The Buddha Himself Warned Not To Accept Anything Unless Tested By Yourself!

[rockyysdt]

Kalama Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya III.65

Do not accept anything by mere tradition ... Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures ... Do not accept anything merely because it agrees with your pre-conceived notions ... But when you know for yourselves—these things are moral, these things are blameless, these things are praised by the wise, these things, when performed and undertaken, conduce to well-being and happiness—then do you live acting accordingly.

The Buddha made it clear, warning that even his own teachings should be tested before being accepted as fact.

Did he also mean the translations of his teachings as well as their implementation?

In these modern times many have succumbed to laziness, all too often being spoon fed the answers we look for.

Laced with the promise of ego inflating rewards, we all too often grasp onto beliefs which offer us what we want to hear.

Have we slipped into a society which demand instant answers and instant gratification?

Is any text greater than a paragraph or two, far too much for us to take in?

Isn't that which offers great change in our lives worthy of verification through personal investigation or do we accept what is offered/regurgetated on a plate?

Do our beliefs, through years of conditioning, imprison us with invisible bars?

Edited August 4, 2012 by rockyysdt

[fabianfred]

Do not forget that the Kalama Sutta was aimed at people who were confused by many different teachers and their different teaching.... a guide on how to judge them.

It did not say we must disbelief everything until proven...as many modern Westerners seem to think. That just supports their own lack of belief or scepticism.

We can prove the veracity of the teachings...by doing the practice ourselves....and that is the only way.

[Several]

I think so. In fact preconceived ideas are the greatest enemy of realisation. Most peoples effort goes into defending prior ideas rather than exploring the possibility they could be wrong. I met a monk who said this sutta did not apply to the Buddhas teaching itself, but I disagree. I'm sure he wanted us to challenge ourselves with practice to verify what anybody proposed, including himself. And that is one of the things that makes him great in my eyes.

[lungmi]

Do not forget that the Kalama Sutta was aimed at people who were confused by many different teachers and their different teaching.... a guide on how to judge them.

It did not say we must disbelief everything until proven...as many modern Westerners seem to think. That just supports their own lack of belief or scepticism.

We can prove the veracity of the teachings...by doing the practice ourselves....and that is the only way.

Belief and faith are friviously mixed, one is an irrational and one is a rational term. Faith means confidence till the opposite is proven by your own experience.

[sabaijai]

Lost in Quotation

Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Many people who don’t know much about old Buddhist texts often know one

passage from the Pali Canon: the part of the Kalama Sutta (Anguttara Nikaya

(AN) 3:65) stating that old texts can’t be trusted.

Quotes from this passage come in many shapes and sizes. Some of them are

short sound bites, like the message that was rubber-stamped on the envelope of a

letter I once received:

Follow your own sense of right and wrong. — The Buddha

There’s also the desktop wallpaper:

Believe nothing, no matter who said it, not even if I said it, if it doesn’t fit in

with your own reason and common sense. — The Buddha

Even scholarly citations of the sutta give the same message. Here’s the entire

quote from the sutta in a recent book:

“When you know for yourselves that these things are wholesome… these

things, when entered upon and undertaken, incline toward welfare and happiness

—then, Kalamas, having come to them you should stay with them.”

Taken together, these quotes justify our tendency to pick what we like from

the old texts and throw the rest away. No need to understand the larger context

of the dhamma they teach, the Buddha seems to be saying. You’re better off

rolling your own.

But if you look at the entire passage in the Kalama Sutta, you discover that

these quotes give only part of the picture. The Buddha’s skepticism toward

reliable authorities extends inside as well as out:

“So in this case, Kalamas, don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by

scripture, by logical deduction, by inference, by analogies, by agreement

through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This

contemplative is our teacher.’”

Notice the words in plain face, the ones that usually get dropped from the

quote or sloughed over when they’re included. When the Buddha says that you

can’t go by logical deduction, inference, or analogies, he’s saying that you can’talways trust your sense of reason. When he says that you can’t go by agreement

through pondering views (i.e., what seems to fit in with what you already

believe) or by probability, he’s saying that you can’t always trust your common

sense. And of course, you can’t always trust teachers, scriptures, or traditions. So

where can you place your trust? You have to put things to the test in your own

thoughts, words, and deeds, to see what actually leads to suffering and what

leads to its end.

“When you know for yourselves that, ‘These dhammas are unskillful; these

dhammas are blameworthy; these dhammas are criticized by the wise; these

dhammas, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm & to suffering’—then you

should abandon them.”

“When you know for yourselves that, ‘These dhammas are skillful; these

dhammas are blameless; these dhammas are praised by the wise; these dhammas,

when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness’—then you should

enter & remain in them.”

The word “dhamma” in these passages means three things in one: teaching,

mental quality, and action. Teachings are naturally related to the mind states and

actions they inspire, so they should be judged by the results they give when put

into action. True dhamma is what works in leading to genuine well-being. False

dhamma is what doesn’t.

But even when judging the results of your own actions, you can’t simply take

your own ideas of “what works” as a trustworthy standard. After all, you can

easily side with your greed, aversion, or delusion, setting your standards too

low. So to check against this tendency, the Buddha recommends that you also

take into consideration the views of the wise, for you’ll never grow until you

allow your standards to be challenged by theirs.

Now, if you’re expecting quick access to a totally reliable authority, this may

sound like a catch: If you’re not wise enough to trust your own judgment, how

can you recognize who’s really wise? But it’s not a catch. It’s simply the way we

have to operate when developing any kind of skill—your appreciation of good

carpentry, for example, grows as you master carpentry yourself—and the

Buddha is making the point that this is how to approach the dhamma: as a skill

to be mastered. As with any skill, your inner sensitivity and assurance as to

who’s truly wise in the skill grows only through your willingness to learn.

In giving advice on how to learn this skill, the Buddha is speaking, not with

the authority of your creator who can tell you what you have to believe, but with

the authority of an expert in his field, one who knows from experience what does

and doesn’t work. If you want to learn from him, you’re wise to accept his

observations on how it’s best done. The first thing to recognize is that there are

others who have mastered the skill before you and that they have some

important things to teach.

Among the things they’ll teach you, of course, is what they’ve learned from

the wise before them, going back to the Buddha. Some of this knowledge can be

passed on in words, but in a list of the qualities to look for in the wise—and to

learn from them—the Buddha shows that there’s more to wisdom than just

words. A person worthy of respect, he says at AN 7:64, should have a sense of

seven things: the dhamma, its meaning, oneself, enough, the right time and

place, social gatherings, and how to judge individual people.

What’s striking about this list is that only the first two qualities deal with

verbal knowledge. Having a sense of the dhamma means knowing what the Buddha

did and didn’t say; having a sense of meaning means knowing how to explain the

dhamma’s difficult concepts and ideas: the general principles that express its

values, and the basic techniques for implementing them. These are things we can

pick up from dhamma talks and books.

But the Buddha didn’t teach a one-size-fits-all-in-every-situation technique.

Even his seemingly abstract principles are meant for particular stages in the

training. “Not-self,” for example, is useful in some instances, and harmful in

others. This is why the Buddha added the last five members of the list: the

sensitivities that turn the techniques and principles into genuine skills.

Having a sense of oneself means knowing your strengths and weaknesses in

terms of conviction, virtue, learning, generosity, discernment, and quickwittedness. In other words, you know which qualities are important to focus on,

and can assess objectively where you still have more work to do.

Having a sense of enough applies primarily to your use of the requisites of life—

food, clothing, shelter, and medicine—but it can also apply to intangibles, such

as when you need less desire, effort, concentration, or thinking in your practice,

and when you need more.

Having a sense of time means knowing when to listen, when to memorize what

you’ve heard, when to ask questions, and when to go off into seclusion and

practice on your own.

Having a sense of social gatherings means knowing how to speak and behave

with people from different backgrounds and classes of society.

Having a sense of individuals means knowing how to judge which people are

worthy of emulation in their pursuit of the dhamma and which ones are not.

Even though we can talk about these last five qualities, we can’t embody

them through words. They’re habits, and the only way to pick up good habits is

by being around good examples: people who’ve already been trained to embody

these qualities in the way they live.

This is why the Buddha—in trying to establish the dhamma for future

generations—didn’t just leave a body of teachings. He also set up the monastic

sangha and organized it to carry on the tradition of all seven of these qualities:

his habits as well as his words. To ensure that the standard of the dhamma

would last over time, he first made it clear that he didn’t want anyone tampering

with his teachings.

“Monks, these two slander the Tathagata. Which two? One who explains

what was not said or spoken by the Tathagata as said or spoken by the Tathagata.

And one who explains what was said or spoken by the Tathagata as not said or

spoken by the Tathagata. These are the two who slander the Tathagata.” — AN

2:23

It’s easy to understand why the Buddha phrased this so strongly. He had

chosen his words with great care, and wanted the same level of care in those who

quoted him. Fidelity, in his eyes, was an act of compassion. He intended his

words to be taken as a standard for what was and wasn’t dhamma—anything

consistent with his words was to be accepted as dhamma; anything inconsistent,

to be rejected as not—so it’s only natural that he’d warn his followers not to

muddy the standard. Otherwise, later generations would have no trustworthy

guide in their search to end suffering.

So in addition to establishing principles for determining what he did and

didn’t teach, he also set up protocols for how the sangha should settle

disagreements on this issue when they arose.

To ensure that the meaning of the dhamma would be passed on, he

established the principle that teachers should be open to questioning. He didn’t

want them to engage in what he called bombast: empty words “the work of

poets, the work of outsiders, artful in sound, artful in expression.” He

encouraged his students to focus on teaching the end of suffering, and to

encourage their students to dissect those teachings to make their meaning clear.

Understanding occurs best when there’s an opportunity for an open dialogue in

good faith.

To transmit the habits of the dhamma, the Buddha designed the ideal teacherstudent relationship on the model of an apprenticeship. You live with the teacher

for a minimum of five years, attending to the teacher’s needs, as a way of

observing—and being observed by—the teacher in all sorts of situations.

To allow for the fact that your sense of judgment develops over time, the

Buddha didn’t force you to commit to a teacher for life. You look for someone

who, as far as you can see, has integrity, but if you sense with time that integrity

is lacking, you’re free to look for a new teacher.

At the same time, the Buddha realized that not everyone would have the time

or inclination to undergo this apprenticeship, so he arranged a division of labor.

The monks and nuns who had passed through apprenticeship were to live, not in

cloisters, but in places where lay people would be free to come and learn from

the fruits of their training.

So it’s obvious that the Buddha didn’t have a casual or cavalier attitude

toward the preservation of his words and habits. Knowing the difficulties he’d

encountered in discovering the dhamma, he didn’t trust us—with our greed,

4aversion, and delusion—to discover it on our own. He knew we’d need help.

Although he foresaw that his teachings would someday disappear, he didn’t

simply resign himself to change or trust that it would always work out for the

best. He established a wide range of safeguards to ensure that reliable words and

models of behavior would survive as long as possible.

But in the cut-and-paste Buddhism developing around us in the West, many

of these safeguards have been dropped. In particular, the idea of apprenticeship

—so central in mastering the habits of the dhamma as a skill—is almost totally

lacking. Dhamma principles are reduced to vague generalities, and the

techniques for testing them are stripped to a bare, assembly-line minimum.

We reassure ourselves that the changes we’ve made in Buddhism are all for

the best—that Buddhism has always adapted itself to every culture it enters, and

we can trust it to adapt wisely to the West. But this treats Buddhism as if it were

a conscious agent—a wise amoebic force that knows how to adapt to its

environment in order to survive. Actually, Buddhism isn’t an agent, and it

doesn’t adapt. It gets adapted—sometimes by people who know what they’re

doing, sometimes by people who don’t. Just because a particular adaptation

survives and prevails doesn’t mean that it’s genuine dhamma. It may simply

appeal to the desires and fears of its target audience.

Certainly we in the West are easy targets for the idea that the Buddha wants

us to cut and paste his dhamma as we like. Many of us have been burned by

religious authorities and we don’t want to risk getting burned again. There’s also

our cultural pride: We like to think that we can see more clearly than Asian

Buddhist what’s of genuine value in their traditions and what’s simply cultural

baggage—as if we didn’t have cultural baggage of our own. And how do we

know what’s “just baggage”? A beat-up old suitcase might contain your jewelry

and keys.

So is a designer dhamma what we really want? As the Buddha noted, one of

the natural reactions to suffering is to search for someone who can give good

advice on how to put an end to it. When offered the choice, wouldn’t you prefer

reliable guidance on how to end your suffering rather than a do-it-yourself kit

with vague instructions and no guarantees?

Or are there those who would benefit if you bought the kit? People

sometimes argue that in our diverse, postmodern world we need a postmodern

Buddhism in which no one’s interpretation can be criticized as wrong. But that’s

trading the possibility of total freedom from suffering for something much less:

freedom from criticism. And it ignores the other side of the postmodernist

equation: that our perceived wants can be overwhelmingly shaped by the

interests of institutions who want something out of us. One of the common ruses

of privatization is to offer us less, dress it up as more, so that we’ll pay more for

it. Is that what’s happening here?

The Buddha wasn’t so naïve as to think that we can always know what’s in

our own best interest. He saw long before the postmoderns that there’s plenty to

5mistrust both in old texts and in our own preconceptions about what seems

reasonable. Yet he did the postmoderns one better by offering a solution to this

dilemma. It would be a shame if, sold on the idea of designing our own dhamma,

we let his solution die.

http://www.dhammatal...tion_120801.pdf

[hookedondhamma]

On that note, if there's anyone in the US you can actually call his monastery - he's not your ordinary guy by any means, and I the respect I have for him is endless. As previously shown, he's a great writer and has many books to his name, which can be requested from his monastery as well. A great one is 'The Wings to Awakening'. Most of his writings can also be found on the access to insight website as well.

I spent a few months at another monastery in Samut Prakan which was the time one of his students was there as well. Ajahn Geoffrey's monks are incredible, and so is Ajahn Geoffrey's history in the monkhood.

Edited August 14, 2012 by hookedondhamma

[orchis]

there seems to be some discussion about this quote :

http://www.fakebuddhaquotes.com/believe-nothing-no-matter-where-you-read-it/

[camerata]

There’s also our cultural pride: We like to think that we can see more clearly than Asian Buddhist what’s of genuine value in their traditions and what’s simply cultural baggage—as if we didn’t have cultural baggage of our own. And how do we know what’s “just baggage”? A beat-up old suitcase might contain your jewelry and keys.