In order to attain the peace here and now that Buddha-dhamma offers, it is not necessery to have a lot of books; only a few for reference purposes are really necessary to one. After studying one or two reliable introductory books to Buddhism in general, it is better to go on from these to reading the canonical books in translation.

Please send me any and all queries you have regarding Buddhism.

Just allow me to introduce myself to you. I am 27 years old, married, teacher for French, German and bookkeeping in a private school at Antwerp, rather poor than rich, so that I can’t afford to buy the books which would teach me more of the things I want to learn. I have especially studied philosophy and art, wrote poems neither splendid nor awful, some short stories and I was writing a novel that I stopped as it became clear to me that all those things were vanity and idleness. I started my way to Buddhism some 10 years ago by reading the Dhammapada, that influenced my mind and opened new views on life.

1° - The Buddha said: all things compound will be destroyed. But the object for rebirth, the character as you call it in your leaflet, isn’t it compound? Is it not a thing build up by all the actions and movements of the mind during an existence? The Buddha compared it with a flame of a candle going over to another candle, but isn’t a flame a thing compound?

2° - The Buddha said to obstain from killing, and the Sangha prohibited the eating of meat for this reason. But animals are not the only living things! Anything we eat is living: fruit, vegetables, rice, potatoes. Anything we use is nearly living: wood, wool, cotton, etc. Why restrict killing to animals? Is it because the suffering of animals appeals more directly to the perceiving human mind?

You start by saying “I have learned a lot from books; but it seems to me that the Dharma is to be understood by more direct contact.”

This is very true: it is precisely so, and from this remark of yours alone I can tell you that you must have already progressed so far - further than many Buddhists get, and further indeed than the great majority of Asian Buddhists who are handicapped by their conventions and prejudices ever go. In Buddhisme Meditation and Contemplation take the place that prayer does in Christianity. The more one meditates the more one perceives the great wisdom in the Buddha’s utterances; and conversely, the more one reads the more one sees the necessity for contemplation.

But one does not, all the same, require to have a large number of books. These, like other posessions, become only a nuisance. (…)

Question 1 - A human being consists of 5 khandha (body or form, feeling or sensations, perceptions, mental tendencies & conditions, & consciousness). At death, all 5 khandha desintegrate. Nothing tangible is reborn, but simply the evolving character which is the result of our past acts, words & thoughts. Of course the character is changing continually - until one makes the supreme personal effort and attains Nirvana and with it liberation from the round of rebirth, when this continuity ceases. Nirvana means ‘cessation’. Therefore a human being is said to be no more than a process, like a burning flame.

Question 2 - In this respect (i.e. diet) each individual person has to apply the Middle Way of moderation as he thinks fit. Rules are dangerous; but for the monks there is an ancient rule forbidding them to eat animal food if they suspect that it has been killed especially for them; (…) If one goes to extremes one would be left without any food at all! The Buddha’s Middle Path avoids all extremes.

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