Truth, dogma, freedom and the first amendment - The Kalama sutta

Too many people in the world (including the author) rely on second hand sources to back their particular views concerning truth and reality.  This is especially evident with the religious views that people hold.  As far as most people are concerned, religion encapsulates holding on to perceptions of right and wrong without objective criteria except some special book or other, typically described as a “word of God” or more loosely as scripture, on the basis of faith or belief.  To do otherwise may be reprehensible according to these very scriptures, resulting in suffering in hell or at least, being exiled from your community who happen to hold on to those particular beliefs.

The antidote to religion, especially in the sense of a set of views grounded in belief or suppositions without evidence is commonly attributed to science.  The problem with science, which does depend on evidence and empirical observations is that there are certain things like ethics, how we think, life after death and ghosts that can’t be explored to an adequate level of unambiguous satisfaction, based on peer reviewed observations.  For example, science can’t explain if and why murder is wrong, other than to suggest that it carries certain risks and actions that are quite risky could shorten ones’ life or make one unpopular.  Science has not succeeded in explaining ghosts, despite repeated sightings.  They are just too difficult to measure and observe, as are dreams and thoughts.  I for one, trained in science, considers that some of our deepest problems such as death, consequences of actions, ghosts and angels remain unexplained by the scientific method alone.

Classical Greece and India, from around 500BCE present models of civilization compatible with both these aspects as do certain modern societies.  Rationality versus religion is sometimes a rather tired argument.  Yes, we need rationality.  We also need the capacity to explore things symbolically – this encapsulates music, literature, philosophy, myth and religion.

A particular problem with religion is the way that scriptures are used to justify acts based on terror and cruelty, especially in certain religions, both in history and in the present day.  Almost as bad is when scripture is used to justify ways of seeing the world that contradict evidence: in other words, when scripture supports a culture of folly and ignorance.  This is not just a problem with religion, but with modes of thought based on dogma, fixed views and fanatical devotion to something or someone.  We can see this with political creeds like certain forms of communism, fascism or when people allow an unquestioning obedience in political figures as with the Ayatolla Khomeni of Iran.  How many times have you seen certain unsavoury people saying in such and such a book that is the word of God, it says this, which justifies my controversial act … ? – or words to that effect.  Can there be no First Amendment that can allow one to dismiss the word of God if one finds it disagreeable?  We contradict ourselves in even having to cite a First Amendment or alternative text, given once again, we are resorting to a secondary source.  But something in us tells us, if we are sane, that there can be grounds for blasphemy.  Without blasphemy “a victimless crime”, most progressive modes of thought including several religions and scientific theories would simply not exist.  Blasphemy represents one form of creativity, originality and freedom – unless it goes wholly against certain ingrained notions such as knowing that cruelty and harshness are not usually the best ways of getting things done. 

The Kalama sutta (sutta means discourse) from the Pali Canon has long being recognized as enshrining an opportunity to freedom of thought.  Although Buddhism is recognized as a religion, it is certainly not a religion in many senses of the word and has rather been characterized as a philosophy or a system of education.  The sutta is set in a town called Kesaputta occupied by a group of people called the Kalamas.  They had watched various religious teachers coming and going, and the contradictions they represented.  My quotations come from a translation by Ven. Thanissaro at www.accesstoinsight.org.

“Lord, there are some priests & contemplatives who come to Kesaputta. They expound & glorify their own doctrines, but as for the doctrines of others, they deprecate them, revile them, show contempt for them, & disparage them. And then other priests & contemplatives come to Kesaputta. They expound & glorify their own doctrines, but as for the doctrines of others, they deprecate them, revile them, show contempt for them, & disparage them. They leave us absolutely uncertain & in doubt: Which of these venerable priests & contemplatives are speaking the truth, and which ones are lying?”

The Buddha started off by acknowledging that doubt had arisen about what is uncertain and said:

“Kalamas, don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm & to suffering' — then you should abandon them.” Or “you should enter & remain in them.”

The Kalama sutta is not a carte blanche for people to do/think exactly as they please, but more an invitation to accept or reject things based on their own experience.  Here, acceptance and rejection of a certain doctrine is predicated on whether the roots of ill, Greed, Hate and Stupidity are present or absent.  The Buddha recommends that modes of though based on their opposites are likely to be more appropriate.  Here the Buddha explicitly rejects forms of authority based on scriptures, traditions and teachers.  He makes it clear here and elsewhere, that skepticism is encouraged with regards to his own teaching.  Indeed, asking questions is encouraged in Buddhism including questions like: “What is good?” “What is ill?”  “What when done by me could lead to suffering/happiness?” 

It is worth digressing here to state that the Buddha met a certain teacher Sanjaya, who advocated that nothing was certain or could necessarily be believed in.  The Buddha asked Sanjaya whether this view applied to Sanjaya’s own teaching.  Sanjaya was stumped.  If he had said yes, he would be declaring his teaching void.  If he said no, he would be contradicting it.

French philosopher Blaise Pascal said: “God can't be proved. But if God exists, the believer gains everything (heaven) and the unbeliever loses everything (hell). If God doesn't exist, the believer loses nothing and the unbeliever gains nothing. There is therefore everything to gain and nothing to lose by believing in God.”

To some extent the Buddha said something similar in the Kalama sutta, with regards to life after death.  He said that if there was a life after death, the good person has little to fear, but if there was no life after death, at least he could die praised and contented.  On the other hand, the bad person would risk having to suffer, if there was a life after death.  In this particular sutta, the Buddha is open about life after death.

The Kalama sutta anticipated many of the arguments in Tom Paine’s “The Age of Reason” concerning God, religion and morality.  Voltaire stated that if God presented him with one important book it was the book of reason as opposed to the Bible.  Again, the Kalama sutta was definitely ahead of its time, with regards to the 18^th century Enlightenment phase of western civilization.

When we are children, we need to be told what to believe, and we trust adults almost instinctively.  If we did not, we would probably not survive quite so well, given our experiments like touching flames, or jumping into deep water could kill or injure us.  Many of these instincts are encouraged in certain societies even as adults, where blasphemy is punishable by death, still operating in the 21^st century.  Given the repeating cycles of history, teachings like the Kalama Sutta encourage freedom in many senses of the word.

Given, however, that we should ideally be able to be independent of secondary sources, where do we turn?  Well, most of us can never be as grown up like Einstein or for that matter like the Buddha.  We don’t need to re-invent the wheel when it is already given, but we can use its presence to take us to fulfillment.  The Kalma sutta does not say that scriptures are evil and should be rejected out of hand, it states that they have to be evaluated according to our own instincts and experience.

In many ways, the ultimate scripture is nature itself.  As Ajahn Chah, a Buddhist teacher has explained – everything, can teach us.  When you look around you, you are seeing reality that is more raw, true and potentially meaningful than any holy book.  Many of us enjoy sunsets and powerful art invokes a moment of truth, captured for our imagination.  I’ve heard that a Buddhist monk was once on a train in a conversation with a westerner.  The westerner asked him whether he agreed that Buddhist art was the best in the world.  The monk said no.  He said that the most beautiful art was that of the present moment.  By being aware of the now, of the breath, perhaps in the context of mindfulness (also taught by the Buddha) – we have a source of scripture that is always there without any library or preacher to hand.

Tom Paine was right – religion, particularly based on cruelty, animal sacrifice and a wrathful creator has to be a mistake.  We can unplug from the proverbial word of God.  From time to time, it is useful to have a Kalama sutta because without it, we could all become part of a herd of sheep, walking around, following the flock, rather mindlessly and guided only by blind belief and tyrannical opposition.  We can unplug from various assumptions and axioms like “music is bad” (as advocated by strict Sunni muslims) or “health and safety” (advocated in modern Britain).  We can also unplug from the media, news, celebrities or popular movements.  We have a yardstick to evaluate whether to take on board or reject whatever view we are presented with, knowing that it need not be taken seriously merely because it is in scripture or said by someone considered important.