In the previous post, we discussed how humans use inferentially connected word-based knowledge to know what they know. However, according to Dr. Fisch, inferentially connected word-based knowledge only allows humans to “know pretty much about the self we experience, the world we experience, the world we find ourselves living in.” While word-based knowledge allows humans to “get it right,” it only “allows humans to get it right according to our standards, no other standards.”
Dr. Lawrence Kuhn, understanding the implications of what Dr. Fisch said, wondered aloud, “What prevents you from cascading into skepticism where we can’t know anything? Everything is related to something else. I have no foundation between what I believe and what the world really is. So, how do I know anything?”
Of course, Dr. Kuhn was right. Indeed, word-based knowledge does not allow humans to “have a foundation between what I believe and what the world really is.”
In Buddhism, “what the world really is” is the mental nature of all realities. In Buddha’s world, the quiescent mentality of the cosmos is the Ultimate Reality and Truth. The quiescent mentality can be the Ultimate Reality and Truth because, without any fluctuations, its “realness” and “truthiness” never change. In Buddhism, reality and truth can only be the Ultimate if they never change.
In the Kalama Sutta, Buddha made 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 whose teachings never changed.
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 verbally, through writing, making assumptions, etc. Invariably, the medium of communicating their knowledge was through words. Indeed, the gurus who visited the Kalamans learned from their teachers through words. Similarly, they transmit knowledge to their students through words, verbally or in writing.
As discussed in a previous post, Buddha’s source of knowledge was not “word-based knowledge from attending school, doing science, learning mathematics, or obtaining a few advanced degrees.” 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 senses.” These undistorted empirical data of the world inform what Dr. Kuhn called “what the world really is.” Indeed, the core content of Buddhism is Buddha’s teaching of “what the world really is.” In Dr. Fisch’s terminology, “what the world really is” becomes “how things stand in themselves.” In Buddhism, both terms refer to the mental nature of all realities.
Since the mental nature of all realities never changes, so does the core content of Buddhism. Buddha’s never-changing teaching was what the Kalamans sought. Since Buddha understood the unchanging nature of reality through direct perception and not inferentially connected 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 the same way they learned from their gurus using inferentially connected words. Therefore, they taught 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 using direct perception on his own.
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 knowledge about “what the world really is.” Only then could Buddha be confident that his teachings would not change because “what the world really is” 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 (Chinese=如等比丘,知我說法,如筏諭者,法尚應捨, 何況非法).”
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 through his word-based teachings, they must change course by first letting go of his teachings (Buddha Dharma). Then, they could embark on their journey to seek the unchanging truth personally.
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 the harsh Jainistic 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 Master Jing Kong, that “seeing through, letting go (Chinese=看破，放下) “ is the principle behind all Buddhist cultivations. In acquiring knowledge about the unchanging truths of nature, it is better to relinquish all personal 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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