Kalama Sutta

Many people have participated in the discussion regarding the Kālāma Sutta. Unfortunately, a bundle of people only focus on a single passage and misrepresent the whole sutta. More details of this will be explored further in the later section, Buddhism and Authority. In “The Buddha’s Charter of Free Inquiry” Soma Thera says that the Kālāma Sutta is teaching to the Kālāmas but is also an incentive of free inquiry. The teaching is exemption from the authoritative dogmas, intolerance and personal interest

3) The Way the Buddha Analytically Answers the Question of the Kālāmas a) Context of the Kālāmas The Kālāmas is the people of the Kesuputta. They were visited by two kinds of people. Who are these people really? According to the sutta, one is the samaṇā (ascetics) and the other is the brāhmaņa (divines). They are spiritual teachers. Nevertheless, they have adhered to different philosophy, doctrines, and practices. According to the work of Saber Uddiyan the samaṇā are, “[T]hose engaging in spiritual

Chapter 4 — The Way the Buddha Analytically Answers the Question of the Kālāmas. This chapter discussed on a well-known sutta, AN 3.56. The discourse has shown a situation, the Kālāmas has being confused by different teachings (from the brahmins and ascetics). They having approached the Buddha and asked to help solve the problem of whom speak truth and who speak false. The Buddha having giving them advice by saying do not go upon the ten knowledge: “…repeated hearing, …tradition, …rumor, …scripture

The Kālāma Sutta is being used as a means by many skeptics and rationalist to denounce hearing, tradition, scripture, and faith. They support their arguments by citing the passage that the Buddha given to the perplexed Kālāmas. “Come, Kālāmas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing, …tradition, …rumor, …scripture, ...surmise, …axiom, …specious reasoning, …bias towards a notion pondered over, …another’s seeming ability, nor upon the consideration ‘The monk is our teacher.’ When

Ethic is well elucidated in the sutta. Concerning desire, hatred, and delusion, the Buddha asks the Kālāmas, “When adopted and carried out, do they convert into loss and suffering, or not? How does it appear to you?” To which the Kālāmas answer, “When adopt, sir, and carried out, they convert into loss and suffering. That is how it appears to us.” Regarding, freedom from wanting, aversion, and ignorance, the Buddha inquires of the Kālāmas, “When adopted and carried out, do they converted into profit

the affirmative “would be conforming with those brahmans & contemplatives who are exponents of eternalism [the view that there is an eternal soul]”(Ananda Sutta)... and answering in the negative “would be conforming with those brahmans & contemplatives who are exponents of annihilationism [death is the annihilation of consciousness]”(Ananda Sutta). Thanissaro’s view relates to the concept of emptiness and the implications on moral responsibility, personal continuity, rebirth, and karma through the

Siddhartha Gautama, also known as Gautama Buddha or just simply the Buddha was born in what is now known as Nepal sometime between c. 563 BCE and c. 480 BCE into the caste system with his caste being the Kshatriya, the caste of royalty or the military elite. He was born to Śuddhodana, a head chief of the Shakya tribe, and Maya, a princess. Siddhartha’s father held a naming ceremony for a five day old Siddhartha where eight Brahmin priests predicted that Siddhartha would either be a great holy man

governed by the law of karma. The acceptance of the validity of the hypothesis of sasâra is very difficult for some people, while for others it is the most natural of hypotheses. Some features of the observable world suggest it. In the Culakammavibhanga Sutta the Buddha is asked: "What is the reason and the

The Buddhist doctrine of karma ("deeds", "actions"), and the closely related doctrine of rebirth, are perhaps the best known, and often the least understood, of Buddhist doctrines. The matter is complicated by the fact that the other Indian religious traditions of Hinduism and Jainism have their own theories of Karma and Reincarnation. It is in fact the Hindu versions that are better known in the West. The Buddhist theory of karma and rebirth are quite distinct from their other