In this post, we discuss the Kalama Sutta, in which Buddha makes known his opinion regarding using word-based knowledge in the search for an unchanging Truth.
Kalama Sutta (Chinese=卡拉瑪經), also known as Kesamutti Sutta, “is a discourse of the Buddha contained in the Aṅguttara Nikaya (Chinese=增一阿含經) of the Tripiṭaka (Chinese=三藏經).”
On the day that Buddha passed the village of Kesaputta, he was greeted by its inhabitants, a clan called the Kalamans. While the Kalamans were very happy to see Buddha, they were also eager to ask him for advice on a dilemma they faced when other gurus visited. They asked Buddha, “Many wandering holy men and ascetics pass through, expounding their teachings and criticizing the teachings of others. So whose teachings should we follow?”
In other words, the Kalamans wanted to know how to judge the holy men and ascetics who came to preach. They wanted to know whose teaching to believe in. Their dilemma was not only did the gurus’ teachings vary, but they also criticized each other. By asking Buddha whose teachings they should follow, the Kalamans wanted to know how to evaluate the gurus who only taught that which was unchanging.
In response to their inquiry, Buddha instructed the Kalamans not to rely on the following ten sources when evaluating these holy men and ascetics.
These ten instructions are (Pali expression in parathesis):
1) Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing (anussava);
2) nor upon tradition (paramparā);
3) nor upon rumor (itikirā);
4) nor upon what is in a scripture (piṭaka-sampadāna);
5) nor upon surmise (takka-hetu);
6) nor axioms (naya-hetu);
7) nor upon specious reasoning (ākāra-parivitakka);
8) nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over (diṭṭhi-nijjhān-akkh-antiyā);
9) nor upon another’s seeming ability (bhabba-rūpatāya);
10) nor upon consideration, “The monk is our teacher” (samaṇo no garū).
A careful look at the list reveals that all ten items are ways of transmitting knowledge, either verbally, through writing, making assumptions, etc. Invariably, the medium of their transmission is through words. Indeed, the gurus who visited the Kalamans got their knowledge from their teachers through words, either verbally or in writing. Similarly, they transmit knowledge to their students through words, either verbally or through writing.
As Dr. Fisch suggested in the previous post, inferentially connected words only function to “render explicit “ concepts that are “fashioned and conceptualized in our minds in ways that we do not govern.” In other words, while they give meaning to each other, inferentially connected words only allow us to know what is created in our minds in the first place. As Dr. Kuhn lamented, how does anyone know anything if one has to learn from words?
Therefore, as discussed in the previous post, Buddha did not learn what he taught using words. Instead, he used direct perception. By using direct perception, Buddha could understand, without distortion, the empirical data that “the world impacts on us in a causal manner through all our sensors.” These undistorted empirical data of the world inform “how things stand in themselves” in nature. Furthermore, Buddha did not teach until after his enlightenment, when he became a Tathagata and possessed “all objects of knowledge.” Only then could he be confident that he could teach “how things stand in themselves” in nature.
Since “how things stand in themselves” in nature never changes, so are Buddha’s teachings. These are the kind of teachings the Kalamans sought. Since Buddha got his knowledge about “how things stand in themselves” through direct perception and not words, he advised the Kalamans accordingly.
In fact, Buddha himself experienced what the Kalamans experienced before his enlightenment. The two gurus he studied under, Alara Kalama and Udraka Ramaputra, taught Buddha differently. When Buddha discovered that their teachings differed and they had not realized what they taught, he refused their invitations to join their hermitages and teach with them. Instead, he left them and their knowledge behind to search for the unchanging Truth himself.
Moreover, Buddha followed his beliefs regarding when and what to teach. Shakyamuni Buddha chose not to start teaching until after his enlightenment and had become a Tathagata in possession of “all objects of knowledge.” Possessing “all objects of knowledge” means that Buddha had understood “how things stand in themselves” of all phenomena in nature. Only then could Buddha be confident that his teachings would not change because “how things stand in themselves” in nature does not change.
Buddha similarly asked his followers to go beyond what he taught them using words. When his followers had learned enough and were ready to change course, Buddha told them to relinquish the word-based knowledge they learned from him so they could finish their remaining journeys on their own using direct perception.
Diamond Sutra (Chinese=金剛般若波羅蜜多經/金剛經) is “a Mahāyāna (Buddhist) sutra from the “genre of Prajñāpāramitā (‘perfection of wisdom’) sutras. Translated into a variety of languages over a broad geographic range, the Diamond Sūtra is one of the most influential Mahayana sutras in East Asia, and it is particularly prominent within the Chan (or Zen) tradition, along with the Heart Sutra.”
In the Diamond Sutra, Buddha instructs the bhiksu (Sanskrit, commonly translated into English as a Buddhist monk, Chinese=比丘) as follows:
“You bhiksus should understand my teachings as the Parable of Raft: even Buddha Dharma must be relinquished, let alone the non-Buddha dharmas.
The parable of the raft involved a person using a raft to cross a river. Once the rafter was on the other side, he wondered if he should continue the journey with or without the raft. Buddha suggested that he should continue without the raft.
The raft is a metaphor for Buddhist teachings. Like the rafter who has reached the shore was ready to change course, Buddha wants his followers to know that when they have learned enough, they must change course by first letting go of his teachings (Buddha Dharma) before embarking on their remaining journey on their own. Direct perception until enlightenment, after all, is a personal endeavor.
Again, Buddha practiced what he advised his followers. By the time he sat down at the Bodhi Tree, he had relinquished everything he ever had: his princely life, lessons from the gurus, and Jainististic asceticism. By letting go of his attachments to worldly possessions, Buddha’s journey to enlightenment became easier.
That was also why, in their first encounter, Master Zhang Ja told his student, the future Dharma Jing Kong, that “seeing through, letting go” is the principle behind all Buddhist cultivations. In acquiring knowledge about the unchanging truths of nature, it is better to relinquish all secular attachments and maintain a hate-free, malice-free, undefiled, and purified mind to make enlightenment easier.
Indeed, Buddhism is the only education where a teacher asks his students to relinquish his teachings to graduate.
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