Kesamutti Sutta

Now, one of the things that I'd like to mention today, because it's come up several times, is that people mistake the Dhamma for ordinary things or things that they've heard before.

That this is, uh, right out of the Kalama Sutra in the sense that do not let stories or things that you've heard cloud your practice.

A really good example of that would be, um, uh, non-duality or at-onement.

We have heard that so many times, but basically that is a Hindu or let us say a Brahman kind of idea, Vedanta, coming out of the Indian philosophy.

And the, uh, the atheist would say, "There ain't no hell." And the Christian would say, "The hell there ain't." And the Buddhist quipped as he passed by, "Hell, you're both in it right now." Look at the feelings that you have, because you're attached to a view.

You're attached to an idea, a concept, and that then flavors the way that we feel.

But that flavoring comes from the attitude that we have based upon a story, based upon, like the Kalama Sutra, that people gain their belief system, gain their attitudes because of one of 10 things.

One would be that it's part of tradition.

The same test appears, without parables, in one of the early discourses.

In the Kalama Sutta, the people of a small town come to the Buddha confused.

Teacher after teacher passes through, each praising his own doctrine and reviling everyone else's.

And the Kalamas can't tell who's telling the truth.

And we're to check what we find against the judgment of the wise.

That last clause matters.

The Kalama Sutta isn't permission to trust our gut.

It asks us to test in practice and then check our results with people who've walked further than we have.

Learn from my mistakes.

But we talked recently about the Kalama Sutta.

Actually, I talk very often about the Kalama Sutta.

The Kalamas, they go to the Buddha when he visits and they tell him, they say, hey, look, we've had all these teachers come through our town and they all proclaim their own doctrines and beliefs.

And they criticize everybody else as they go.

But it's valuable, and I think it's very popular for a good reason.

And that is, he went out, and it's called the Kalama Sutta, or his discussion with the Kalamas.

And the Kalamas were these folks who lived in this town where there was a lot of traffic.

Sort of like Nashville.

I think the ones who don't get it right away, perhaps, might sort of eventually get to that verification part that the Buddha said was so important.

You know, we've talked many times about this sutta called the Kalamas Sutta, and that's the one where the Buddha teaches this community that he is visiting and they're like we get these guys through here all the time and they're always selling some different brand how do we know which one's the right thing and he says don't believe in any of them test them verify them see if they work and he gives them a lot more advice but that's like a core teaching

and

I've been really fortunate to have had a lot of really great teachers in my path who did a really good job of reminding us students frequently about that or keeping us focused on that verification and also making sure we knew not to fall for the spiritual bypassing.