaphysical organizers and it is now possible to explain the Dharma in scientific terms and science in Dharmic terms without any intermediaries to “explain” what they have not experienced.

Sam got a good comeuppance last Saturday. He found himself facing a teacher in Oriental philosophy accepting the spiritual experience to begin with, and going on from there.

Thus cometh to an end my long dictum: “The experts on Asia are European professors and American newsmen and never, never may they be American professors and European newsman.” Of course Rickie is in our common doghouse but this winter the members of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religions have acceded to Wisconsin and Chicago and no more the four horsemen of the Un-apocalypse, Heard, Humphreys, Huxley and Watts, And my epithet still remains:

“Hail to thee, Blythe spirit,

Buddh” thou never wert.”

So I have already written my Kamakura ventures which was utterly impossible (French pronunciation) until that nasty Phillip Kapleau betrayed the whole academy of super intellectuals by telling his experience. Anyhow I am in contrition because Annette Marx of Agoura in Southern California wrote “Meet Master Yasutani and have enlightenment.” And by ye gods and Bodhisattvas she was right! So cometh forth my perennial theme, “Buddhism is not scientific but Lord Buddha was a scientist and we shall see the experience of us little nobodies counting more than the gigantic dialectics of Big Names, especially important in a region of “anatta.”

Of course the most classic example was Princess Poon Diskul herself, shunned her for ‘steen reason and now declaring what is true. Her (and Dr. Malalasekera’s) denunciation of the artificial divisions between Hinayana and Theravada will come to light. When one performs even a single Jhana successfully he is transformed. And Her Serene Highness has come out for Parami=Paramita which nearly all our “anatta-Buddhist” friends reject. They want a “simple religion” not based on profound experience and each one has “a poor thing but my own.”

Indeed my ventures into Ojai and surroundings have been marked with the same talk by people who don’t look at other people: “Love, Compassion, Consideration and Devotion” … also “shut up! and don’t disturb me.” And when you count these Love, Compassion, Consideration and Devotion and add them together and ask what are they doing for the poor orphans either in Vietnam or Hong Kong, and look at their total contribution to these orphans,…

The Love, Compassion and Devotion wallahs have no time to consider the poor orphans. “Tonight I am doing this, tomorrow I am doing that.” But let Manley Hall or J. Krishnamurti show up and these same Love, Compassion and Devotion-wallahs will break all their engagements.

I found a carbon of a letter written to the Diamond Sangha I was going to see to Master Seo but I enclose it to you. You can see that these people, who have much wisdom and insight, have not inherited the “mantle of Shaku Soyen.” If they did they would not have any doubt.

I owe it to you and it is one of the few cases one can say, “eternal debt” for help with regards Vajrayana and Tibetan teachings. If one practiced the Mahamudra there would not be any doubt. Well I did practice the Mahamudra with Dr. Radhakrishnan but he is not one of those “anatta-Buddhists” who deny wisdom and prowess to others. I am now using a “Dew-drop melts into the shiny sea” Yoga with great success, but the answers might not satisfy those who adhere either to Southern Buddhism or Nagarjuna literally. The fact that it works stimulated the letter to the Diamond Sangha.

I am now faced with the university possibility of being permitted to bring my experiences on all planes out into the open. The outer ones follow a pattern: Years ago one Baird Spaulding came here end lectured on “The Masters of the Far East” and great crowds came to hear him. Later I went to his sponsor and said: “I have been to the Far East and met the Masters.” “Get out, I never want to see you again.” And there are still a lot of people living who heard Baird Spaulding and they refuse to little to Sam Lewis—always an excuse. Thus they understand Karma. With the “anatta-Buddhists” it is always the person that counts, not the Truth. So I may now in the university go and tell of the different Masters coming here and greeting me, but not greeting any of those persons who delighted in Baird Spaulding—and rush to Manly Hall or J. Krishnamurti.

I must repeat—and this will shock all the “anatta-Buddhists”—my first Satori which as to go on record—I may gave written it before. This was the “union-with-the-seashore and sea” which took place before 1923. I am not so concerned with the event as that last year, in reading “The Cat’s Yawn,” I realized that this took place exactly where Master Shaku Soyen used to walk. And this event will impress the scientists but so far has made little headway among the “anatta Buddhists.”

Someone has asked, “Why do you operate in that way?” I answer you operate in the way you do because that is your ego and I operate in the way I do because of the initiation as Fudo-Bosatsu, so your excellent way is your way and my foolish way is the Dharma.” And of course those who object contribute plenty of nothing to the poor war orphans in Vietnam or Hong Kong. This is Compassion!

I have told the people in Ojai that I would charge for my lectures; the money all for the war orphans.

The WBF has asserted—following Shinran Shonin (horrors!) that simple people without ordination may experience higher Bhumis than veterans in shaved heads and yellow robes. As there is nobody to try to top-wallahs for heresy maybe this is, so. Anyhow it will enable old Fudo to speak about Buddhism and Buddhist experiences in the same way he speaks about raising trees. So I am going forth Saturday to lay the cards on the table in a university,

As the vast majority of “Buddhists” do not study any scripture, have dispensed with the Triratna and the meditative prowess, they do not know that many scriptures begin “Thus have I heard.” To be a Buddhist, you have to put on a robe and then not listen to anybody, you expect them to listen to you. This the way “anatta” operates.

If a few so-called Buddhists would listen to each other, and did nothing more than that; if they showed consideration to each other and did nothing more than that, the first stone would be laid to the corner-stone of a temple of Peace. Actually there is a Temple of Understanding going up in Washington, where people of all faiths may worship together. The local Bishop Hanayama is one of the first persons in this undertaking. This follower of Shinran believes that anybody can have Enlightenment and it does not depend on robes, ordinations and initiations.

If a few people stopped talking “Love, Compassion, Consideration” and would open their ears—never mind their minds—to others, that would be a big step toward Peace in Vietnam. If they opened their minds; more if they opened their hearts. But we are not going to have Peace that easy. We are going to have a lot of people verbalize Love, Compassion and Consideration and go on their merry way.

The spirit of Phra Sumangalo continues—in hell. There is a lady who has lived in Laos and Cambodia and has been trying to tell what happened there. You can guess what is happening to her. It is Robert all over again and I have to stand by and suffer, but if she is snuffed out I may give up everything and go around with a “J’accuse.” Robert died, Prof. Burdick after his “Sarkhan” which is not read; and now my friend. How long, O Lord, how long!

At the same time the Ananda increases. Shortly I shall be seventy years of age, full of vigor and vitality and upsetting all those people who go around with nice formulae and never learn and listen from anybody,

I hope you go over the WBF bulletins carefully.

Faithfully,

Sam

October 16, 1966

Dear Jack:

One of my nastiest prophecies has come out and there is no ego-satisfaction in it: it is that the difference between Science and Buddhism is that scientists accept other scientists and that “Buddhists” accept only themselves.

I have therefore written to Rev. Price knowing that if he gives up his ego we may having Peace tomorrow. Having gone to one lecture after another, all proclaiming Peace, Good-Will, Brotherhood and Love and all told not contributing a sou to the unfortunates of Vietnam, I know what will happen.

The acceptance of my Kamkura-staori camel as I knew it would within the universities and not from any particular “Buddhist” group. But I was in for a surprise.

Prof. Kelley who teaches the course on “The Philosophy of Religion” was a friend of the late Dwight Goddard with whom he studied the Dharma. He can readily understand why Dwight
Goddard died of a broken heart, and then Phra Sumangalo, and now a lady of whom I have affirmed and referred to who had the audacity to have lived and worked in Laos and Cambodia and therefore who knows from direct experience.

In “Buddhism” it is egotism if you know from direct experience and in the sciences it is exactly the opposite. I did not wish to challenge the Diamond Sutra on its tributes to Blythe and Daisetz. But so long as name and form are more important than the Bhumis and Paramis, the Jhanas and Upayas, we might as well face it, we are going to have a continuum of Samsara.

There is a great meeting being held in Chicago by the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Friends of Rickie are now in charge. I see hope for the world.

Faithfully,

Sam

May 29, 1967

Dear Jack,

Last night we celebrated Wesak Day here. It is not the way I should have celebrated it. This "compromise" wherein Mahayanists accept the Theravadin holiday, and then restrict it almost entirely to the Birth, de-emphasizes so much of what may be called the Dharma. Besides, I have gone through a pretty general study of "Ritual versus Vision" in religion and it seems that most of the celebrants have become attached to ritual; while the speaker was on the side of Vision.

I see little value in going from one set of ritual and symbols to another. They all have values, but even with the passage from Dhammapada and a song called "Nirvana" it seems that religion becomes a mixture of guessing and wishing.

When U Thant called for a "Moral and Spiritual Revolution" amid thunderous applause I could see nothing but horror. His was mitigated somewhat when Dr. Malalasekera said it was for each of us to work out our own cleansing there was a ray of hope, but it remains a dim ray.

The Bodhisattvic illness, with the deep empathy between the suffering of Vietnam and in this body, was understood by Rev. Dr. Warwick and it is even worse or better because everything is in Mahayana Scriptures which are not studied. People are kept in the superficial studies—and may not be ready for anything more. Some of this gripe is worked out in the letter, copy enclosed. You can see why I do not wish to be called a "Buddhist." True, one has gone through the experience easily of Philip Kapleau and still more easily of Tim Leary, but also one has realized practically everything in Surangama Sutra and Diamond Sutra is supposed to seal the lips and minds of Srotapannas.

When Dr. Doug Burns who is an "expert" here (I am not) told the people here there are no Arhats, ergo there are no Arhats. I don’t care whether there are Arhats or not but I am sick of something calling itself "Buddhism" or "Dharma" which leaves no room for Srotapannas and Sakrodagamins and all the stations and states of people beyond Savarkas. Those of us who have experienced Bhumis and Paramitas have no place at all and since the receipt of another documentary acceptance—this time from Roshi Soen Nakagawa, I wonder how many documentaries one must have to be given a pulpit. I do not wish it and will have one myself when I can move.

I am still too weak. Dr. Fung gave me blood and other tests today, the result of which will be known next week. After eating I fell into a terrifically deep sleep from which I rose mentally alive, recovering all my faculties but adding those of caution and patience. I have paid for a bundle of twelve copies of "Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch" which should be shipped shortly.

 Of these I am asking you to present one to the Royal Asiatic Society and one to the World Congress of faiths. One will be for your good self and the other nine (9) should be sold around £1, 10 shillings—you can fix the price—and this will give you a little leeway.

My affairs are in a terrible mess and I have had trouble even getting help (including putting in a new ribbon). I cannot move until I am better.

The irony of the world situation with its "tyranny of words" come out in the Near East complex. I myself worked out a program by which the Arabs would work with and even recognize Israel. Such a program is not welcome to our foreign office or the "peace" societies or the press. We reap our karma. As I have written before, it is easy to see the future—all you have to do is understand karma and be honest and the last price we do not wish to pay.

I am not going to predict. There is a social-spiritual revolution going on in this city. I may become part of its and may not and do not care.

In a sense you were with us last night—all of your friends together and your name was mentioned. I am glad you also are finding cooperation.

Faithfully,

Sam

June 10, 1967

My dear Jack,

The other day working in the greenhouse I found my vigor has returned to a remarkable degree. I did not overdo, in fact worked only 2 1/2 hours, but found lifting very, very easy.

There is no doubt some gain from the Healing Practice Dr. Warwick tried for there is now remarkable internal and external coordination.

Illness took me from the frying pan of Vietnam to the fire of the Near East. Much of the Vietnam complex came from Phra Sumangalo, "I" covering the peripheral nations. In the Near East I was in the Center—not that it matters. You get it from all sides. Nobody wants peace, everybody wants peace with justice which is like adding a triple infinite into a small number. In mathematics it means nothing, in oratory it means everything but in life again it means nothing.

Suppose one went to a "Buddhist" meeting and talked samskaras. You know the answer. I must confess to having learned a good deal about samskaras from Meher Baba, but his followers make such distinctions between samskaras and impressions that such knowledge becomes worse than useless. And to these I shall be adding "semantic reactions" or SRs which have gotten into our culture, but have no significance. Almost all the proposals for the semanticists are Buddhistic but don't tell them that!

Next week I am going to see if I can get the furniture of a dear friend who recently died and the find a place for it. One is not only not overdoing, but following Dr. Fung. Some of my acquaintances are delighted, not with my recovery, but with my being on a vegetarian diet. I have lived on not meat once permitted fish, the other times cheeses but these are off now, especially the latter on account of its high salt.

The most horrible experience has been to listen to the UN. The amount of dishonesty in high places is terrible. Now I hear the Israelis will not return to their old borders. I have sent out a lot of letters, but us eye-witnesses don’t count and I see more and more bloodshed and more and more dishonesty.

God has made some serious mistakes. He created more Chinese than Hebrews. I don’t think the Israelis will ever forgive Him. Anyhow, you have Israel without God, no temple, lots of superstitions and folk-lore and customs and for this the world is supposed to sacrifice itself and die.

Everything happened as predicted but this time no Prajna. I was there; I have had long conferences with UN officials. I know both sides in every respect excepting those emanating from our Madison Ave culture. The Hippies accept. they are different and therefore "awful."

We do not realize the existence and practicality of Prajna. the Universal Wisdom which is not only in all of us, but which is essentially us, but we can't accept it. Lord Buddha said, " I see all sentient beings have perfect enlightenment but they do not know it."

Last night I was recognized by a visiting Indian. Under pressure from him and another Indian I have written at length to President Hussain. This letter will be copied and sent to proper persons. One feels very much like what Mark Twain said about the weather, "Everybody discusses it but nobody does anything about it," only here one has world peace in view.

This week I went on a trip to Santa Clara County and came out all right. This was to purchase trees on which I shall do research. Actually I purchased them from a old schoolmate who is a Japanese Buddhist. We will pick them up later—have to bring a station wagon. It is through tree planting I hope to promote universal good-will.

I am glad you understand I cannot write often. This on account of Mrs. Lewis You remember I tried to contact some "Lewises" previously. I do not know whether you know these people. Nobody has heard from Harold recently and we do not know whether he is contrite or stunned. On Wesak it was openly stated that Iru Price was the spiritual successor to Leslie Lowe, the claim Harold has been making.

Love and Blessings,

Sam

May 1, 1969

My dear Jack:

This is a very beautiful day and the main activity is putting up a May Pole. Sunday we are combining a May Day celebration with Wesak. I have been working overtime on choreography and ceremonials. Rev. Neville Warwick was supposed to be here and take charge but I understand he is in Japan and may not be back. But his disciples and followers will be here.

James Eugene has also accepted the invitation. I am very glad of this because we have just added playground equipment which his younger sons should enjoy. We hope to have a lot of playground equipment by summer. For not only is this lot commodious—150’ x 100’ I understand, but the adjacent corner lot has been loaned to us for vegetable planting. Thus some time the exercise has been outside, all sorts of garden chores.

The all year weather is good and we are growing, or attempting a number of vegetables. We expect to add Maize, the Squash family and Legumes in quantity. We have strawberries and raspberries. Two old grape-vines are bearing and we may have more later on.

Saturday a few of us will visit the Buddha in Golden Gate Park to commemorate the old pilgrimages of Shaku Soyen and Nyogen Senzaki. Mrs. Vocha Fiske, one of Senzaki’s old disciples is here now. She has lived in Japan, chiefly with Zen Buddhists like here self.

I have turned two recent books on Chinese Buddhism over to Eugene and have written the author. It is very strange and awkward how little “Buddhist” so-called, pay no attention either to Buddha or to each other. And my resent conclusions that while Buddha said there was no ego and was indifferent about “God,” the Neo-Buddhists are very anti-God and totally different being pro-ego. Actually I think Lord Buddha was a greater deist than most religionists because he used realities and experiences and not concepts or thought-forms.

I am glad you found some peacefulness. We are not sure of our future policy here because there are many changes going on in this vicinity and one’s following and friends are steadily increasing on both quantity and quality. And I have been sent for to visit the State of New Mexico and there is a department in the university dedicated to Buddhist research.

It will be very dramatic when I become better known and tell of the droll situation on that so-called “Buddhists” who are supposed to be anti-ego, will not give up their egotisms even for money. I mention no names although Paul Reps is in this class, also. He always had money and is pouring out writings steadily as he can afford to do so.

We have a sort of spiritual commune and by forceful leadership each has come to realize his or her earthly responsibility. They are all wonderful spiritually and morally but there is some reality in lots of these young people. It is the age and belongs to cosmic evolution. As soon as they get their feet on the ground they are the most wonderful of all people.

So we dream both of printing and ceramics and if we go ahead with printing it may be we shall be forced to get out the real Buddhist literature ourselves. Boots by “experts” are so marketable but valid literature seems to interest only groups like the Royal Asiatic Society. Nevertheless the universities are changing in attitude all around.

I’ll let you know of “Gandalf’s Garden” later. It is in London and is so Californi-ish and no little British, it is surprising, or maybe that is the new norm.

Gassho,

Sam

May 14, 1969

My dear Bodhisattva Jack:

Today I was reading Agatha Christie and feeling strange, that I could be in England now, at least afford it and am tied down by all sorts of things, too many but the majority on the plus side.

I have often hoped to visit England to look up traditions and sometimes folk-dancing as well as Cathedrals. Then I had hoped to visit the brother of a friend of mine who is manager of a sewage disposal plant. This is a project in which I am interested and now the disciple who has been training to become my financial secretary has just received a place for training to become a manager in this profession. He was educated as an electrical engineer but dropped out and has gone through all the phases of the Hippy Life. But he is excellently educated.

We have been working on a project of chanting Om!, especially in the form Om Mani Padme Hum! It has become very effective. In addition to his other achievements Daniel knows some Sanskrit and recites the Prajna Paramita in Sanskrit and English while the “Zennists” chant in a bastard Japanese which they do not understand.

We attended the services for the late President Z. Hussain and also plan to show Indian films, both as a diversion and as part of a youth rehabilitation program. There are now no particular standards, and “dharma” has struck bottom and is coming up. It is certain that my total each week increases, but I am now in another project.

San Francisco State. College is now presided over by Dr. S. I. Hayakawa. He published articles by Alan Watts as being authentic Zen and authentic Buddhism. He has ignored his parental ancestry. When I protested I was given the coup de grace. Now his chief of the philosophy department regards Sam Lewis as the leader Bodhisattva of the region. And the belief was strengthened when they were having a discussion on the Bodhisattva and this person walked into the room.

So I am now attending a philosophy class on Monday morning at San Francisco State. And soon there will be a poetry seminar an “Poetry Writing as Influenced by Oriental Philosophy.” Gary Snyder will be the “expert” but Sam Lewis is one who has written poems, and perhaps more. And one by one all these things for which one was rejected in the past are now being accepted.

Although my chief work is Sufism, out of the Alaya one pulled a dance on the Nembutsu. Gene saw his original rendition but now it is completed into a real folk-dance with an mixture of American and Japanese elements.

Recently an excellent letter was received from General Lansdale, former chief of the ground forces in Vietnam. It begins “Dear Samuel…,” and this shows what kind of relation we had and may have. Then the aforesaid Daniel received both a fine letter and literature from Thich Tanh Thien, head of the Buddhist Social Federation. This indicates shape of things to come.

I am sorry about Kew. Of course. I shall be able to get in. There are many times I should like to be in London but larger audiences. Then there is New Mexico. Both my chief secretary and I have to make professional trips there and thus one or both should moot an American professor who is doing real research into real Buddhism. Bahm is his name.

Going over Anthology of Zen it is remarkable how little the various Englishmen and Europeans know of the real inside. New I am preferring Ch’an and there is a serious study of Scriptures under Venerable Too Lun. But his group is small. Brother Warwick’s group is larger and more vigorous and besides the class discussions have been on the relation of mountain climbing to mystical awakening. Only he is in Japan. When he returns doors should be open for him.

His disciples have a Natural Foods center which is prospering and we are also buying more of our supplies there. Even Brother Reps likes this thing—I am afraid he knows all about the “earth” and almost nothing about the transcendent, but that is his job.

We are having hopes here both for a printing establishment and a pottery-porcelain works. We have the space and will soon put in the gas-line connections. Anyhow one thing stands out, that Age is not a deterring factor at all and neither can I explain it.

I am working on a commentary an Inayat Khan’s “Cosmic Language” and it keeps on reminding me that there ought to be a commentary, on parts of Dhammapada. We have outgrown nothing.

Fortunately while much of the world is going down-hill, the New Age people are here, more and more of than all the time. My geography is lucky but then I picked my place of birth.

Faithfully,

Sam

410 Precita Ave.

San Francisco, Calif.

June 11, 1969

Rev. Jack Austin,

100 Roundwood Way,

Barnstead, Surrey England

Bodhisattva: Arya Dharma vs …

It has taken a little while to answer your letter and this is actually being written at 910 Railroad Ave., Novato, 97947 whither you addressed your last letter. I am actually spending most of the time here, out in the “country.” It was here that we celebrated Wesak and will hold further outdoor affairs.

Last night I was reading in the works of the Sufi, Inayat Khan, that spiritual awakening was the aim of life and that the means were not important. This is the stumbling block for the means are important. They don’t have to work. They divide mankind into fragments, and set person against person, group against group, and only “my” means are proper and “yours,” are useless. So the problems continue.

Not being a “Buddhist” I am free to use the means of Lord Buddha, only instead of taking “my” problem or the “world’s problems into consideration” I am using “you” as a base feeling such absolutely identity that our every joy and grief, even whim are my own. “Buddhists”—and I shall use the term without further diacritical marks are, like all religionists, concerned with means and are quite anti-Gautama, and I shall say anti-Buddha because like all other orthodox they have sanctified Upaya and not attainment. Indeed, stories come now of monks and devotees testing experience but cosmic experience is not need, just some nice, select “Upaya” and you are in, forever and ever—maybe.

At this writing there is so something like getting over humps, that the income has grown, the number of followers and devotees has grown, the combined incomes have grown and I am called to go to Hollywood to consider legal organization. And I am also faced with possibilities, although at the moment vague, which will put me into another outlook end even “social class.” And I cannot help thinking of you.

Besides, there are two editors here who are taking everything I am doing, pictures, remarks, etc. and a certain “fame” has gone abroad, requiring my visiting the State of New Mexico in August and possibly other trips. This is difficult because of the now large and growing following, made of young who want facts and experiences and not empty words accompanied by nothing in human experience. The increment of Joy, Love and Peace in their lives is so evident!

I think we share a common pain because of Phra Sumangalo. I am not over it and do not ask to be released from it, but the first step in spending has been to purchase copies of Encyclopedia of Buddhism as far as they are available. Practicing Prajna without advice of the monks, clerics, experts and what not, and finding it always works, these books were purchased without having available funds but within five days after James Eugene extended credit some “hidden angel” came to my rescue and when I return from Hollywood I shall see that he is not only properly reimbursed but more.

There is a story connected with each “gift” but I do not see myself as a giver nor the books as a gift, not being what I call an “anatta-Buddhist.” Unlike Brother Burns, who is “in” although I do not know what he is in, I do not use words apart from life and do not consider myself separate from other people as he does actually. But he has the tonsure and I believe rather in my Guru’s, “what we need are shaved minds.” I take the “shaved mind” and let my hair and bear grow.

“My” copy went to Daniel, my Sanskrit secretary. He has grown in every way and now financially also. He is in touch with Dr. Conze and if you have not the latter’s address will supply it. He is now regarded as a martyr and one can almost couple him with Robert Sumangalo.

The second copy went to Prof. Lozicki at the University of California, Southeast Asia Library. I found that this man has already accomplished what I have long sought, all the literature of the “Multiversity” of California on the theme: How California Can Help Asia. You hear about strikes, riots, etc. No one knows about accomplishments and they are terrific.

Prof. Lozicki will be in charge of the S.E. Asia seminar which starts shortly in San Francisco, University of California. I shall also place in his hands the Robert-Sumangalo material. But we have absolute understanding. Working with him is Dr. Nottingham, a lady professor who has been at Long Island University. She gave me an “A” in my last course and none of this non-ego rejection of somebody else because, because, because! Facts and experience to the fore and personality is being chased away—outside of “religious” circles.

The next copy has gone to Prof. Lancaster. Our meeting was strictly anti­-anatta. That is we recognized each other as parts of the same being and no nonsense. Not only is he now in charge of Buddhist studies, and I mean Buddhist studies, at the University of California, but he was a disciple of Nyogen Senzaki in his last days. And he will accept copies of the materiel of Tai Hsu, Shaku Soyen, etc which all the good anatta (?) Buddhists reject. One is no longer disturbed.

I shall soon purchase more copies for the University of California at Los Angeles. There the Dean of Studies is Dr. Carroll Parrish, my very first secretary (and his first job) who has been on friendly terms with Her Serene Highness, Princess Poon Diskul. I may bring another set of the Encyclopedic with Dr. Thich Thien An, who is also a friend of Lancaster as above. So I see the means of solid teaching here of Arya Dharma but from an integrational and universal point of view and no more ego-nonsense from “anatta-Buddhists” (who don’t talk to each other!).

Either James Eugene or I shall be writing to Ceylon, too. Now coming to the last issue of the WBF News Bulletin The first article is called “The Sources of Divine Power” and one of its first references is to theTriple Gem. But later in the magazine there are articles from some “good” Buddhist groups around here who most certainly do not use the Triple Gem and at my last meeting with the now “famous” Roshi Shinryu Suzuki, when I recited the Triratna he blushed. He has seen to it that his followers do no such thing. They are “good” Buddhists” and so exempt.

The next reference is to the Divine Beings. This person believes in the Divine Beings as well as in Triratna, but the anatta-Buddhist Douglas M. Burns does not. And when we met in public before he left this land, the “good” Iru Price and all the “good anatta-Buddhists” supported Douglas Burns in his opposition to Divine Beings and this person was put to shame???? Well, there is your Wisdom, Compassion and Morality.

The next item is the Karmic Effect and it is full of words. But when it comes to attainment, only ideas of important persons are valid and the attainments of non important persons area not valid!! The other day a Korean came to my place and I told him I had been initiated as Fudo Bosatsu. He said, “But Fudo is Buddha!” This was strange, no doubt, but “good anatta-Buddhists” are not going to accept that! We must stick to goal old samsara and if you don’t us my Upaya you are a heretic or worse.

The writer (or editor) continues and mentions “self-development” and then there are articles to the contrary. But although I seem to agree with the editorial this one is out and “good” people of opposing views get recognition because they are “good.”

Although I am using the WBF News Bulletin, the hard fact is that all religious publications are the same. All decry evil, all use the same words totally empty and all insists on very restricted Upaya. The Muslims divide worlds, Muslims are good and non-Muslims are evil. I don’t think the Jews are very different. The Christians infer that but I must quote Browning, that when he wrote only God and Browning knew what it meant and now only God knows!

The Hindus are different. The Jews, the Christians. Muslims and Buddhists are all “right” and everybody else is “wrong.” The Hindus are right because they do not condemn and therefore everybody else should contribute to them. They are doing wonderful things; nobody else is doing anything.

Now the “New Race” predicted by Lord Lytton as well as by Sri Aurobindo and by H. G. Well as well as by various Mahatma’s Super-sadgurus and Maharishis, is here. The young see universally and they chant Mantrams. They no longer accept this separative nonsense of their elders. They want spiritual liberation and they really want spiritual liberation and not some narrow Upaya with its attendant accusations of heresy. It is a new age, my brother, and now it would seem this person is near the crest of waves.

We are going to get rid of separativism. We are going to have those Upaya which are operative. Something very strange happened Saturday. I had three different engagements, morning, noon and night. To each affair a person came in with Alexandra David-Néel’s book on Tibet ! Not only was this striking but at my last home meeting a young girl came in from New York and said she wanted spiritual training through Mountain Climbing. Before the words were out of her mouth she was speaking with my spiritual colleague, Rimpoche Neville Warwick. And our two groups are working together in all phases of life … details too long to relate.

I am looking very coldly on appeals for funds. “Bishop” Pike has appealed for funds for psychic research and investigation into “cosmic consciousness.” I have yet to meet one of these groups which has accepted materials, excepting Prof. Stevenson of the University of Virginia. One Francis Story, who is a “good Buddhist,” says the is researching here. He gets the publicity and has rejected all the articles from both others and myself. We are not the “right” type for the “good” people. Story is great on “goodness, compassion, morals” and insulting others as not being equal. But he is a “good-Buddhist.” I refuse to be a “good Buddhist” or a “good Muslim” or a “good divider of mankind,” any kind.

I have met awakened souls of all faiths and no faiths and read Walt Whitman too. The young are coming, money seems to be coming, vigor is tremendous and I do not understand it. The young experience love, joy, exaltation and yet we are unorganized and not so much “non-sectarian” but super-sectarian. But I do not glow or glory until something also can be done for you, my “self” in another framework. You are always with me, you are a part of me like Robert Sumangalo, Eugene Wagner and Rimpoche Warwick. This is not “Buddhism,” of course but it is pretty good Arya Dharma.

All love and blessings,

Sam

410 Precita Avenue

San Francisco, Calif. 94110

July 7, 1969

Rev. Jack Austin

100 Roundwood Way

Banstead, Surrey

Bodhisattva;

I have received your letter of 27th June and also Spring 1969 copy of The Western Buddhist and am answering your letter backwards. Your last words are ”Any ideas about its distribution in U.S.A.?”

There is in this city a New Age food store controlled by the followers of Lama Anagarika Govinda. It is not only a New Age store. But it has the most beautiful customers. We not only patronize the place but one of my own disciples works there and to make it “thicker” he is also a printer and would have some information about potential distribution and sales of The Western Buddhist so I shall see him either today, or tomorrow at the latest.

We are having parallel successes in drawing many of the young people of the New Age. My most successful work is with spiritual dances and now this has broken out. Also my writings on “Toward Spiritual Brotherhood” and other things, all at the same time.

I have met Dom Aelred Graham who at least accepted my positions and attainments. Conversations were very easy and harmonious. This is in contract with Arthur Osborne and his “Self and Ego” with you know who in first place. But I think that time is over. My teachings are simple. “He is most humble who has the largest ears.”

Have to go over the rest of the articles with disciples the most important of whom just came in the door. So he will read this and also “The Western Buddhist” and we shall write again later.

Mehta,

Sam

410 Precita Ave.,

San Francisco, Calif.

1st August, 1969

Rev. Jack Austin,

100 Roundwood Way

Banstead, Surrey

Dear Jack;

Your note of 26th July is here and it will be shown both to the Buddhist Department of the University of California and then to Rahul at the New Age Health Food stores. This is strictly a New Age.

There is a realized Bodhisattva teaching at the University. This may be a shock to the various cults and experts who teach whatever personality dialectic they please and call it “Buddhism” without having any deep transformatory realization. But the day has passed when superlative egocentrics can go around any longer as champions of what they call the “Dharma” (or Dhamma).

There is a rising attendance in the schools and not a rising attendance at the separative cults and churches, etc. In fact I am going to New Mexico next Thursday and must visit Prof. Archie Bahm who is already my colleague in other matters. I am first going to the “Lama Foundation,” perhaps in the capacity of temporary “guru.” In any event they have sent for me and there are others in the general vicinity. This may be a “fly by night” visit but I hope to see them again later if I should be called on to visit the eastern part of the United States. Actually I have more university contacts than I can handle and since the acceptance of Kapleau there is now a demand for “realized souls” and no more clerics or dialectics who offer either ceremonies rituals or sermons.

The New Age Health Food adventure is prospering very much and it looks as if they will branch soon. We have not only been working with them closely bit offer them on consignment our surpluses. Our garden crops have yields far beyond expectations and the possibility is that soon this venture will receive national attention. I have been amazed by the results both with flowers and vegetables and at least two types of trees—Fig and Olive.

The New Age Health Food people are Vajrayanins and they have meditations right in their place of business. It is a real New Age venture in all respects and they wish to take the lead in cooperating with you. All for now.

Cordially,

Sam

410 Precita Avenue

San Francisco, Calif. 94110

October 8, 1969

Rev. Jack Austin

100 Roundwood Way

Banstead, Surrey

My dear Jack,

Vocha Fiske very suddenly turned up here and gave such an optimistic report. She has gone to Los Angeles and will be back next month, presumably to stay until Spring and the perhaps return to Asia.

I am not going to apologize. Working forever seven days a week forced a vacation. Besides, my secretary, Mr. mansur Johnson, had a severe trial in his private life. He is a pupil and close friend of Dr. Huston Smith of MIT. We went through the most beautiful parts of the Northwest and as far as Vancouver BC covering some 3300 miles and since returning not a day off.

I am at this moment enclosing Twenty Five ($25.00) Dollars. There is no secretary here for business matters and we are very short-handed at a time when my work is expanding in all directions.

Last night I went to get a report on my poem, “The Rejected Avatar.” The teacher is one Lou Welch who is regarded as the leading poem critic of the region. His closest associate is Gary Snyder who has lived in Zen monasteries. Not only was my poetry accepted by them and their associates—and perhaps Alan Watts with them—have gone from Zen into Vajrayana! They want Avalokitesvara and no more severity. It is more than symptomatic. It also means a serious revaluation of all my poetry which is epic and cosmic.

I have not even had time to go to Fields Book Store or the New Age where your work can be pushed. We have had both our motor cars in the hospital and I depend on outside help or tram transportation. But the Ideas of October are excellent.

Now I am working to attend the next conference of the Temple of Understanding. I have a personal representative in Bangkok who is expected to call on Alen and Her Serene Highness. I have written to Dr. Malalasekera and my “atonement” for the untimely death of Robert comes in the purchase of Encyclopedias of Buddhism as far as I can afford. And yet it is necessary to build up a travel fund to go to Istanbul next year.

 Today I am rapidly becoming the authority on Asian religions, culture and spirituality. last two weeks were spent on Zen and next week the floor is for Soto. But there is one argumentative young man and I found he is an initiate in Rinzai and this is a relief. I am ready to go first to represent Korean Zen which is integrative—not verbally “integrative” but actually. And I am coming out strong for the real experience of enlightenment and can challenge those who make the pratt or the solar plexus the center of consciousness. They have to prove that!

But I am also on the program for later dates and both Vajrayana and Dr. Warwick are on schedule, perhaps, but not so certain. Alan Watts. Also Krishnamurti, but I understand Krishnamurit-Saanen ≠ Krishnamuri-Ojai.

I am strong for Prajna where Dr. Radhakrishnan and the late Daisetz Suzuki meet. But my Prajna is experience and part, perhaps, of Samma Drishti. I am to have three men and one woman with me. One man and the woman already selected. There is a question whether another disciple will go with me and whether I am to cooperate financially to see if you can go to Istanbul next Spring. The program is tentatively set for about March 30 but I wish to find out the flights and costs. I am assuming charter flights. If it is within my means, or of others for you to go, perhaps that can be arranged. But I am not to travel alone anymore.

Tonight I am to lead the young at a large auditorium called The Family Dog. All the local spiritual leaders have been invited and no longer Prof. Von Plotz and Nice-face and Hoffmeyer-Hofbrand, the great scholars of great scholars. Most of the leaders are either Asians or young Americans who have had, or claim to have had spiritual experiences, and no nonsense. It is a new age.

We are semanticizing Ananda. It becomes real. It is becoming normal and easy. But also this week I hope to semanticize Buddha. The majority of so-called “Buddhist “ movements here accept neither the Three Jewels, nor Eightfold Path nor most of the Scriptures. All personality-leader hip. And this is one of the problems: Is there a Self? I can assure you that Rev. Superbombast, and Dr. Egoegoego will lead the arguments that there is no “self.” But the young are different today, very different and I shall try to keep you informed.

Mehta,

Samuel L. Lewis.

November 2, 1969

My dear Jack;

I am very sorry to get a letter from a hospital. True, I was in one a few years back. Something happened and since that time very slowly and very surely all affairs have improved. Indeed my immediate following and my total following are slowly, most imperceptibly but even more definitely increasing.

I am now busy six nights per week. The Saturday night dancing class was so well attended I shall make every effort to divide it. This place can comfortably hold 30 people. More bring in more money but less persons attention. Roughly the work is divided into Dervish dancing, Mantric dancing and Bodhisattvic walks.

I shall try to get into your hands the latest copy of The Oracle. This local underground publication has fallen almost entirely into my hands. The articles are either by my disciples or friends and many concern “me.” But the best are the anatta articles especially the one on the Bodhisattvic Oath by one of my close companions. To me it is superb.

Sunday night is now Dharma night here. I make no distinction an between religious differences, combining thy Prajna Paramita Sutra, the Jhana-meditation, the writings of Swami Ramdas and “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones.” For those who wish more prolonged meditations or lectures I send elsewhere. I find nobody using a Bodhisattvic technique just as there are no Jhana-instructions.

There is some interest in Zen which has gone “establishment” and a growing interest in Vajrayana, but unfortunately the egocentricity of the “Vajrayanist” is so great that there is not stability. I attend three university classes—poetry, philosophy, and sociology and the progress is excellent. The whole tenor is toward universality. The great question is who and what is going to take over. Among the Buddhists it is who, and this destroys the validity of pretenders in anatta. Fortunately the “New Age” Leaders are not in competition and my “Youth of the World Unite” is making headway.

I have often been troubled about you. Between the “Oracle” and our dormant print-shop they are nascent plans. But the print shop is dormant because two of my three chief men are now working for the New Age Food Store, the owners of which are Vajrayana Buddhists. This is rapidly becoming a center for merchandising, meditating, and corrections of diets. The young people are rushing to purchase natural foods and often at most reasonable costs.

Fred Rohe, the owner, is the man who is also interested in you and wants to help you, but we are both so busy we have little time to meet.

The class in philosophy has discussed Zen, Meher Baba, Subud and Krishnamurti and Gurdjieff on tap. I have scored one on the teacher by asking what evidence is there to prove Meher Baba and discountenance Bahaullah? This State and especially this City is full of Messiahs, avatars, world-deliverers, and protests on Vietnam, but never a Vietnamese speaker. We have one on schedule, I hope.

Yes, we still have trams, some on tracks and some on double trolleys. The situation is very complex on this hilly city with constant complications about tunnels (tubes) and what not.

Vocha may establish herself here. I have not had time to write her and she may come any time this month.

One is working toward universality and is becoming known here among the young, more and more, and ignored by the “superior” people who are so divided into their cliques, etc. At the class on philosophy my companion said, “They all have ideas, doctrines, but no techniques.” At least we have plenty of these.

I may have to learn about Mudras or Mudras may come out of me. The Bodhisattvic techniques came suddenly last night and were applied to my new students. And the Sufi Mushahida is the same as the Maha Mudra Meditation.

There is one side to this situation. I have not been entirely free from pain myself but find when I look into it some friend is always having a pain or difficulty in the very a same spot. The flesh keeps on functioning, the mind keeps on functioning and when I meditate on the pain it sets me into extreme empathy with someone near and dear.

Faithfully,

Sam

December 1, 1969

Rev. Jack Austin

100 Roundwood Way

Banstead, Surrey, England

Dear Jack:

This old renegade heretic is still at it. No doubt it is rather upsetting that the passage of years has not softened him. Last night we had the impudence and audacity to celebrate the enlightenment of Lord Buddha Sakyamuni. We even read from Pali Scriptures and from an American who was an authority on the Dharma until your fellow countrymen took over. Worse, we did some deep meditation as appears in the 118^th discourse, introduced into the Buddhist Bible by the late Dwight Goddard.

It is not to retrace one’s footsteps because the evangelist reverend Billy Graham has now come out for the moral teachings of the Tathagata.

We have visited Kennett Roshi and also heterodoxed one’s own standard by being entirely favorable in this case. Yes, even Sam is sometimes satisfied. Besides, I have come out wholeheartedly publicly and privately for an optimistic view of the world’s affairs.

I think you are right about the early copies of The Oracle; it is almost entirely in “my hands.” The idea that a group should operate as an individual, and that an ego-individual should not operated at all, is both rank hearsay and good dharma.

My emissary has not only visited the new Zendo but also the Tibetan center in Berkeley, which is east of San Francisco Bay. Our discussion next Friday will be largely on Tibetan Buddhism and the experience of illumination. Since the work of Roshi Phillip Kapleau has become public, it is now possible, not to say permissible, to proclaim satori and samadhi, because it has been one’s own experience. Indeed, we are going to bring this out into the open coming Friday; isn’t that grand.

I am never surprised about the “anatta” Theravadins. It is they, and not their critics, who have made themselves “Hinayanists.”

Last night we want into the profundities of the dharma, in, out, and with any school or line of transmission. I shall continue to encourage all valid schools of dharma transmission. The main lesson was in the relation between power and peace, that peace is the most fundamental and power follows. We also used this in connection with out Jhana practice.

I am now watching my affairs closely as I may be called to Turkey next year, and Spain somewhat later. I have also written Kennett Roshi that they may have Phra Sumangalo’s chair whenever they wish, or it will be willed to them. I have been holding this for Eugene, but I think he consents. We are also planning two Vietnamese the gatherings, and James Eugene has turned over to me his Vietnamese correspondence.

Mehta,

Sam

Jan. 18, 1970

Rev. Jack Austin

100, Round weed Way

Banstead, Surrey, England

Bodhisattva:

When the Sufi Pir Vilayat was here he said “You have not only started the new year right, you have started the new decade right.” There is also a point which you have brought up, and which occasionally a so-called Buddhist accepts, and that is the actual law of karma, taken impersonally. My main heart-throb at Christmas came from the Biblical words which begin the “Messiah”: “Every valley shall be exalted and every hill laid low. The crooked made straight.” Once in a while one actually meets somebody who accepts this. But this billikin, knocked dawn over and over again, cannot transfer his allegiance to anything else. The crocked places will be made straight, the hills laid low, and the valleys exalted.

Tonight we shall repeat the Prajna Paramita Sutra in English, and give some attention to Kennett Roshi. Her affairs have gotten at the same time complicated and progressive. The complications come out of mistakes or otherwise made by herself or the consular service. The progressions are toward the establishment of a Zendo near Mt. Shasta, which will be for the hoi-polloi and not for the privileged only. And I am very pleased to have lost a tête-a-tête with Kennett Roshi, who proved her prowess in adopting the witticisms of H.S. Gilbert to some of the common complications of the day.

A copy of Kennett Roshi’s material has been placed in the hands of Prof. Lancaster at the University of California, one of the late Nyogen Senzaki’s last pupils.

Yesterday the session on the problems of South-East Asia began under Prof. Kozicki. He has lived in Burma and Malaysia as well as in Hawaii. I do not know how well he may have been acquainted with Phra Sumangalo. But I must say, almost in delight, that we seem to be entirely in accord on everything, and this covers a multitude of a multitude of subjects. Prof. Kozicki and Prof. Lancaster were each given the fascicles of the Encyclopedia of Buddhism so far as they are available. I should like to purchase more, but have had no word about their appearance.

I am still under the opinion that the practice of the Jhanas produces alterations in personality and that if properly performed, one would automatically graduate from so-called Theravada-Hinayana to Mahayana.

I am not surprised about your report on the Tulku. I did not approve of the attitude of Tibetans here toward Dr. Warwick. I am also well aware of the vices and vicissitudes of Padmasambhava. We may ignore the differences between the Tibetan schools, but I do believe there is such a thing as constructive morality. I failed to get Dr. Warwick on the telephone. We would like him to perform his fire ceremony on parinirvana day.

Both Professors Lancaster and Kozicki are well aware of the “selfless” attitude of various Buddhists—all Buddhists are leaders; none of them are Bodhisattvas apparently toward each other.

At the present time all I know about my prospective trip is that the convention has been transferred from Istanbul to Geneva. There are more and more reasons for visiting London, and on the whole the material backgrounds of the life are much better. The New age Food Stores have been prospering marvelously. And directly and indirectly this seems to be helping financially. Originally the leaders were Buddhist, but they have transferred their allegiance elsewhere. This is too complicated a subject to write about further.

I am also receiving more and more invitations to visit the Eastern part of the United States.

Other aspects of the New Age are also progressing. We shall soon have here Baba Ram Dass (Former Prof. Richard Alpert) who is lecturing to audiences which will contribute to a campaign which will benefit me personally—I am not being permitted to address the same audiences for the usual because because because. It is certainly droll.

I could sarcastically say, why should I bother concerning the scuttlebutt of other movements, when I might well be tarnished with things going on right in my presence. These things delight the establishments. After all, isn’t genocide a crime when it kills people who are potentially converts to your particular faith? Apparently slaughtering of Buddhist orphans in Vietnam is all right, but threatening potential Sunday School Children in Biafra is a horrible crime. I feel like terminating the play in the middle of the second act, without waiting for its conclusion, but I know there will be more later.

Faithfully and cordially,

Sam

Feb. 23, 1970

Rev. Jack Austin

100 Roundwood Way

Banstead, Surrey, England

My dear Jack:

I feel at this writing I am addressing the ego to my friend, my sweetheart, and myself all in one. At least we are booked for the Green Park Hotel on or about April 6. I expect to have with me my personal secretary Mansur Johnson, who has been a pupil of, and is a friend of, the rather celebrated American Orientalist Dr. Huston Smith. We are scheduled to arrive at Geneva on March 30. I want to get out of there as quickly as possible and have in London several to me most interesting contacts—chief among them Gandalf’s Garden and Studies in Comparative Religion. I may also try to contact Dr. Richard Lewis at the University of London.

I can’t help being very sympathetic to your private problems. There has been practically no time off any day this year so far, with both my brother and closest friend hovering almost between life and death. Such things are to be expected, but they do keep one close to reality.

For purposes of historical records I must repeat here two conversations with Robert. On his last visit here he came into my rooms unexpected and exhausted. He threw down his luggage, “Sam, we ain’t got It.” Standing up I replied, “Grandphra We have got It.” The stage is set now for the manifestation or debunking of my remarks, at Geneva.

The other took place earlier, when I said, “Grandphra, you and I are nobodies; combined we cannot get even 30 people to listen to us but I do not think there is a King, Prime Minister, cabinet official, university professor, holy man, or peasant from one and of Asia to the other whom we either have not met or cannot meet, but who will believe us?” He replied, “Too true Samuel; how true.”

This rejection drama is the reason for the title of my poem, “The Rejected Avatar”; literally it applies to Sri Krishna, actually to Robert and myself.

But not all the Buddhists, Theosophists, and cultists can interfere with the operations of the wheel of the Law. That Wheel is turning, has turned. There are two separate but not independent movements on foot to both tape-record and televise my work. This may not be done finally until the return from Geneva. But everything else is going in the same direction, and that is something to say. All the complaints, all the belly-aches so to speak, of the past, are now proving that they had a basis. My friend Vocha Fiske who I expect to see this week; my friend Ted Reich who was here last night; and others, are living witnesses to this. Therefore I hope when I reach London to have something more to offer than empty or not empty words.

Last night I read from the forgotten American, Paul Carus, from his The Gospel of Buddha. The crap, the desecration of Dharma, egocentricities that have filled our bookshelves, our lecture halls, our confused minds the past two generations is both working out its own evil karma and its counter-karma. Whatever I have said in the past, the opposite can be said today, with a new type of American professor—honest, objective, and not writing books “At the Feet of the Master” but having sat at the feet of Masters, lots of them. I see now the manifestations of Senzaki’s constant prophecy that the future of the Dharma lay in this country.

Dr. Richard Alpert, former Harvard professor, has been here lecturing as Baba Ram Dass. He is raising money for a book on the spiritual and esoteric methods in vogue derived from Asia. Indirectly I may benefit from his efforts. He drew thousands of young people who supplied him with many thousands of dollars for his efforts. This at a time when churches are amalgamating, are falling down in their appeals for funds. It is grotesque, it is true. But evidently Dr. Alpert-Ram Dass has still to grow for his former colleagues have sent for me to become an operative top Guru, also director in spiritual communes and organic gardening all together. This is scheduled for the 1^st of June. In the meanwhile many most optimistic appointments on tap about which I hope to tell you more when we meet.

It is now possible if the Ides have it, to make a valid will and honestly support Professors, students, and departments of real Asian culture within the confines of the multiversity of California, finding heirs so to speak at the same time for Robert and Nyogen Senzaki.

Before I received your letter I wrote a very strong letter to the WBF. There is an article “The Religion of Analysis and The Spirit of Modern Science.” The first sentence reads, “It is apparent to all of us, of course, that neither Buddhism nor modern science has been able to move forward in a line consistent with its nature.” Inasmuch as I have studied both Buddhism and modern laboratory science, there is some difference here. Princess Poon and I have been like brother and sister but I am going to ask the Buddhists at Geneva; “Why is it that when Dr. Radhakrishnan, who is not a titular Buddhist, says something, you all run to cover; and if somebody else says it, you won’t even examine it?” You can now understand why I wish to refer to a certain language as Polly. I think that covers it.

Next week we have scheduled here my Vietnamese friend An-The. He may speak on Vietnamese Buddhism, a subject which has to be ignored because it interferes with all the top bananas who make grand differentiations between Hindu Mahayana and Chinese Mahayana. But the truth is coming out now: it is being uncovered that many of the Polly derivations from Sanskrit have been so mis-translated that the terms are totally out of recognition. There is another fact in the Buddhism of this century that even you have ignored: if it is in Sanskrit it must be rejected; if it is in English….

I think your mentioning of the Great Silence is most important. The talk I gave last night was of course totally illogical: instead of deriving the Prajna Paramita from the Scriptures, I derived the Scriptures from the Prajna Paramita. Can anything more heretical be possibly conceived? Of course when I was at Nara it was different. At Nara we understood each other perfectly. Besides, we found an old work of Daisetz Suzuki and have copied an item in a later edition which was not originally published. The grand Mahayana does not make any distinctions into the egocentric sectarianism of later ages.

Fortunately, as above, the Wheel of the Law operates, and not even all the excellencies, be robed or not can change that. There is an almost legendary manifestation here. Kennett Roshi has been planning a Zen retreat near Mt. Shasta in northern California. There have been all kinds of legends about that facility. And now just at the time when the Zendo is coming to manifestation the Chief Witch of that region has conveniently died, but not before her friends had contacted the Roshi, and offered every form of co-operation.

I cannot tell what the future program will be, with my brother hovering. If he lives I shall be touring some of the Eastern states. If he leaves this world there will be an independent visit. A Korean retreat is being established in the state of Virginia. To me both Vietnamese and Korean Buddhism are far preferable to the analytical Chinese and Japanese with their sectarianisms and schools. The only question is how far am I able to be involved, even where everything is favorable.

The attendance at my meetings slowly but steadily increases. I now have a following of about 100, practically all young people. But invitations increase, and potentialities are very very high. My main immediate objective is to integrate differentiations and to be able to hold the personality under control in meeting the leaders of the world’s faiths in Geneva at the end of March. But even as I write I seem much more anxious to see you again than to achieve fame or ignominy in a beautiful or futile attempt to do something more than pass resolutions.

As your letter indicates, heresy consists of using a black linen thread instead of a black cotton thread, etc. Yes, Robert ran into the first Popes in Japan years ago. When Huey Long was alive and wrote, “Every man a King,” I remarked, “And every Devotee a Pope.” You have already gotten the drift. With all best wishes,

Sam

March 10, 1970

Rev. Jack Austin

100 Roundwood Way

Banstead, Surrey, England

My dear Jack:

In several senses I feel very close to you at this writing. We seem to have rather parallel lives both inwardly and outwardly. My brother remains in a state of invalidness. This complicates our financial positions. It is possible that a re-interpretation of our father’s will could lead to a much better financial picture, but he is in no condition to make reports or sign papers. Nevertheless, we have before us an example of Lord Buddha’s teaching, and it is so evident as to be called remarkable.

Actually, although I am going to Geneva and may be meeting the presumably great ones of the world, I have far more personal interest in my visit to London to see you again; to contact “Studies in Comparative Religion” (copy of letter to them enclosed); and to become involved with the young people gathering around what is known as Gandalf’s Garden. To me, this is truly “exciting.”

I have been writing some rather sarcastic letters about Laos, partly plagiarized from, and partly shared with, James Eugene. If he were the only source of presumable information there might to some question. But I have never yet heard from him a single incident which was not corroborated from other sources, more than attesting to this man’s veracity. Sometimes I feel that we are going to rise out and above all the egocentricities masquerading as religion be it of one faith or another, or of no faith at all, i.e. the humanist outlook. Why, today if you read the most recent publications of Theravadin, they have footnotes from Nagarjuna, Padmasambhava, et al. I think you realize what this means. At the same time, one must be cautious in working for world peace, not to overstress the shortcomings of any parties or group, but to rejoice in all efforts and attainments which bring humanity together.

I am also involved in a philosophical controversy cum effort. One of the professors, a Nobel Prize winner in physics, has come out for a rapprochement between Science and Religion. As I have seen it, the discovery of radioactivity was a demonstration of the teachings of Lord Buddha. By analogy I presumed that the cell also might be functional, and not a thing. As you will know, I have been griping no end over the repetitions of the Prajna Paramita Sutra while bypassing its teachings. Well, our good friend Mrs. Vocha Fiske who arrives here shortly, placed in my hands two books supporting the functional—as against the thing—essence of the cell. It is too early to go into his research. With the WBF supporting a man who denies the reality of spirit, his article being published because he is a “Buddhist” and also the articles of another man affirming the reality of the spirits, because this writer also claims to be a Buddhist, you can see that even the top-level so-called Buddhists will have little dance to support any thesis of their superiority when all cards are put on the table. So I am back on my thesis accepted by the universities but not by the exclusive and excluding so-called sanghas, that Buddhism is not scientific, but Lord Buddha was a great scientist. I see no reason to change such a statement, and I foresee no difficulty in handling any remarks that my come from any sangha-wallahs of any schools of the Dharma or Dharma. I expect their behaviors to be exactly the same as those of religionists of any type whatever. But I also see that unless the clerics of all faiths assent to both the virtues and virtuosities of clerics of other faiths, the world is going to step out to universality.

We continue to practice the Jhanas. I have gone over many books on Theravadin Teachings; I think the Jhanas are It, but just as iron, exposed to the atmosphere, exposed to moisture, exposed to acid, becomes an iron-compound adding something to its presumable essence which was not there before, so a devotee performing a Jhana becomes altered by such practice or practices, and is no longer the same personality. This is Lord Buddha’s teaching. But it also means a greater reality or value in the Nirmanakaya than in the ego-personality, and I doubt very much whether this point has ever been properly pursued. Taking certain elements, taking certain aspects, out of the cosmic Dharma, we only have derivative differential religion as by a similar process we only have derivative differential functions in mathematics.

The opposite trend brings us into integration and ultimately the universality vouchsafed by Dharmakaya and the Prajna Paramita Sutras.

I shall also be bringing with me, if not mailed beforehand, a recent version of the Sutra of the 6^th Patriarch and the Diamond Sutra, and efforts originated by the late Dr. Evans-Wentz and completed by my lifelong friend Rev. Joseph Miller.

Despite the possible glamour, despite the possible opening of the doors to fame at Geneva (or their opposites), I am anticipating my visit to London with far more eagerness than anything else on the present agenda. I am sure Rev. Miller, James Eugene, and Vocha all join me in expressions of their very good will.

Samuel

November 28, 1970

Dear Bodhisattva Jack:

Your letter of the 23rd has just arrived. We had several things to be thankful over. Chief associate has at last been released from the hospital. It is very hard to communicate that while being overworks d one’s chief two associates have been out of the picture. On the other hand we have several hard workers coming into the life, and while the financial situation is also being eased, this same applies to the voluntary-paid secretaries, that things are going well in their private lives.

Found some pound notes some weeks ago and said they should be sent to you. If they were not received will certainly send you a cheque for on the whole one’s monetary situation is improving. Much better attendance at meetings and now the universities are opening up.

Have been involved in our own peace plan for Palestine. This has been turned over to disciples and they are making much headway. Also the dances and otter efforts to bring the real Asia and real West together is receiving outside help. Cannot keep up with these matters but all the news is good. Then we feel we should do something for East Pakistan.

One must say that certain aspects of Buddhism are better than certain aspects of Islam. On the lower level is karma and although karma is in some aspects accepted theoretically by all faiths, in practice this is not always so. Fatalism is the weakness of the Bengalis. They do not sow during peaceful tines thinking that storms will come and destroy their efforts. The Buddhists do not work that way. The great Sufis do not work that way either but they have not added the practical influence on the masses.

We still perform the Jhanas and they have been most effective. But that makes us heretics. When I placed a peace attitude toward certain Buddhists, drawing from the life of Gautama Siddhartha, I received a very fine “dualistic” criticism that my work and ideas were contrary to some elements in the Patimokkha. I replied that I was not surprised that there are things in the Patimokkha against the teaching of Lord Buddha and also that I have never met anybody in Theravada that had the Moksha, or maybe the Mokkha. And this was a “new” idea that one was at fault because somewhere in some Buddhist scripture there were ideas or verbalisms contrary to whatever one was doing or thought. And this meant there was no escape from heresy, not even Enlightenment.

A very fine apology was forthcoming. You can understand. And I have been about to join the Vietnamese Buddhists but Harold Priebe has gotten in and if the slightest thing is said or done against this person they are going to get a good Zen smash. I am not taking any more nonsense. Will help feed or clothe or bring wisdom but not criticisms but he muchly divided “anatta-Buddhists.”

One is being importuned and saved because one is outspoken saying that one can only give to those who recognize this person as a spiritual teacher. Otherwise nothing doing. Caught Alan Watts in this and am also approaching him, really reproaching in disguise. The day when “experts,” moved by “compassion” and “wisdom,” can stand in my way is over.

There are now two World Buddhist Federations, one dominated by Theravadins and “nice” people; the other by certain schools of Mahayana. I have never been reconciled to the discard of the celebrations of Enlightenment Day and Parinirvana Day. There is one school in San Francisco very busy in getting out new kinds of translations but also in correcting old translations. “Everybody” is better in correcting (?) anyhow.

I don’t know exactly what has happened to Gandalf’s Garden and am so busy. Fortunately good health keeps me from worrying and with two homes and five “careers” there is enough change to keep one fresh mentally and free from ennui.

Visit Arizona in late January or February for there is a publisher awaiting materiel. Everything looks bright at this season.

Mehta,

Sam