Physics and Psychology, and Equally Will Not Apply to Much Which Is offered as Buddhism

Physics 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 Buddha's 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 meeting of all kinds. Leslie Lowe of Los Angeles died in my absence--I have known him for a long time, but not too well. Ira Price has taken his place and here I am more fortunate than you, for the mehta which existed between Phra Sumangalo and myself continues not in his goings, so to speak, and I have the same feeling both without reason and without ego to Price, Wagner and Goode here.

There is a 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 uniting, 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 in 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 cultures, 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 Tamura who tells us all but 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 Andre Bareau, translated into English. He puts the Absolute of Buddhism back where it belongs, not to Hegel, or 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, a non-arisen, a non-made, a non-compound, for if there were no non-born, no non-arisen, no non-made, no non-compound, then no escape would be made from what is born, what has arisen, what is made, what is composed.

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

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

Sunday I go to 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 50-11 speaker--probably more on "Zen," "Buddhism," "Cosmic Consciousness' and nobody has spoken in English on the Buddha.

Theologically I don't care but psychologically 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 review material. This is a good surprise.

Faithfully,

S. A. M.

Samuel L. Lewis

April 18

Beloved One of God:

This is my diary entry. Recently, I had to "reverse my field." I have had two awkward rejections, the nature of which need not concern anybody. So I began doing something different.

a. Spiritual Music. Completing the typing of "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow." I saw it was time to open this up. Then Tuesday night, something happened which gave the sign, and as God has given me some keys, I shall take the next steps very soon. At first it may be only to a few, but if it can be started here, then I would bring it to Mendocino. I never studied the last chapters of this book before, stopping with "Architecture." I shall return it as soon as possible.

b. Buddhism. Now I find I am in the Wesak Day Program, a huge gathering to take place the first Sunday in May.