Namaste Nick,
thank you for the post.
Vajradhara, you asked,
"how, then, do you learn from science texts or anything like that?"
--> I am not sure why you are comparing the scientific method with a need to take responsibility for one's own religious beliefs.
i'm not. you stated that you do not base beliefs from words in books and i was wondering if this was an accurate statement of your or something reserved for religious teachings.
-> I base my view of modern science on what is observable. Whether an observable phenomina is acceptable or not is irrelevant to scientific data that is actually collected.
do you accept the existence of black holes?
--> I have a source of information on Buddha's teachings that is independent of the Sutras. I compare it with what the Sutras say.
i'd be happy to read it.
"why did you not quote the rest of the Sutta?"--> I quoted it from that webpage. Did I leave part of it out?
you left most of it out.
--> The Sutra is open to interpretation. I see it as promoting the idea of taking responsibility for what we believe. As we can see, you interpret it differently.
then i would suggest, that you have missed the point of the Sutta and not understood who the Kalaams were and why they were given the answer that they were given.
nevertheless, let me ask you this... when the Buddha mentions in the Sutta that beings should uphold and put into practice teachings which they can affirm and, and here's the key, are upheld by the wise.. who do you think the Buddha was referring to as "the wise" in this Sutta?
This brings up an important point — the exact point that Buddha was trying to make. Let's say that we hear an idea that we cannot accept. If, after thinking deeply about it, we still cannot accept it, we need to discard it, instead of accepting the teacher's words blindly.
this does not seem consonant with the Buddhas teachings. there are many teaching of the Buddhas which we cannot verify, currently, which we accept on provisio until we are able to verify it ourselves, for instance the Jhanas. the Buddha frequently claims that it is through absorption in the Jhanas that a being can discern things such as all their previous arisings and all of that sort of thing. the Suttas oft mention states of being which we have no direct experience of yet, we are assured, exist.
i suppose it really does boil down to a matter of practice. once you've gained confidence in the teachings which you can verify it is easier to accept teachings which you cannot currently verify.
For example, many Buddhists teach that humans are reborn as animals. I cannot believe such an idea, so I naturally move away from any Buddhist teacher who teaches such a thing. (Yes, even away from the Dalai Lama himself, who teaches that humans are reborn as animals.) I firmly believe this is what Buddha was talking about, and I am sure Buddha would have approved of such movement.
you must move away from the Buddha, then, as well since he specifically teaches these things.
I took a look at the post you linked to, but I did not see a significant difference from my interpretation. Does your interpretation of the Sutra differ from mine? In what way?
Now does the Kalama Sutta suggest, as is often held, that a follower of the Buddhist path can dispense with all faith and doctrine, that he should make his own personal experience the criterion for judging the Buddha's utterances and for rejecting what cannot be squared with it? It is true the Buddha does not ask the Kalamas to accept anything he says out of confidence in himself, but let us note one important point: the Kalamas, at the start of the discourse, were not the Buddha's disciples. They approached him merely as a counselor who might help dispel their doubts, but they did not come to him as the Tathagata, the Truth-finder, who might show them the way to spiritual progress and to final liberation.
Thus, because the Kalamas had not yet come to accept the Buddha in terms of his unique mission, as the discloser of the liberating truth, it would not have been in place for him to expound to them the Dhamma unique to his own Dispensation: such teachings as the Four Noble Truths, the three characteristics, and the methods of contemplation based upon them. These teachings are specifically intended for those who have accepted the Buddha as their guide to deliverance, and in the suttas he expounds them only to those who "have gained faith in the Tathagata" and who possess the perspective necessary to grasp them and apply them. The Kalamas, however, at the start of the discourse are not yet fertile soil for him to sow the seeds of his liberating message. Still confused by the conflicting claims to which they have been exposed, they are not yet clear even about the groundwork of morality.
Nevertheless, after advising the Kalamas not to rely upon established tradition, abstract reasoning, and charismatic gurus, the Buddha proposes to them a teaching that is immediately verifiable and capable of laying a firm foundation for a life of moral discipline and mental purification . He shows that whether or not there be another life after death, a life of moral restraint and of love and compassion for all beings brings its own intrinsic rewards here and now, a happiness and sense of inward security far superior to the fragile pleasures that can be won by violating moral principles and indulging the mind's desires. For those who are not concerned to look further, who are not prepared to adopt any convictions about a future life and worlds beyond the present one, such a teaching will ensure their present welfare and their safe passage to a pleasant rebirth -- provided they do not fall into the wrong view of denying an afterlife and kammic causation.
However, for those whose vision is capable of widening to encompass the broader horizons of our existence, this teaching given to the Kalamas points beyond its immediate implications to the very core of the Dhamma. For the three states brought forth for examination by the Buddha -- greed, hate and delusion -- are not merely grounds of wrong conduct or moral stains upon the mind. Within his teaching's own framework they are the root defilements -- the primary causes of all bondage and suffering -- and the entire practice of the Dhamma can be viewed as the task of eradicating these evil roots by developing to perfection their antidotes -- dispassion, kindness and wisdom.
Thus the discourse to the Kalamas offers an acid test for gaining confidence in the Dhamma as a viable doctrine of deliverance.
We begin with an immediately verifiable teaching whose validity can be attested by anyone with the moral integrity to follow it through to its conclusions, namely, that the defilements cause harm and suffering both personal and social, that their removal brings peace and happiness, and that the practices taught by the Buddha are effective means for achieving their removal. By putting this teaching to a personal test, with only a provisional trust in the Buddha as one's collateral, one eventually arrives at a firmer, experientially grounded confidence in the liberating and purifying power of the Dhamma. This increased confidence in the teaching brings along a deepened faith in the Buddha as teacher, and thus disposes one to accept on trust those principles he enunciates that are relevant to the quest for awakening, even when they lie beyond one's own capacity for verification. This, in fact, marks the acquisition of right view, in its preliminary role as the forerunner of the entire Noble Eightfold Path.
Partly in reaction to dogmatic religion, partly in subservience to the reigning paradigm of objective scientific knowledge, it has become fashionable to hold, by appeal to the Kalama Sutta, that the Buddha's teaching dispenses with faith and formulated doctrine and asks us to accept only what we can personally verify. This interpretation of the sutta, however, forgets that the advice the Buddha gave the Kalamas was contingent upon the understanding that they were not yet prepared to place faith in him and his doctrine; it also forgets that the sutta omits, for that very reason, all mention of right view and of the entire perspective that opens up when right view is acquired. It offers instead the most reasonable counsel on wholesome living possible when the issue of ultimate beliefs has been put into brackets.
What can be justly maintained is that those aspects of the Buddha's teaching that come within the purview of our ordinary experience can be personally confirmed within experience, and that this confirmation provides a sound basis for placing faith in those aspects of the teaching that necessarily transcend ordinary experience.
Faith in the Buddha's teaching is never regarded as an end in itself nor as a sufficient guarantee of liberation, but only as the starting point for an evolving process of inner transformation that comes to fulfillment in personal insight. But in order for this insight to exercise a truly liberative function, it must unfold in the context of an accurate grasp of the essential truths concerning our situation in the world and the domain where deliverance is to be sought. These truths have been imparted to us by the Buddha out of his own profound comprehension of the human condition. To accept them in trust after careful consideration is to set foot on a journey which transforms faith into wisdom, confidence into certainty, and culminates in liberation from suffering.
Bhikku Bodhis explanation of this Sutta and its implications seems to be significantly different than what you are intimating here.
metta,
~v
