Tearing down Buddhism

Pop Buddhism seems to be turning into what I shall term “Kalama Buddhism” named after the famous Kalama Sutta (AN 3.65, A. i. 188) found in the Pali canon.  This is the Sutta secular/agnostic Buddhists hold dear, part of this Sutta being found on page one of StephenBatchelor’s book, Buddhism Without Beliefs (1997).  Here is Batchelor’s selected passage from the Sutta.

“Do not be satisfied with hearsay or with tradition or with legendary lore or with what has come down in scriptures or with conjecture or with logical inference or with weighing evidence or with liking for a view after pondering over it or with some else’s ability or with the thought “The monk is our teacher.”  When you know in yourselves:  “These things are wholesome, blameless, commended by the wise, and being adopted and put into effect they lead to welfare and happiness,” then you should practice and abide in them.”

The translation is smooth and correct.  Where lies the problem for Buddhists who hold on to this Sutta is with the context.  In a nutshell, the Kalama Sutta is being given by the Buddha to people not yet Buddhists who are confused by a welter of religious doctrines.  This is also to say that the Kalamas of Kesaputta had no way of telling the true doctrine from the false ones.  So the Buddha helped them out with some good advice.

The more pressing problem which Kalama Buddhism poses for Buddhism, in general, which I shall address, is that Batchelor’s selected passage now serves as the ground for a new Buddhism vs. an old Buddhism full of mumbo-jumbo in the example of karma and rebirth!  This further means that any Buddhist is free to take up the parts of Buddhism they like while disregarding parts of it they don’t like or understand.  I should mention at this point, Stephen Batchelor’s Buddhism is a stripped down model primarily based on the Kalama Sutta.

What we need to keep in mind about the Kalama Sutta is that for anyone who might follow the Buddha’s advice, this doesn’t make them a noble disciple (ariyasavaka), a Bodhisattva or an Arhat.  In the case of the Kalamas of Kesaputta, we learn at the end of this Sutta that they became lay Buddhists.  This certainly implies that they were also puthujjanas, that is common-run-of-the-mill followers.  They were not automatically stream entered, holy persons (ariyapuggala) or on the path to nirvana.  A way to conceive this is to imagine that you’ve entered a good high school.  This means that you have not graduated from a university, nor do you have a PhD in philosophy!  

Granting Kalama Buddhism its right to exist, it is more like high school Buddhism, its followers being incapable of grasping what it really takes to become, for example, a real noble disciple, a Bodhisattva or a real Arhat.  But then this is not what Kalama Buddhism is really about in my estimation.  It is really about tearing down the Buddhism of noble disciples, Bodhisattvas, and Arhats until there is only Kalama Buddhism left. 

 

Comments

[Vaccha]

One thing about the "Kalamas sutta" (Kesaputta sutta) is that while appearing for some to support a kind of doctrine of agnosticism, it doesn't take much scrutiny of the actual text to realize that it doesn't at all. In fact the opposite is true; its very premises are gnosis-oriented. In the Kalamas sutta the basic question is put forth "how can one know the true doctrine amidst all the confusion of various teachers?" The Buddha's answer, far from assuming that one can't or should not try to know, is in the same gear as all his instruction to the unconverted: first gear on the way to a gradual path. Even if you threw out the Kesaputta sutta, this approach would be found elsewhere. The Buddha is giving driving instructions to someone who never even got in a car before, he isn't going to start teaching them heel-toe cornering techniques. Yet, his reply is far from agnostic: the very phrase "when you know in yourselves" has a clear gnostic thrust to it! Part of the message of the Kesaputta sutta is that second-hand belief is not the same as gnosis or even virtue for that matter, but this does not obviate the role of gnosis in Buddhism. It is no surprise, however, that the Buddha's primary instruction here is for the Kalamas to start with moral virtues and see their immediate worth. How they fit into the big picture comes later, with conversion.

So a larger context is at work here as well. By itself, the Kesaputta sutta may seem to offer the implicit message that for the Buddha and his disciples rebirth might not be true, and that it wouldn't matter to his doctrine whether it were true or not true. But it does not take much searching through the Pali suttas to find not only the explicit assertion that rebirth is true, but that having the rectified view that it is true is a definitive part of an essential aspect of the Buddha's path (it's in the first of the eight path factors!); examples abound.

Importantly, however, the approach of the Kesaputta sutta is echoed in the Apaṇṇaka Sutta ("the undeniable") of the MN (M I.400), but complemented with not only the assertion of the rectified doctrine of rebirth but a more detailed explanation of the price of wrong view about it.
That the doctrine of rebirth is "Apaṇṇaka" (certain, true, absolute; also described is "niyyānika" or "leading to salvation," "profitable") should have a tempering effect on one's interpretation of the Kesaputta sutta. From the Apaṇṇaka sutta:

"Because there actually is the next world, the view of one who thinks, 'There is a next world' is his right view. Because there actually is the next world, when he is resolved that 'There is a next world,' that is his right resolve. Because there actually is the next world, when he speaks the statement, 'There is a next world,' that is his right speech. Because there actually is the next world, when he is says that 'There is a next world,' he doesn't make himself an opponent to those arahants who know the next world. Because there actually is the next world, when he persuades another that 'There is a next world,' that is persuasion in what is true Dhamma. And in that persuasion in what is true Dhamma, he doesn't exalt himself or disparage others. Whatever bad habituation he previously had is abandoned, while good habituation is manifested. And this right view, right resolve, right speech, non-opposition to the arahants, persuasion in what is true Dhamma, non-exaltation of self, & non-disparagement of others: These many skillful activities come into play, in dependence on right view." http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.060.than.html

And all these considerations come prior to mentioning the most obvious aspect of the larger context of rebirth's role in Buddhist doctrine: It is no less than fundamental. The very structure of Buddhist soteriology, expressed in the Four Noble truths, includes that rebirth is the perpetuation of Samsara, and that it has a cause. Birth is an undeniable part of the definition of suffering, and its cessation is an undeniable part of the definition of the cessation of suffering. Insight into the reality of rebirth is 2/3 of the "Threefold knowledge," a description of the very enlightenment of the Buddha himself and to which his disciples aspire. If this life is the only one to live, Buddhism's goal and means to that goal become severely diminished from most of what is found in the suttas. The Buddha's victorious doctrine becomes merely an ancient version of our own modern mantra: "all things in moderation". I'm definitely in strong agreement with the Zennist that this would be a "tearing down" of Buddhism.

Of course, one of the problems with this is that the agnostic interpretation, like Freud's theory of the Unconscious, is itself "incontrovertible"; because any argument aiming to contextualize the sutta will to the agnostic "Kalamist" fall into the category of reliance on "what has come down in scriptures" and/or "hearsay" and so be tossed into the aporia which surrounds agnosticism towards Buddhist doctrines.

[Mindonly]

Excellent and insightful.