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        This monograph, which confirms Professor  de Silva's
        status as one of the leading East-West  thinkers  in
        Sri Lanka, revolves  around  the related  issues  of
        anxiety   and   self   as  understood   by   various
        existentialist thinkers and psychotherapists  and in
        early  Buddhism.   The  Book  follows  an  irregular
        course, touching on issues raised by Kier-

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        kegaard,  Sidney  Hook,  Sartre,  Heidegger,  Ludwig
        Binswanger, Freud, Marx, Fromm, and, of  course, the
        Buddha.

            The first chapter  gives  a cursory  look at the
        history of existential  philosophy, indicating  what
        family   resemblances   run  through   its   diverse
        teachings. The second chapter deals with Kierkegaard
        and Buddhism  on the notion of pleasure, which finds
        its  expressions  in the notions  of the  "aesthetic
        stage  of life"  and kaama-tanhaa.  As de Silva  has
        pointed  out in the case of the corresponding  ideas
        of angst  and dukkha, which  cannot  be equated  but
        which do overlap in certain usages, so Buddhism  and
        Kierkegaard    could    well   agree   as   to   the
        unsatisfactoriness of aestheticism and kaama-tanhaa.
        Both  systems   would  affirm  the  primacy  of  the
        religious dimension of the person.  However de Silva
        contends  that, due  to its theistic  underpinnings,
        the  notion  of "repentence," which  for Kierkegaard
        plays  a major  role  in the religious  life, has no
        counterpart in Buddhism.  This may be, but the point
        could  have  been  more forcibly  made  had de Silva
        analyzed more closely the grammar of the terms "sin"
        and   "avijjaa"   in  the  Christian   and  Buddhist
        religious  systems.  However, de Silva makes  a good
        point  in showing  that  Kierkegaard's  emphasis  on
        repentence   would   be  seen   by  a  Buddhist   as
        pathological.  As he aptly  notes: "The  Buddha  has
        very  clearly  shown  that  in the  final  analysis,
        anguish cannot be matched by anguish; anguish has to
        be mastered by equanimity" (p.29).

            De Silva then takes up Sidney  Hook's  criticism
        of Buddhism, which offers  that the Buddha's  notion
        of dukkha is not convincing because he does not find
        death per se as truly tragic, as he feels the Buddha
        did.  De Silva  has a rather  easy  time  dismissing
        Hook, who looks  like a straw man because  it is not
        death per se at which the Buddha recoiled in horror,
        it was the fact that  we die in spite  of a powerful
        desire  that we live (bhaava-tanhaa) and that we are
        reborn   despite   our   desire   for   annihilation
        (vibhaava-tanhaa).

            In  a chapter  dealing  with  anxiety, de  Silva
        considers  such  notions  as  Freud  on  "separation
        anxiety"  (the  parallels  to which  are more  fully
        explored   in  de  Silva,  Buddhist   and   Freudian
        Psychology  (Colombo: Lake House  Investments  Ltd.,
        1973,  especially  chapter  4) ;  Sartre's  idea  of
        anxiety as nonbeing  (n‚ant) as correlated  with his
        conceptions  of bad and good faith;  and Heidegger's
        notion  of anxiety  (dread) which can break  through
        "the flight of the self from itself." De Silva finds
        this important  common denominator  running  through
        existentialist  thought  on  anxiety  (p.53):  "Thus
        Kierkegaard, Heidegger  and  Sartre  agree  that  an
        honest encounter  with dread and anguish is the only
        gateway to authentic living."

            Considering  Buddhist  notions  of  anxiety,  de
        Silva  finds  a much  more  detailed  analysis.  The
        Buddha  taught  that some types  of anxiety, such as
        paritassanaa and sa^mvega, are conducive to spiritual
        growth as spurrings on toward the goal. Other types,
        such as uddhacca  and kukucca, which  might  be more
        allied  with Western  notions  of guilt  and perhaps
        Kierkegaard's  notion of repentence, are found to be
        dysfunctional.  Further,  the  Buddha  distinguished
        "objective  anxiety," bahidhaa asati paritassana, as
        in the case of anxiety  about  the loss of something
        which   existed,   from   "objectless    anxiety,  "
        ajjhatta^m, which is being anxious  about  something
        that is not real.  The paradigm  of this second type
        of anxiety would be the case of fear of the Buddha's
        teachings  as annihilationism, wherein  the believed
        but unreal self is found, by the Buddha's  analysis,
        to be lacking.  De Silva  is implying  here that the
        confrontation  with  n‚ant, angst, dread, et cetera,
        is nauseating  to the existentialist  because he had
        implicitly believed in what the Buddha


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        would classify as an eternalist doctrine. The Buddha
        found ajjhata^m  to be rooted in false beliefs about
        the self, and it is here  that the Buddha's  therapy
        may truly begin. Thus de Silva's analysis shows that
        the Buddha did not, as did the existentialists, stop
        with   anxiety,  but  probed   deeper:  "While   the
        existentialist  emphasizes  the encounter with dread
        and nothingness, the Buddhist is seeking a diagnosis
        of it...  the Buddha is saying that the intensity of
        anxiety was due to a false doctrine of eternalism...
        Hence anxiety,  far from being an authentic mood, is
        an expression of attachment to wrong views about the
        self"  (p.55).  De Silva  notes  that  the  Buddha's
        analysis  of anxiety was so thorough  that one finds
        twenty forms of anxiety enumerated  in the Sa^myutta
        Nikaaya,III,15-19.

            Analogous   to  the  philosophical/psychological
        notion  of anxiety, according  to  de  Silva, is the
        sociological  concept of alienation.  While de Silva
        points   to  Marx's  contribution   in  seeing  both
        powerlessness  and egoism as underlying  alienation,
        the parallels  between Buddhist  and Marxist thought
        on this topic are not fully developed.

            In  a chapter  dealing  with  therapy.  de Silva
        approvingly  notes  Binswanger's  letters  to Freud,
        which speak of a need to develop  an image of man as
        such which  goes beyond  Freud's  image  of ill man.
        This  is found  to be  the  crux  of the  thrust  of
        existential  psychotherapy: that the "patient" must
        be  treated   as  a  person  and  not  merely  as  a
        repository  of symptoms.  If it could  be held  that
        anxiety  is not something  which a person  "has" but
        which a person "is", then "...the need to re-examine
        the  image  of man and the concept  of human  nature
        comes   out  very  clearly   in  the  existentialist
        analysis  of anxiety" (p.74), an area which de Silva
        finds richly developed in Buddhism.

            Overall, the book is one of the most  successful
        treatments    of   Buddhist    and    existentialist
        comparative thought I have come across. The author's
        depth  of understanding  of both  traditions  avoids
        superficial  or prejudicial comparisons, and this is
        possibly the key to the book's strength.  One hopes,
        along   with   the   author,  that   if  this   book
        "...stimulates   interest  among  psychologists  and
        psychiatrists  to look out for such wider  horizons,
        then perhaps  an occasional  agonizing  riddle  of a
        philosopher does have some point" (p.75).

        NATHAN KATZ
        Temple University