Were they? That’s the real central issue with all claims of scriptural authority across all traditions.
AFAICT, the validity of the Suttas rests on the presence of Ariyas at the various historical / legendary councils. An ariya can be deceived about mundane matters (e.g. whether or not there is a baby underneath his seat cushion) but is a reasonably trustworthy source on the correctness of dhamma.
As I understand it, the texts of the 6th Buddhist council produced by ~2500 monastics ~2500 years after the Buddha’s final extinguishment (aka 1954 AD) clearly show some typographical errors which were since corrected. Mundane mistakes were made. But I trust that at least some of those 2500 monks were Ariyas and would have noted anything which erred against the true dhamma.
In the same way, there were ~5 previous occurrences where a thousand or more monks, all or many of them Ariyas, gathered to confirm the teachings, going back to Ananda leading the recitation after the Buddha’s passing.
Now, clearly, monks can disagree with one another, and even Arahants are not as excellent teachers as Buddhas. Something probably has been lost in the millennia. But does that loss make the texts unworthy of trust? IMO, no.
We know verbatim the preserved original writings of the Sumerian scribe Kushim from tens of millennia before the Buddha, but they’re not trustworthy because the words were poorly formed (he either was bad at math or committed accounting fraud) and nobody preserved the context. We may only have the paraphrased oral transmission of the words of the Buddha, but that is trustworthy because the words were well spoken and the transmission preserved the context.
Definitely it is wrong being skeptical towards one’s own Teacher, as long as he is a genuine Teacher, so it is counterproductive on many levels. As far as chess goes being sceptical that Kasparov is trustworthy regarding chess knowledge and can teach us many things that we don’t know, is counterproductive to development of chess knowledge. But absence of trust in Buddha, apart from being counterproductive to the development of present knowledge, may untighten connection with Dhamma in consequential rebirths.
As a matter of fact, there is nothing wrong with blind faith per se, if it is successful by some good luck to choose reliable object, the more uncritical it is the better:
Later I made a patched cloak out of rags. Then I shaved off my hair and beard and put on the yellow robe for the sake of those in the world who are Arahants, and I went forth from the house life into homelessness.
“When I had gone forth, while I was journeying by road, I saw the Blessed One between Rājagaha and Nālandā sitting in the Bahuputta Shrine. When I saw him I thought: ‘If ever I acknowledge a Master, let me acknowledge only the Blessed One. If ever I acknowledge a Sublime One, let me acknowledge only the Blessed One. If ever I acknowledge a Fully Enlightened One, let me acknowledge only the Blessed One.’ Then, prostrating myself there at his feet, I said: ‘Lord, the Blessed One is my teacher; I am his disciple. The Blessed One is my teacher; I am his disciple.’ Then the Blessed One said: ‘Kassapa, if anyone were to say without knowing “I know” or without seeing “I see” to so single-hearted a disciple as you, his head would burst. But knowing I say “I know,” seeing I say “I see.” Therefore, Kassapa …
Hi Charlie,
I just want to say, I struggle with the suttas too, first because they were incomprehensible and then later, to my astonishment, because they became comprehensible. I find them almost scary because of how profound they are. It leaves a person feeling totally sheepish in the wake of such work, to say nothing of the Buddha. It’s as if a picture on the wall that’s always been there suddenly leapt out and became alive. Still worth it of course, just a little eerie. So if you’re feeling that way…me too. I still feel a novice also, with lots of learning needed ahead.
Willie
The context of the OP seems to be that of someone who is just starting out, so from that point of view they couldn’t possibly know what it means to even have a genuine teacher. It is inevitable that people will be skeptical early on, but as long as they stick with it, that is more than enough to be successful at that stage. It becomes counterproductive when people make a lifestyle out of trying to find proof that the Buddha was right without even trying to change their lifestyle.
You can’t treat the practice the same as you would treat the game of chess. Technical skill is important, sure, but it won’t get you anywhere if the mind is totally untamed and unwilling to appreciate renunciation. That is why you can have a case of someone who gives a detailed scholarly analysis of nibbana, yet that clearly hasn’t brought them any closer to it.
This unfortunately is somehow more complicated, you seem to suggest that problem of recognising a genuine teacher - by this I mean one who can help others to understand the four noble truths- will dissolve by itself due to course of time, which is not so, since as long as one is puthujjana, there cannot be such certainty. Element of faith: “I believe this is a genuine teacher” is inevitable.
So I only emphasize that faith is an aspect of experience, even atheist, apart that he believes that there is no God, believes also in so many other things.
And since faith is inevitable aspect of experience it is also recognised in Dhamma as an important factor.
Now in this situation how does the Buddha show the function of faith? “One who has faith [saddhā] succeeds, Mahānāma, not one who has no faith” (AN 11:12)
Here the question at once intrudes: Is the translation of “saddhā” by “faith” justified? Let us try it out and see, for the contexts in which it appears will be the test. We shall be strictly consistent in our renderings. The Buddha speaks of five Faculties, or human potentialities, through whose means an ignorant ordinary man may emerge from ignorance to right understanding, and so from suffering to its cessation. They are faith (saddhā), energy, mindfulness, concentration, and understanding (as “mother wit” to start with). If they can be maintained in being against opposition, they are called Powers (SN 48:43). Managed by reasoned attention (yoniso manasikāra, awareness of the organic structure of experience), and carefully balanced, they build each other up. Maintained in being and cultivated, they merge into the Deathless (SN 48:57).
The Buddha speaks of faith as one of the Seven Noble Treasures (AN 7:4), one of the Seven True Ideas (DN 33), one of the Five Factors of Endeavour (MN 8), as an Idea “on the side of enlightenment” (SN 48:51), as a Fount of Great Merit (Aṅguttara Ṭīkā 41), as one of the Three Forms of Growth (Aṅguttara Ṭīkā 48), which “brings five advantages” (AN 5:38).
And then, “Where is the faith faculty to be met with? Among the four Factors of Stream-entry.” (SN 48:8). “A Stream-enterer [of whom more below] has absolute confidence [pasāda] in the Enlightened One, in the True Idea [the Dhamma], and in the Community, and he has the virtue beloved of Noble Ones” (SN 55:1). Four other factors of Stream-entry are frequenting True Men, hearing the True Idea, reasoned attention, and the putting into practice of ideas that are in accordance with the True Idea (SN 55:5).
“What is the faith faculty? Here a noble disciple who has faith places his faith in a Tathāgata thus: ‘This Blessed One is such since he is accomplished and fully enlightened, perfect in true knowledge and conduct, sublime, knower of worlds, incomparable leader of men to be tamed, enlightened, blessed.’” (SN 48:9) “If these five faculties are absolutely perfected, they make an Accomplished One [Arahant]; if a little weaker, a Non-returner; if a little weaker still, a Once-returner; if a little weaker still, a Stream-enterer; if a little weaker still, One Mature in Faith or One Mature in the True Idea” (SN 48:12). “Those who have not known, seen, found, realized, touched with understanding, may go by faith in others that [these five faculties] when maintained in being and developed merge in the Deathless … but on knowing, seeing, finding, realizing, and touching with understanding, there is no more doubt or uncertainty that when maintained in being and developed they merge in the Deathless” (SN 48:44).
But then, does not the Buddha say in the Kālāma Sutta, “Come, Kālāmas, [do] not [be satisfied] with hearsay-learning or with tradition or with legendary lore or with what has come down in scripture or with conjecture or with logical inference or with weighing evidence or with choice of a view after pondering it or with someone else’s ability or with the thought ‘The monk is our teacher”’? Is not that an injunction to have nothing to do with faith, to “throw away your books,” as Marcus Aurelius says, and listen to no one at all?
If that statement of the Buddha’s is taken as a general instruction to disregard instruction, it is then impossible to carry out. For then one could only carry it out by not carrying it out (a well-known logical dilemma). But that is not what is intended, as is shown by the rest of the passage: ” … or with the thought ‘The monk is our teacher.’ When you know in your-selves ‘Certain ideas are unprofitable, liable to censure, condemned by the wise, being adopted and put into effect, they lead to harm and suffering,’ then you should abandon them …. When you know in yourselves ‘Certain ideas are profitable, not liable to censure, commended by the wise, being adopted and put into effect, they lead to welfare and happiness,’ then you should abide in the practice of them” (Aṅguttara Ṭīkā 65).
The ordinary man is affected by ignorance, and he cannot dispense with simple faith, though in good faith he may grossly misplace it, or dissipate it, and be said to have no faith (asaddhā).
But if he places it honestly and reasonably, he is called faithful (saddhā). In the Buddha’s words, “A bhikkhu who possesses understanding founds his faith in accordance with that understanding” (SN 48:45), to which words may be added also those of the venerable Sāriputta: “There are two conditions for the arising of right view: another’s speech and reasoned attention” (MN 43). From this it emerges that an ordinary man has need of a germ of “mother wit” in order to know where to place his faith and a germ of unsquandered faith in order to believe he can develop his understanding. That is the starting position.
Faith thus begins to appear as a fusion of two elements:
confidence (pasāda), and what the confidence is placed in. Faith as confidence is elsewhere described as a clearing of the mind, like water cleared of suspended mud by a water-clearing nut, or as a launching out (pakkhandana), like a boat’s launching out from the near bank to cross a flood to the further bank, or as a hand that resolutely grasps. (A grain of “mother wit” is needed to recognize the nut, to avoid launching out into a flood that has no other shore, to refrain from grasping a red-hot poker as a stick to lean on). Just as “Seeing is the meaning of the understanding as a faculty,” so also “Decision [adhimokkha] is the meaning of faith as a faculty.”
(Paṭisambhidā Ñāṇakatha). When faith is aided by concentration, “The mind launches out [to its object] and acquires confidence, steadiness and decision” (MN 122).
Nanamoli Thera
Now, I understand that someone can have doubts. That’s how things are. I only point out that strengthening of one’s faith is as much part of practice as purifying sila.
There is dialectic actor / observer. Actor follows certain line of action, and as long everything is fine, he doesn’t reflect on his own experience, only when encountering unpleasant results, he stops and starts to reflect: why such thing happend? Observer, on the other hand likes to know why and how.
Now, it may seem that in Dhamma the attitude of observer is encouraged, and indeed mindfulness seems to be precisely that, observing one’s own experience.
But than it could be seen from another angle. Lord Buddha says: do this and that. But someone with the attitude of observer may start to wonder: why actually I should do so? Is it really the best line of action for me? And so on. It is quite reasonable attitude to be sceptical, but it always negatively influences action.
So I am not kind of faith fanatic who is upset because others don’t want to believe in everything he believes, that is not my problem. I only point out that function of faith in Dhamma is temporary replacement of understanding and acting on it as if it was genuine understanding. Unlike in Kalama Sutta, given to outsiders, Buddha expects faith from his disciple.
I wonder whether my English is so bad, that I could not expressed myself properly (which is possible) or you failed to understand my simile. So let’s try again: to tame mind and to appreciate renunciation also requires skills which aren’t usually present when one starts practice Dhamma. Such abilities appear when one acts upon received teaching.
But one who has doubts about teaching, either doesn’t act according suggested lines of action, or at least his doubts and uncertainty regarding teacher are hindrances to practice. So my point was simple that even the best master of … whatever skill … won’t be helpful if the disciple is “intellectually independent” and thinks that certain things he knows better than master, or underestimates master’s knowledge.
This is an excellent observation. Faith it’s something that many Western converts seem to seriously devalue, often watering it down to a tentative-sounding “verified confidence”. I’m not sure how I’d have persevered with years of development work if I was just “trying it out to see if it works.”
Yes, it must be difficult teaching something that everyone thinks they understand… Luckily, in my day job I teach Physics so I don’t have much trouble convincing students, even in my fourth-year class, that I know a lot more about quantum mechanics than they do.
One of the problems that can be a serious hindrance is too much information. I started by hanging out at a monastery and eventually having some teaching. This would have been much more the norm in the past. Almost 20 years later, I’m not convinced that what I’ve now learned about this-or-that interpretation of Dhamma theory and practice has made much difference to my progress. What has made a difference is the practical advice of my teachers that I took seriously.
One of the things I try to seriously work on is not rejecting the advice of teachers or fellow practitioners with different interpretations of the Dhamma, or different terminology from what I’m used to.
The Sutta is like the breakfast you eat in the morning, but you are the one who has to take care of your body, preserve health and the digestive process, and use your body in proper ways to Realize Awakening. But if you are intelligent, you will read the Suttas properly. And also, in metaphor, it has to be a balanced meal most of the time.
Yes, indeed, in chess talented young player is absolutely hopeless without teacher, who apart teaching him strategy and tactics, selects for him the base - data, from milions of games he selects the most essential, which have to be memorized in order not to get into trouble from the beginning.
But even at the top of ranking list, the best players have helpers who neutralise the problem of “informative noise” for him.
And so, apart other disadvantages of modern times this “informative noise” makes Dhamma more difficult to understand, than before. One can try to escape the problem by limiting oneself just to Suttas, but phenomenal descriptions which are found there are quite often enigmatic, and require further elaborations. And again, decision which elaborations are reliable is based on faith.
“A bhikkhu who possesses understanding founds his faith in accordance with that understanding” (SN 48:45),
kind of catch 22 since someone with weak understanding is unlikely to place his faith in reliable elaborations.
Nevertheless meaning of many Suttas is quite unambiguous, and no elaborations are really needed.
Yes, as a chess master I also had no such problem. I could easily earn a living by teaching chess. Fortunately, presently my livelihood doesn’t depend on paid Dhamma lessons
“Kalamas, when you yourselves know: ‘These things are bad; these things are blamable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill,’ abandon them.”
Knigarian, can you please link the conviction in the Teacher with the sentence in black ? Can you show me how these two things interact please ?
To be honest I don’t like to think too much, and it requires some intellectual effort to understand what you mean …
Breaking 5 precepts definitely is criticised by wise. If one trust Lord Buddha one would avoid breaking them, since it must inevitably end up in suffering. But I am not sure whether I understood your question properly…
More, in Western world one of two beers isn’t considered as blameworthy, so give up drinking more likely occurs in the case of one who has a faith in Tathagata.
Not to mention the fact that while there is such a thing as sexual activity within 5 precepts, nevertheless wise recommend rather celibacy which again requires faith that it is a good idea.
But perhaps you are asking about something else… Not sure.
I have met Dhamma, when I was fourteen, I was attracted to the Four Noble Truths. The only one thing which doesn’t fit my outlook was a rebirth. But after reflecting that one who teaches such profound things must also know better about such things as rebirth, I gave up my skepticism.
One who doesn’t believe in rebirth actually does not believe also in responsibility for one’s own actions, and so falls into wrong view which is criticised by the wise. Again faith in Tathagata makes things much more easier.
I don’t think that you can say a person who doesn’t believe in rebirth does not believe in responsibility for their actions. There are many people of different beliefs and faiths who do not accept the idea of rebirth but who feel very strongly that they have responsibility for their actions. One of the last teachings of the Buddha was that we should not simply accept what he said but that we should question everything and only accept what we find out for ourselves to be true.
What is a belief in rebirth anyway? Have you ever had a feeling that you believed it all along, but that it just wasn’t at the forefront of your consciousness?
Completely agree, think for yourself and investigate everything that is in the scriptures or said by a teacher with critical thinking. However, I would make a comment about the use of “believe” in these last few posts.
I believe E = MC squared I believe in rebirth
Some people think the former sentence is a robust scientific statement of fact, whereas the second is a wishy washy tenet of faith. I see both sentences the same way. I am an intelligent person and has read scientific literature and listened to my science teachers in school and see the whole coordinated teaching of the complexities of the physical world as making sense and happy to be on board. I don’t have “direct knowledge” and didn’t come to that knowledge through some other means. Ditto for the latter sentence- not enlightened but when I read the entire EBT, and see the teaching of the complexities of the non-physical world it makes sense to so I’m on board.
By talking about responsibility I actually have in mind law of action. Sorry for not adequate vocabulary.
Also, it is undeniable fact that you can find some atheist who behave much better than people who believe in rebirth, but this is so because people aren’t rational beings, and their actions not always are compatible with their views. But we are talking about principles, and on level of the views, the most moral atheist must admit that after death there is actually no difference between the altruistic who spent all life helping others, and most degenerate psychopath who brought calamity for humanity.
In other words whether you are Ajahn Sumedho or Bill Gates it doesn’t matter as far as postmortem state goes.
This statement can be made only by one who has no any substantial knowledge about Suttas. You just project your own attitude to Dhamma. This is so called self-deception.
You can believe rebirth or not, but to make reference to Suttas in order to justify one’s own scepticism is at best only justified in the case of outsider. So sorry if I mistaken you for Buddhist, of course as an outsider you are free to believe or disbelief in whatever you like.
As a matter of fact, you are free to do it even as a Buddhist, but that may have some negative postmortem consequences. Upss … Sorry, I have forgotten that you are sceptical about such consequences
It is not belief in rebirth that determines “negative postmortem consequences” it is the current thoughts, speech and actions (plus the ones from the former birth but that is a point of contention here!). It doesn’t matter whether you are a card carrying “Buddhist” or not (indeed I’m not entirely sure what the term “Buddhist” means anyway).
Who can agree that the doctrine of explaining the possibility of rebirth is an aspect of explaining reality, therefore the Dhamma, therefore helps lead to cessation? It’s a part of what Buddha taught, so it has to do with understanding the truth. However we cannot start telling people just because they are missing an aspect of the Dhamma that they have moral failures. What do you think?
And if a novice should say the following: “As I understand the Dhamma taught by the Blessed One, those acts the Blessed One says are obstructive, when engaged in are not genuine obstructions,” the bhikkhus are to admonish him thus:
“Do not say that, friend novice. Do not slander the Blessed One, for it is not good to slander the Blessed One. The Blessed One would not say anything like that. In many ways, friend, the Blessed One has described obstructive acts, and when engaged in they are genuine obstructions. [The Sri Lankan and Burmese recensions read: In many ways, friend, the Blessed One has described obstructive acts as obstructive, and when engaged in they are genuine obstructions.]”
And should that novice, thus admonished by the bhikkhus, persist as before, the bhikkhus are to admonish him thus: “From this day forth, friend novice, you are not to claim the Blessed One as your teacher, nor are you even to have the opportunity the other novices get—that of sharing dwellings two or three nights with the bhikkhus. Away with you! Get lost!” Should any bhikkhu knowingly befriend, receive services from, commune with, or lie down in the same dwelling with a novice thus expelled, it is to be confessed.
@charlieholles Tradition in Buddhism remains relatively unquestioned compared to Christianity.
The following are the earliest in the canon according to Academic scholarship: The verses (only) in the first part of SN, the Suttanippata, the Udaka and the Itivukatta (Source: Wikipedia)
After a reading of these, it does IM(h)O not require a lot of fantasy to imagine how doctrine and the well known stock passages could have evolved out of these. They would have to be seen as doctrinal elaboration rather than historical account.
There is a certain irony in the fact that these verses were classified by the compilers of the canon as “snippets that didn’t fit in elsewhere”.
Luckily, in my day job I teach Physics so I don’t have much trouble convincing students, even in my fourth-year class, that I know a lot more about quantum mechanics than they do.
