Essaying Out of the Thickets

AN 3.65 Kesamutti Sutta, 'To the Kālāmas'

6 min read

In AN 3.65, the Buddha advises a confused group of practitioners who are often subjected to teachers of various competing doctrines. He says there are ten ways that are not sufficient for discerning whether a teaching is dhamma, or not:

The requirement for taking a teaching as dhamma, not adhamma, is that the teaching reduces suffering through the abandonment of greed, hatred, and delusion. So the measure of a teaching is how it improves our conduct.

The Divine Abodes & Four Assurances

The sutta goes in, in a typically tangential fashion, to say that one who knows such conduct goes on as a ‘noble disciple’ to cultivate the Four Divine Abodes, and then presents a very lucid expression of Pascal’s Wager, which I am happy to find again because it buoys my faith to have this parallel Wager, and in what seems like a more concise form. By cleansing one’s mind of ill will in this way, a practitioner gains ‘four assurances’:

  • IF there is rebirth AND actions have consequences, THEN result: likely fortunate rebirth.
  • IF there is no rebirth and no consequences, THEN result: I still have a wholesome one-life
  • IF suffering results from unskilful actions, THEN result: no suffering from skilful actions
  • IF no suffering results from unskilful actions, THEN result: still no suffering

The first two seem to be the main parallel with Pascal - the other two are just sound reasoning: if actions have consequences then I should do skilful actions; do good, and good will result; don’t be a jerk. It’s a win-win situation - a no-brainer, really, the more I spell it out.

I suppose it’s still a good one to have in the toolkit in case one falls into old conditioning. Assume rebirth and kamma are real and there is a much-greater incentive to not be a mindless hedonist all the time.

1. Oral Tradition

This is straightforward enough - don’t accept a teaching simply on the grounds it was received through tradition.

2. Lineage

It is interesting for me to see here again that lineage is neither sufficient, nor required for accepting a teaching as dhamma - like every other method here, it is secondary to experience.

I was hung up on lineage for a good while, but the Kalama Sutta helps me understand I am better of appraising a teacher and their teaching by their conduct, because that is the only measure for a teaching in this sutta anyway - does it reduce greed, hatred, and delusion? Then it is dhamma. Sounds reasonable to me ✅

I took lineage to be of central importance alongside the importance of one’s teacher having a teacher, but these are subjective compared to the direct experience of the wholesome, etc. and reduced suffering. Someone like might have trained a lot under various teachers and be independent now, but clearly further down the path so he may not need a lot of guidance. A practitioner after a certain stage1 of progress is trusted by the Buddha as no longer needing supervision.

3. Hearsay

Taking anything to be true on the grounds of hearsay is clearly unreliable, especially when the proponents are not free of the kilesas themselves - the blind men trying to discern the elephant in the room.

4. Collections

I suppose ‘collections’ means a selection of the suttas deemed essential or all that is required - or this refers to groups/practitioners who had access to only limited suttas, as was the case for most of history. So we are in a unique position to not be taken in by teachings based on certain sets of scriptures - or, worse, by teachings that discourage reading the suttas for oneself.

With websites like Sutta Central, Pāli Canon Study Tool, and The Buddha’s Words, there is no reason we should get caught by this.

5., 6., 7., and 8. Logical, Inferential, Cogitative, and Ponderous Reasoning

These four all look the same to me, and I understand as much as conceptual reasoning alone is not sufficient for discerning whether a teaching dhamma.

In the context of saddhā it seems almost conflicting that the Kalama Sutta seems to denounce the sort of reasoning I thought would support ‘conviction’ or ‘confidence’, these ideals of ‘reasoned faith’ or ‘faith with wisdom’, but the Buddha is just saying these are not sufficient reason to accept a teaching: the only sufficient reason is evidence from the sense realm that suffering is reduced.

He does not discourage reasoning but gives it very specific direction - that is, considering whether conduct suggested by that teaching is

wholesome blameworthy censured by the wise, and conducive to harm and suffering

So, is the teaching skilful? The answer is found in our conduct. The Buddha encourages us to use reasoning for the examination of experience rather than just treating intellectual persuasiveness as a sufficient reason for accepting a teaching. After all, reasoning can fail, as recognised in the Canki Sutta.

He doesn’t recommend a teaching at all, even his own. He directs the practitioner to ‘live in accordance with’ those actions one knows from experience are wholesome, blameless, praiseworthy, and liberative.

If you know for yourselves, “These things are wholesome; these things are blameless; these things are praised by the wise; these things, if accepted and undertaken, lead to welfare and happiness,” then you should live in accordance with them.

9. A Teacher’s Competence

So even a teacher’s competence isn’t sufficient - one must apply their directions, as with any other insufficient basis here.

10. The Speaker is your Guru

Unfortunately I have seen this a lot, in faith-heavy communities in the Theravadin tradition but also in lay circles over the years. It is tempting to just trust an expert, but not if it means leaving our discernment at the door.

Footnotes

  1. stream-entry? ↩

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