Believe Nothing Merely Because You Have Been Told It

Buddhism is an experiential tradition, so Buddha invites everyone to “see for yourself.” It is a middle way between dogmatism and radical skepticism. However, some have taken poor translations of the Kalama Sutta as license to pick apart Buddhadharma, approving some of Buddha’s teachings and faulting the rest. They believe that Buddha himself encouraged us to do this, but is that what he is really saying? A Look at the Kalama Sutta helps to put things back in context:

On the basis of a single passage, quoted out of context, the Buddha has been made out to be a pragmatic empiricist who dismisses all doctrine and faith, and whose Dhamma is simply a freethinker’s kit to truth which invites each one to accept and reject whatever he likes.

Paradoxically, the very people who say that all religions teach the same thing are also ones who say that while all religions have things one can benefit from, some things taught in them should be discarded. After all, this empirical approach is just what the Buddha taught! Or is it?

“Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher, his age or wisdom. But if after due examination and analysis, you find it to be kind, conducive to the benefit and welfare of all beings, then take that doctrine as your guide.” —The Buddha

I have yet to find whom to attribute this particular translation to. It appears all over the internet and in countless books, but always without crediting the original source. A quick Amazon search showed that none of the authors even acknowledged that it is based on the Kalama Sutra! Here is a similar rendition:

“Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings—that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.” —The Buddha

Rather than just take their word for it, I decided to check up on the above quotes, comparing them with the full text available through the Access to Insight website. Interestingly, the word doctrine does not appear in Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation. Instead, the Buddha speaks of adopting good qualities after abandoning bad ones: “When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness’ — then you should enter & remain in them.”

An alternate translation from the Pali is given by Soma Thera, and again, when the teaching is read in context, Buddha is not so much concerned here about accepting or rejecting the philosophies of other teachers but about abandoning faults such as greed and hate, and cultivating their opposites: “Kalamas, when you yourselves know: ‘These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,’ enter on and abide in them.”

What Buddha demonstrates through his Q&A in this discourse is how to reason these things through for ourselves, which is why Buddhism empahsizes contemplative meditations rather than mere appeal to authority. However, this is not to say that Buddha denies the value of spiritual authority: what we come to accept or reject must finally be checked against the wisdom of experienced Masters.

For the individual practitioner, therefore, we are not to just “pick and choose” which of Buddha’s teachings we like and throw everything else out. (“I’m just doing my own thing” sounds like the ego at work to me.) This would be like going to a doctor and receiving a prescription regimen, and then saying to ourselves, “I’ll decide for myself how much medicine to take and when. If I skip a dose or two, that’s my choice.” How effective will that be?