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An appropriate Sutta for the modern Western mind
Brian
Detroit, MI Moderator
I originally posted this at another site, but I think it is appropriate for this site:
Many people have been asking me about books and teachings (in English of course) about Buddhism. I want to start compiling a list of modern Buddhist thought and how Buddhism relates to today's highly technological and scientific world as well as how perfect the Buddha's teachings are - they were given 2500 years ago and still hold up perfectly well today.
One thing I wanted to mention is the Kalama Sutta. Kalama was a village in India during Gotama's time (500 BC) where many gurus came through and told everyone "My spiritual teachings are correct. The last guy who was here was wrong, and everyone who comes after me will be wrong - mine are correct. You must listen to my religion, as it is the one true religion" Finally the people of Kalama were so confused and fed up with the contradictions they were hearing that they called for the Buddha, who was known as a very wise man, to come in a settle things for them. He gave them the Kalama Sutta, which is paraphrased from suanmokkh.org (a Thai Buddhist informational site, available in English). Any emphasis is my own.
1. Ma anussavena:
Don’t accept and believe something to be true just because it has been passed along and retold for many years. Such credulity is a characteristic of brainless people, of "sawdust brains"
2. Ma paramparaya:
Don’t believe in something merely because it has become a traditional practice. People tend to imitate what others do and then pass the habit along, as in the story of the rabbit that was terrified by a fallen mango (like Chicken Little’s falling sky). When the other animals saw the rabbit running at top speed, they were frightened too and ran after it. Most of them ended up tripping and tumbling off a cliff to their deaths. Any vipassana (insight) practice that merely imitates others, that just follows traditions, will bring similar results.
3. Ma itikiraya:
Don’t accept and believe something simply because of reports and news of it spreading far and wide, whether through one’s village or throughout the whole world. Only fools are susceptible to such rumors, for they refuse to exercise their own powers of intelligence and discrimination.
4. Ma Pitakasampadanena:
Don’t accept and believe something just because it is cited in a pitaka (text). The word "pitaka," although most commonly used for Buddhist scriptures, can mean anything written or inscribed on a suitable writing material. The teachings memorized and passed on orally should not be confused with pitaka. A pitaka is a certain kind of conditioned thing made and controlled by human beings, which can be improved or changed by human hands. Thus, we cannot trust every letter and word we read in them. We need to use our powers of discrimination to see how these words can be applied to the quenching of suffering. There are discrepancies among the pitaka of the various Buddhist schools, so care is called for.
5. Ma takkahetu:
Don’t believe something solely on the grounds of logical reasoning (takka). Logic is merely one branch of knowledge that people use to try to figure out the truth. Takka or Logic is not infallible. If its data or inferences are incorrect, it can go wrong.
6. Ma nayahetu:
Don’t believe or accept something merely because it appears correct on the grounds of Naya or what is now called "philosophy." In Thailand, we translate the Western term philosophy as prajna. Our Indian friends cannot accept this because "naya" is just a point of view or opinion; it isn’t the supreme understanding properly referred to as panya or prajna. Naya or nayaya is merely a method of deductive reasoning based on hypotheses or assumptions. Such reasoning can err when the method or hypothesis is inappropriate.
7. Ma akaraparivitakkena:
Don’t believe or accept something simply because of superficial thinking, that is, because it appeals to what we nowadays call "common sense," which is merely snap judgments based on one’s tendencies of thought. We like to use this approach so much that it becomes habitual. Some careless and boastful philosophers rely on such common sense a great deal and consider themselves clever.
8. Ma ditthinijjhanakkhantiya:
Don’t believe accept something to be true merely because it agrees or fits with one’s preconceived opinions and theories. Personal views can be wrong and our methods of experiment and verification may be inadequate, neither of which lead us to the truth. This approach may seem similar to the scientific method, but can never actually be scientific, as its proofs and experiments are inadequate.
9. Ma bhabbarupataya:
Don’t believe something just because the speaker appears believable, perhaps due to creditability or prestige. Outside appearances and the actual knowledge inside a person can never be identical. We often find that speakers who appear creditable outwardly turn out to say incorrect and foolish things. Nowadays, we must be wary of computers because the programmers who feed them data and manipulate them may put in the wrong information, make programming errors, or use them incorrectly. Don’t worship computers so much, for doing so goes against this principle of the Kalama Sutta.
10. Ma samano no garu ti:
Don’t believe something simply because the monk (more broadly, any speaker) is "my teacher." The Buddha’s purpose regarding this important point is that nobody should be the intellectual slave of anybody else, not even the Buddha Himself. The Buddha emphasized this point often, and there were disciples, such as the Venerable Sariputta, who confirmed it in practice. They didn’t believe the Buddha’s words immediately upon hearing them; they only did so after reasoned reflection and the test of practice. See for yourselves whether there is any other religious teacher in the world who has given this highest freedom to his disciples and listeners! In Buddhism there is no dogmatic system that pressures us to believe without the right to examine and decide for ourselves. This is the greatest uniqueness of Buddhism that keeps its practitioners from being anybody’s intellectual slave.
---
I encourage anyone who is interested in Buddhism to read the rest of the article, which can be found at http://www.suanmokkh.org/archive/kalama1.htm
Many people have been asking me about books and teachings (in English of course) about Buddhism. I want to start compiling a list of modern Buddhist thought and how Buddhism relates to today's highly technological and scientific world as well as how perfect the Buddha's teachings are - they were given 2500 years ago and still hold up perfectly well today.
One thing I wanted to mention is the Kalama Sutta. Kalama was a village in India during Gotama's time (500 BC) where many gurus came through and told everyone "My spiritual teachings are correct. The last guy who was here was wrong, and everyone who comes after me will be wrong - mine are correct. You must listen to my religion, as it is the one true religion" Finally the people of Kalama were so confused and fed up with the contradictions they were hearing that they called for the Buddha, who was known as a very wise man, to come in a settle things for them. He gave them the Kalama Sutta, which is paraphrased from suanmokkh.org (a Thai Buddhist informational site, available in English). Any emphasis is my own.
1. Ma anussavena:
Don’t accept and believe something to be true just because it has been passed along and retold for many years. Such credulity is a characteristic of brainless people, of "sawdust brains"
2. Ma paramparaya:
Don’t believe in something merely because it has become a traditional practice. People tend to imitate what others do and then pass the habit along, as in the story of the rabbit that was terrified by a fallen mango (like Chicken Little’s falling sky). When the other animals saw the rabbit running at top speed, they were frightened too and ran after it. Most of them ended up tripping and tumbling off a cliff to their deaths. Any vipassana (insight) practice that merely imitates others, that just follows traditions, will bring similar results.
3. Ma itikiraya:
Don’t accept and believe something simply because of reports and news of it spreading far and wide, whether through one’s village or throughout the whole world. Only fools are susceptible to such rumors, for they refuse to exercise their own powers of intelligence and discrimination.
4. Ma Pitakasampadanena:
Don’t accept and believe something just because it is cited in a pitaka (text). The word "pitaka," although most commonly used for Buddhist scriptures, can mean anything written or inscribed on a suitable writing material. The teachings memorized and passed on orally should not be confused with pitaka. A pitaka is a certain kind of conditioned thing made and controlled by human beings, which can be improved or changed by human hands. Thus, we cannot trust every letter and word we read in them. We need to use our powers of discrimination to see how these words can be applied to the quenching of suffering. There are discrepancies among the pitaka of the various Buddhist schools, so care is called for.
5. Ma takkahetu:
Don’t believe something solely on the grounds of logical reasoning (takka). Logic is merely one branch of knowledge that people use to try to figure out the truth. Takka or Logic is not infallible. If its data or inferences are incorrect, it can go wrong.
6. Ma nayahetu:
Don’t believe or accept something merely because it appears correct on the grounds of Naya or what is now called "philosophy." In Thailand, we translate the Western term philosophy as prajna. Our Indian friends cannot accept this because "naya" is just a point of view or opinion; it isn’t the supreme understanding properly referred to as panya or prajna. Naya or nayaya is merely a method of deductive reasoning based on hypotheses or assumptions. Such reasoning can err when the method or hypothesis is inappropriate.
7. Ma akaraparivitakkena:
Don’t believe or accept something simply because of superficial thinking, that is, because it appeals to what we nowadays call "common sense," which is merely snap judgments based on one’s tendencies of thought. We like to use this approach so much that it becomes habitual. Some careless and boastful philosophers rely on such common sense a great deal and consider themselves clever.
8. Ma ditthinijjhanakkhantiya:
Don’t believe accept something to be true merely because it agrees or fits with one’s preconceived opinions and theories. Personal views can be wrong and our methods of experiment and verification may be inadequate, neither of which lead us to the truth. This approach may seem similar to the scientific method, but can never actually be scientific, as its proofs and experiments are inadequate.
9. Ma bhabbarupataya:
Don’t believe something just because the speaker appears believable, perhaps due to creditability or prestige. Outside appearances and the actual knowledge inside a person can never be identical. We often find that speakers who appear creditable outwardly turn out to say incorrect and foolish things. Nowadays, we must be wary of computers because the programmers who feed them data and manipulate them may put in the wrong information, make programming errors, or use them incorrectly. Don’t worship computers so much, for doing so goes against this principle of the Kalama Sutta.
10. Ma samano no garu ti:
Don’t believe something simply because the monk (more broadly, any speaker) is "my teacher." The Buddha’s purpose regarding this important point is that nobody should be the intellectual slave of anybody else, not even the Buddha Himself. The Buddha emphasized this point often, and there were disciples, such as the Venerable Sariputta, who confirmed it in practice. They didn’t believe the Buddha’s words immediately upon hearing them; they only did so after reasoned reflection and the test of practice. See for yourselves whether there is any other religious teacher in the world who has given this highest freedom to his disciples and listeners! In Buddhism there is no dogmatic system that pressures us to believe without the right to examine and decide for ourselves. This is the greatest uniqueness of Buddhism that keeps its practitioners from being anybody’s intellectual slave.
---
I encourage anyone who is interested in Buddhism to read the rest of the article, which can be found at http://www.suanmokkh.org/archive/kalama1.htm
0
Comments
Hi Brian,
sutra is sanskrit word for sutta.the mahayana sect usually use sanskrit words for buddhism terminology
Jules
All words are constructs to describe constructs, maps of the territory, not the territory itself.
There was a time when I was very particular and pedantic about the use of Pali because it is the language of the earliest writings and legend said that it was Gautama (Gotama)'s speech. Archaeologically, I am not sure that we can still say that. Pali is the language in which the Tripitaka was written down after centuries of oral recitation.
Perhaps we would be better using Tibetan, a language developed specifically to express the truths of the Dharma.
So much of my philosophical life was being spoon fed what someone else thought at the end of a sword - so to speak.
Being able to seek enlightenment with the ability to ask questions of even what Buddha said - seems to me much more logical.
Any religion or thought belief that turns people into herds of dumb animals does not appeal to me.
Michael
I underlined the part that needs emphasis, because many folks take this advice in the sutta as meaning, "I and I alone, am the most important judge of all Dharma matters". Buddha's advice to pay attention to what "the wise" say, when making our decisions, means he did not favor complete reliance on our own views & opinions.
Otherwise, why seek? You are, obviously, all you will ever need.
As for me, learning comes so much easier when it is possible to ask questions of those who are wiser than you - so that you don't walk away scratching your head thinking :wtf:???
-bf
Good point, Will.
I find myself drawn to the wiser than myself, those with more experience, as role models. I always leave plenty of room for their human fallibility and am not disappointed when I see it. But I have enough humility to realize that I am not an island, nor do I have the experience necessary to make wise decisions in all matters. I feel that there is a wisdom deep inside me, but I need to hear the words and counsel of the wise in order to recognize it in myself. Whenever I hear something particularly wise that I had not thought of myself, it always sounds somewhat familiar.
In a round about way I'm trying to say that I feel like I possess wisdom somewhere deep inside but I need to hear the wise repeat it in order for my own wisdom to come forward and ring its bell.
I hope this makes sense.
Brigid
Maybe your Buddha-mind or Buddha-nature?
-bf
Brigid
Maybe that's where the seat of our wisdom comes from.
-bf
It feels like the wisdom part of me is a fully developed part and the foolish part of me is underdeveloped and blocking the wise part. I feel like I have to...what's the word...integrate, that's it, integrate both of them, or something...? LOL!
Brigid,
perhaps the term is Congruity? the two need to be Congruous? fitting?
regards,
Xrayman
P.S. Buddha nature I feel/think is having all the attributes of the 8fold path-my interpretation.
Yes, congruity is a good description of what I was trying to express.
I think Buddha nature, though, is more about potential to become a Buddha. I mean, even animals have Buddha nature, and they don't have the attributes of the Eightfold Path. I could very easily be wrong, but I think all sentient beings are supposed to possess the potential to become Buddhas. What do you think?
Brigid
regards,
Richard.