Cankī on Preserving Truth
All paths of practice must begin with a simple question. How do we know where to start? How do we know what is correct to believe? In the Cankī Sutta (Majjhima Nikāya 95; I rely on the Ñāṇamoli/Bodhi translation), the Buddha debates a young Brahmin named Kāpaṭhika, who has faith in the Vedas as his religious guide. In opposing the boy’s approach, the Buddha gives a detailed overview of how one is supposed to validate any proposed dhamma. The key question here is how to ensure that we not choose false teachings. How are we to “preserve truth” (15) in our beliefs?
The Buddha notes (14) that there are five ordinary bases for truth-claims, and that all of them “may turn out in two different ways”; that is, they may turn out true or false, and none of them is guaranteed to preserve truth. These are:
(1) Blind faith,
(2) Simple personal preference,
(3) Oral or written tradition,
(4) Logical reasoning,
(5) Reflection and acceptance.
One may hold a view based on any of these five ways, he tells us, and yet that view may be either true or false. Of the five, the first three are uncontroversial. The most in need of exegesis are the last two. To explain: for number four, since logic is famously truth-preserving (and indeed since the Buddha himself resorts to logic in showing how truth can actually be preserved, later in the Sutta), the point here is one of finding the right premises. Simply showing that our conclusions are derived logically is no guarantee of the truth of those conclusions.
Similarly, number five, reflection and acceptance, will eventually prove to be a good summary of the Buddha’s own view of the subject (20). Presumably here what he means to point out is that not all reflection is of sufficient care and thoroughness to reveal the truth. So simply having reflected upon something is no guarantee that it is true.
So, then, how are we to preserve truth? The Buddha begins simply: a person who has faith in something preserves truth by saying “I have faith in this thing”. This is a small logical deduction, and is indeed truth preserving. However, as he notes it doesn’t discover truth, it only restates faith.
In order to discover truth, the Buddha outlines a lengthy, sequential series of steps, which I will not go into in detail. The question which instead will concern us here is whether those steps also guarantee truth-preservation.
So a teacher presents us with a dhamma claim. How should we begin to evaluate it? The series begins (as in MN 47) with an investigation into the person who presents the claim. What is the teacher’s own behavior? Does he or she display states of greed, hatred or delusion, such that they might try to lead us astray? If so, then we can reject the teaching as likely to be harmful. If not, then we are justified in placing faith in that teacher, as the start of our path into the dhamma.
There are problems with the Buddha’s criterion, however. His evaluation does not guarantee the truth of our teacher’s claims, for three reasons. First, this strategy is an example of a fallacy known as “ad hominem“: truths about the person stating a claim are irrelevant to the truths of the claims the person is stating. Or to put it another way, even the greediest, most hateful or deluded person on earth may speak truthfully. We cannot with certainty reject an assertion based upon the bad behavior of the person making it.
Second, it does not follow that someone who is free from greed or hatred necessarily knows things that are truth-revealing. One free from greed or hatred may be ethically laudable, but may otherwise know little. What about someone who is free from delusion? That is a harder matter, since it isn’t clear what behavior is supposed to tell us that a teacher is free from delusion. Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi translate the passage so as to put the matter in terms of “obsession” (19): to tell if our teacher is not deluded, we look to see that he or she is not mentally obsessed in harmful ways. But even so, one who speaks and acts in ways free from harmful obsessions is not guaranteed to be in possession of the truth.
We do have to admit that lacking these unskillful traits is a good thing in a teacher: it makes it more likely that he or she will not try to lead us astray. But it does not guarantee that our teacher’s dhamma will be true and informative.
Thirdly, there is the problem of our own imperfection. In order to know with certainty that our teacher is without greed, hatred or delusion, we must be perfectly able to gauge those states in others. But we are not. So we may be led astray by overestimating the worthiness of our teacher.
Although the Buddha gives further criteria for evaluating a dhamma claim (that it should be profound, hard to see, peaceful, and so on), there may be many, mutually exclusive teachings that fit those criteria. Further, until and unless we are fully enlightened ourselves, how accurate is our opinion about profundity and peacefulness likely to be?
Since the first step in this process of evaluating teacher and dhamma is not guaranteed to preserve truth, the rest of the steps that follow (faith in the teacher, visitation, and so on, (20)), are also not guaranteed to preserve truth. It remains possible that we have chosen the wrong teacher due to our own inability to judge the teacher as worthy, the teaching as wise, or due to the teacher’s being relatively ethically pure but ignorant. And any chain of reasoning is only as good as its weakest link.
There is a further issue, raised by Bhikkhu Bodhi in his oral discussions of the sutta. The process of searching for truth begins with faith. For the Buddha this is not blind faith, instead it is based on a studied trust in one’s teacher. Nevertheless the faith itself presents us with a problem: might it actually color the experiences we have during the course of our learning? So, for example, Christians will learn from Christian teachers to have faith in God and an immortal soul, and hence in their deep meditative states they will seem to see their eternal self and the God to whom they direct prayer. Hindus learn from their gurus about the non-dual nature that makes their souls identical with Brahman, and then witness the same in meditation.
The claim in each case is that direct experience verifies the claims; however different followers in different traditions have different sorts of direct experience. Each supposedly verifies the truth of their claims. But each of the claims is mutually exclusive: some claim experience of an eternal soul, others claim there is no such experience. Some claim experience of an eternal God, others claim there is no such experience. Or is it that only Buddhists are subject to anatta? That is hardly credible.
How do we adjudicate the difference? Who, if any among them, is right? In the Buddha’s terms, how do we preserve truth, given that direct experience based on faith — even reasoned faith — “may turn out two different ways”?
I don’t have a good answer to this question. I don’t believe there is any way to “preserve truth” with absolute fidelity, since no matter how good one’s reasoning (limited examples aside), one’s premises may always prove false. However there is more we can do: expand the Buddha’s own investigative criteria. Instead of accepting our own, untutored opinion about a teacher, we might ask around and get more opinions about him or her. What do the wise people say? What do the critics say? What other information might people have turned up? Although this is also not guaranteed to preserve truth, at least it brings in a wider base of evidence and more pairs of eyes.
Personal, subjective experience, the behavior of a teacher, no matter how compelling, is thin on the ground. (Who among us will ever have a truly enlightened teacher, anyway?) Examples from different faith traditions show that experience can lead astray. In order to do our best to preserve truth, we also need objective or intersubjective testing: we need to design experiments to eliminate the faith-bias of the practitioner. We need to gather other people, perhaps antagonistic, to redo experiments and verify teachings. We need open debate and discussion among people of all backgrounds.
We need to broaden the Buddha’s own investigative techniques to encompass the methods of modern science, and to embrace scientific consensus in our search for what is justified to believe. This does not mean we must restrict our beliefs simply to what is accepted by scientific consensus: nobody can live that way. It is no matter of science that I can find my way to the grocery store and back. But it does mean that teachings must be weighed against science, to see if they stand or fall. The Dalai Lama has said no less.
Of all the great religious and philosophical traditions, few are as in tune with a contemporary scientific understanding of the mind and its place in lived experience as was the Buddha and his dhamma. Contemporary Buddhists typically use the results of modern science to validate the three marks of existence against theistic claims of an eternal soul. What’s to fear in pushing farther? The Buddha himself held the dhamma up to inquiry and examination. We should do no less in our search to “preserve truth”.
Since for the novice — or the experienced practitioner with ‘beginner’s mind’ — the methodology outlined by the Buddha in the Cankī Sutta does not guarantee to preserve truth, the correct attitude of the practitioner must remain one of open skepticism. This is not to say one cannot accept much of the dhamma with a high level of confidence. What it means is that one must always weigh the dhamma against the sciences, since the sciences are a more epistemically secure foundation for knowledge: they do not involve faith in a single teacher, nor the assumption that a teacher who is well-behaved is thereby in possession of the truth, nor the worry that we as imperfect judges may not be prepared to determine the worthiness of our teacher.
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Doug, thanks for your premier article!
As I read this, I wondered whether what’s going on here is a conflict between a Western philosophical approach to “truth preservation”, ie, the reliable transmission of a valid truth claim, and Gotama’s radically phenomenological approach. Here, the “truth” is the psychophysical reality of human experience, and a set of practices by which we can observe and shape that reality. The problem with a teacher who displays grasping, aversive or deluded behavior is not simply that he/she might lead us astray or be ill-behaved — such an individual is either not practicing the dhamma, or perhaps never learned it in the first place, and so is in no position to teach it. It is true I may not be a good judge of character, which is why the ultimate test is not the reliability of the teacher, but the reliability of the teaching. The dhamma teacher is not teaching you something you don’t already have access to in abundance; he or she is giving you pointers on how to see what’s right in front of you all the time. What preserves truth in this model is the human animal itself, and this is why self-reliance is a continual point of emphasis for Gotama. Ultimately, if a teacher gives me a practice, I put it into practice assiduously, and I experience no freedom from the Three Fires, then I can tell that the teacher has given me the wrong practice or is perhaps not skilled in the dhamma him/herself. Similarly, if the practices I am given lead me to embrace dukkha, drop craving, and experience freedom from reactivity, I know the practices are reliable. I agree that the correct attitude toward dhamma teaching should always involve skepticism and testing, but Gotama told us where that testing ultimately needs to happen, and that is in the crucible of our own and others’ experience. What science might give us access to is an indication of who may be “the wise” whose approbation of a teaching we are advised to seek. Teachers whose students can be demonstrated to have acquired traits like calm, equanimity, concentration, compassion, etc, could be conferred with in this regard. The proof will always be in the pudding.
How much time do you think is reasonable to test the teachings of a teacher after you’ve been practicing assiduously. You haven’t addressed this and i think its a big problem in the whole matter. That’s where “faith” comes in. Or “trust” if you prefer. Or perhaps im misunderstanding you. Do you mean really doing away with these things or just seeing a lessening of them. If the latter, then fine, no worries.
Doug,
Great post. There’s just one thing…
Of all the great religious and philosophical traditions, few are as in tune with a contemporary scientific understanding of the mind and its place in lived experience as was the Buddha and his dhamma.
As you may know by now, Gautama’s teachings have caught (and continue to hold) my attention, but this statement sounds a little far-fetched to me. Can you elaborate a bit?
PS: Just to put a finer point on my request, I’ve yet to read anything in the Pali Canon that I’d say resembles “a contemporary scientific understanding of the mind” (i.e. even after I’ve mentally stripped out all of the supernatural content), so perhaps you can recommend some examples (or “proof texts”).
Hi Mark,
I don’t think we’re disagreeing very much here, except perhaps emphasis. Certainly, one can validate the teachings through one’s ongoing practice. The problem is, so too can Christians and Hindus. Now, they might not privilege quite the same states that the Buddha does — though it seems to me that most traditions don’t have much good to say about greed, hatred or ignorance, for example. Are they all therefore on the same path?
Perhaps it seems slightly artificial to approach the Buddha’s dharma with this sort of ‘beginner’s mind’; but after all, in the Sutta he is talking to a sixteen-year-old Brahmin, who asserts, “Only this is true, anything else is wrong.” So the question as to truth must arise.
Hi mufi,
I am taking a broad, historical view of what qualifies as “traditions”. I can think of few if any that are as incisive in capturing human psychology and — as Mark puts it — phenomenology. The best contemporary philosophers are quite astute. But that’s a sliver, historically speaking.
And while claims of reincarnation and karma are not scientifically workable, base claims of anicca and anatta certainly are. I believe the latter are closer to the heart of the teaching than the former, but of course I would say that given where I’m coming from …
As for your second concern, I wouldn’t expect anything in the Canon to resemble contemporary science; that would be anachronistic. My question is rather whether the claims in the Canon are compatible with a contemporary scientific understanding of the mind. Although as should be clear from other things I’ve posted here, the question is still very much live.
Doug –
“The problem is, so too can Christians and Hindus.”
Maybe not quite. As a secular Buddhist, what I have to verify is that practicing concentration and cultivating kindness and compassion result in greater freedom from grasping and aversive reactivity. The Christian and Hindu may derive similar things from their practice, but they cannot verify the existence of Yaweh or Vishnu. Because the dharma is rooted in phenomenology, I don’t need to ground my practice in something other than my own experience. The theist attempts to explain internal states on the basis of an external ground of truth and then claims that experience verifies that truth, but of course it cannot.
The Christian (let us grant) has an experience as of God’s love. It is (let us grant) as real to him as your experience of freedom from grasping is to you. In that sense the theist is not attempting to explain internal states on the basis of an external ground of truth. The ground of truth is in the states themselves. (At least, from the theist’s POV).
One cannot decide between these stances by saying that one is more real or more immediate than the other. There is no way to compare them directly.
One might say, “You seem to have an experience as of God’s love, but in fact your experience is of the first jhana.” But that cuts both ways, doesn’t it? The theist will say the opposite: “You seem to have an experience of the first jhana, but in fact your experience is of God’s love.”
One might then respond, “OK, perhaps my experience could be of God’s love, but I don’t really care about that, I only care about the phenomenology.” Fair enough, but then you’re leaving open the possibility that you are in fact ignorant about the cause of your own mental state. (E.g., that it comes from God’s love and not your own effort). While in some sense, in some suttas, perhaps the Buddha might seem to accept such a view, I don’t think that that is a good description of his view generally.
We can hardly take the Buddha to task for not inventing the scientific method. None of the ancient Greeks or Romans did. The idea of validation by means experience and observation was common knowledge. The Buddha told people to believe his teachings, not because he was the source, but because of one’s own experience in putting his teachings to use. There is even an experiment in the Old Testament with a treatment group and a control group, Daniel’s comparison of vegetarian diet with “the king’s delicacies.” Empiricism was there, but they didn’t see the implications.
For decades, psychologists argued about Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s very hard to study AA. Finally, someone had the idea of inventing a counseling program called 12-Step Facilitation that can be studied easily. In Project MATCH, the most elaborate study of psychotherapy methods ever conducted, 12-Step was shown to be as good as the two counseling methods recommended most often for alcoholism. Although 12-S V and AA are not exactly the same, psychologists regard MATCH results as validation of AA. Secular mindfulness programs have been studied since the 1980s, and the results support Buddhism in a way that’s analogous to the support 12-S V gives to AA.
I have mentioned studies pertaining to the question of transcendent reality. Science has no creed.
Absolutely agree, Tom. It’s not the Buddha’s fault that he didn’t foresee modern science. And as the sentence mufi quoted above shows, I agree that the Buddha had an understanding of the mind which was generally in tune with modern science.
Doug, I fully agree with your conclusion that it’s really difficult to be sure we’re on the right track in our efforts to seek out “truth”, that we can fool ourselves, that our perceptions of our teacher’s behavior can fool us into thinking that they have either a more accurate understanding of truth than they do, or that we might even think someone has a less accurate understanding than it turns out they do: there are no methods that can give us a guarantee.
What puzzles me in your article is what it is that has you apparently perceiving that what the Buddha is saying in this sutta is that he is guaranteeing that his methods of finding a good teacher will work to “preserve the truth” (Sentences like these: “The question which instead will concern us here is whether those steps also guarantee truth-preservation” and “His evaluation does not guarantee the truth of our teacher’s claims, for three reasons” suggest to me that you are saying the Buddha was making a guarantee, and you are pointing out the flaws that make that guarantee unwarranted).
I’ve read your post here — and all the translations of the sutta and the notes on them that I could find — several times now, and I’m wondering if the discrepancy I find between my understanding of them and what I hear you saying in the above is because I’m not understanding what you’re saying, or if it’s because we have a different understanding of what the Buddha is saying in the sutta.
I suspect the crux may be in that phrase “preserve the truth”. I wonder if you could explain your definition of that phrase as it’s used in the sutta and here in the article?
Hi Linda,
I don’t know whether the Buddha felt his methods of finding a good teacher would guarantee truth-preservation. That might go too far. But in the context of confronting a true-believer from a different faith-tradition, the Buddha presents us with a method which at the very least he claims is better than the alternative. That is, it is a method more likely to discover truths rather than mere faith-based opinions, as might be the case with following the Vedas, say.
To that extent, his argument is persuasive. My point, though, is that whether or not the Buddha felt that his methodology guaranteed success, nevertheless it does not. And if that is the methodology we are to use to decide (e.g.) to follow the Buddha himself, then we can follow the Buddha and be wrong in doing so, since the methodology does not guarantee we are choosing a teacher who has true wisdom rather than mere faith-based opinions.
There are ways to strengthen the Buddha’s criteria, that I outlined at the end, but neither do they guarantee success.
Of course, we all have to start somewhere; I don’t mean this to sound like a council of despair. It’s just that open-minded skepticism is always warranted.
Thanks, Doug, that’s helpful. And I may have a question or two in a bit about those strengthening criteria you mention. But first, I still don’t understand what you meant in the article by “preserving the truth”, or what you’re saying the Buddha means by that phrase, or even whether the two are the same or different (if you define it the same way you understand him to be defining it).
Hi Linda,
“Preservation of truth”, also (fn.884) Ñāṇamoli/Bodhi suggest “safeguarding of truth” or “protection of truth”. The first context appears in para. 14, where the Buddha goes through the five methods that are unsatisfactory because they “may turn out in two different ways here and now”: that is, the methods neither guarantee that the beliefs one gains from them are true, nor that the ones rejected based on them are false.
Given that these methods are unsatisfactory, “it is not proper for a wise man who preserves truth to come to the definite conclusion: ‘Only this is true, anything else is wrong.’” (Which is the “definite conclusion” based on faith that Kāpaṭhika says the brahmins come to as regards the Vedas). That is, one who uses an unsatisfactory epistemic method should not assume that one’s beliefs based thereon must be true. (Fn. 885 explicates this nicely, as well: “It is not proper for him to come to this conclusion because he … only accepts it on a ground that is not capable of yielding certainty.”).
To preserve, safeguard or protect truth in this context means to preserve, safeguard or protect one’s likelihood of coming to true beliefs. One who adopts an insufficient epistemic criterion for belief does not well protect one’s own likelihood of believing truly. This elides into the separate but related problem of the “discovery of truth” that the Buddha turns to in para. 15: one cannot be certain of discovering truth if one forms beliefs based on an insufficient epistemic criterion, such as blind faith.
That seems clear enough in the context of the sutta, but toward the end of the article you’re talking about expanding on the Buddha’s methods (“We need to broaden the Buddha’s own investigative techniques to encompass the methods of modern science, and to embrace scientific consensus in our search for what is justified to believe”). It seems to me, with your discussion of the unreliability of methods to find a good teacher and efforts to “preserve truth” that we need to understand what sort of “truth” we are talking about. Given the phrasing, you’re suggesting that these are “truths” that are verifiable by science? We’re not, then, talking about subjective experience?
Hi Linda,
Well, I was trying to get at a couple of different issues there at the end. The first one was on looking for more objective criteria for finding a good teacher. It’s not enough to rely solely on one’s own, fallible, isolated opinions, but also good to ask around, etc. This is something that arguably the Buddha might have understood and agreed with.
The second issue has to do with following any (single) teacher, or on a naïve belief that our own subjective experience is necessarily revelatory of the way things are. For example, the Buddha believed that his own experience gave him knowledge of past lives and the beginningless role of effective karmic results. This is the sort of thing that it would be very good to have objective justification for, rather than accepting it based on scriptural authority or even, as may be, on our own subjective experience of NDEs or past life regression. While science cannot ever logically disprove such possibilities, it can reveal that they are much more likely to be due to mental hallucinations or delusions than some might have expected.
So if we are really interested in “preserving truth” in these matters, we need to bring in the methods of science as well as subjective experiences.
Doug: So if we are really interested in “preserving truth” in these matters, we need to bring in the methods of science as well as subjective experiences.
Our decisions should definitely be informed by the sciences, but I think there’s more to critical thinking than just scientific knowledge (e.g. logic), as your essay above demonstrates (and with nary a reference to empirical research).
Absolutely agreed, mufi. Though from all appearances the Buddha was pretty good at critical thinking. (Modulo all the issues under discussion, of course).
Agreed. He’s lucky he didn’t wind up like Socrates!
That’s an interesting point, actually, mufi. It seems to me that the Buddha was a good deal cannier than Socrates, and perhaps less stubborn and egotistical. One might also say the Buddha was less interested in confronting power and therefore less interested in the truth of political justice, which he believed was transitory anyhow, because he knew it would only serve to get him killed.
Basically he was trying to create a lasting, liberative movement rather than being a gadfly.
Sounds right, Doug. But, just to be clear, I was thinking less about the political leadership (e.g. the royalty) as potential threats and more about the brahmins and other religious-ideological rivals that we read about in the suttas. All it would seem to have taken is one offended and overzealous sectarian…
I agree with all that (except, of course, your assertion that begins, “the Buddha believed”). But after studying the article for a while I’m still having a problem with your use of the Canki Sutta and the words “preserving truth” as regards anything a teacher can do for us. Part of my problem is that you seem to be suggesting that the Buddha is saying that there is such a thing as a “truth” that can simply be passed on (i.e. “preserved”) by finding the right teacher, and while I could make arguments for this being so in, say, math, or chemistry, when it comes to the “truths” of subjective experience, I agree with what the Buddha is actually saying in the Canki Sutta, which (as far as I can see) is that:
(1) Truth is “preserved” by being clear on the difference between what you know and what you believe. The “preservation” is nothing to do with “passing on the truth” at all. This is the point of the whole first section (in this translation our “preserving” is “safeguarding” — from your link at the top of the article):
“‘If a person has conviction, his statement, “This is my conviction,” safeguards the truth. But he doesn’t yet come to the definite conclusion that “Only this is true; anything else is worthless.” To this extent, Bharadvaja, there is the safeguarding of the truth. ‘”
There is nothing in the above about actually having, at this point, any kind of ‘ownership’ of a truth to be passed on. It’s just the Buddha’s wry recognition that the first step is being honest about what we *don’t* know — which is that there is any truth at all in something we have convictions about.
(2) Truth is discovered (“awakened to”) through the help of a teacher:
“When, on observing that the [teacher] is purified with regard to qualities based on delusion [etc], he places conviction in him. With the arising of conviction, he visits him & grows close to him. Growing close to him, he lends ear… he hears the Dhamma…. he remembers it… he penetrates the meaning of those dhammas… through pondering those dhammas, desire arises…. he becomes willing… contemplates… makes an exertion… he both realizes the ultimate meaning of the truth with his body and sees by penetrating it with discernment.
“To this extent, Bharadvaja, there is an awakening to the truth. To this extent one awakens to the truth. I describe this as an awakening to the truth. But it is not yet the final attainment of the truth.”
It’s not “passed on” like home-canned pickles in a jar (“preserved”). I’d say the reason it’s not passed on is because it’s not the kind of “truth” that can be passed on. It’s not an objective truth like math or chemistry that we can write on a chalk board. It’s a subjective truth so it can never be attained by someone just telling us about it — it is subjective so it has to be experienced or it can’t be truthfully known.
It’s pointed toward, to be discovered by oneself, but even here truth yet isn’t “owned” by the seeker — this is just a beginning. The seeker after truth still has to go through one more step.
(3) “The cultivation, development, & pursuit of those very same qualities: to this extent, Bharadvaja, there is the final attainment of the truth. To this extent one finally attains the truth. I describe this as the final attainment of the truth.”
The sheer length of the treatment of the middle portion, against the brevity of the last part, perhaps fools us into thinking that the finding of the teacher is the Biggest Deal. But it’s just the part the Buddha, for some reason, felt needed discussing at length for this one person. In fact, Step Three is covered elsewhere at even greater length — it’s the eightfold path, right? — and all the rest of the lessons on how to figure out if we’re on the right track or not, including paying attention to whether the practices we engage in move us forward or backward. Which — ala the Kalama Sutta — includes consultation with “the wise” as to whether our convictions and behavior are praiseworthy or not.
I don’t find the Buddha to be counseling taking only one teacher’s word, or even only his disciple’s words, for what is truth. Or even our teacher’s words and just our experience. He says there are three steps: recognize that faith is not truth; find a good teacher; then cultivate the path he has set out elsewhere, and that does include balancing one’s teacher’s lessons, and one’s experiences, with information from the world around us.
He’s not actually talking, in this sutta, about “preserving truth” in any grand sense, but pokes fun at the idea that such is even possible by redefining what “preserving truth” is as the most elementary step of recognizing that when we start out, we have only conviction, not truth.
Hi Linda,
Reading your post, I’m not sure where we disagree. Perhaps we are talking past one another.
I don’t mean to claim that for the Buddha the path (much less nibbana itself) is a wholly cognitive matter, one that involves learning a bunch of facts. Though it does in part involve learning facts, such as the three characteristics of existence. (One must learn them cognitively and experientially).
Let’s recall the context of this discussion: the Buddha confronts Kāpaṭhika, a brahmin who claims that only the the Vedas are true, and anything else is wrong. In this context what is primarily at issue is factual truth. The problem is with Kāpaṭhika’s method, which involves faith in tradition rather than something more reliable. The Buddha suggests that by looking for certain key qualities in a teacher, one is more likely to come to truth than simply by having faith in a tradition.
Of course, there is more in the sutta than just that. As I say, I left to one side a great deal of exposition that came after the adoption of the teacher. My only point in the post was to note that the Buddha’s method for choosing a teacher was also not one that guaranteed that in doing so one would come to true beliefs.
Doug, I’m reminded of Gotama’s words to Ananda shortly before his passing.
“Therefore, Ananda, be a lamp unto yourself, be a refuge to yourself. Take yourself to no external refuge. Hold fast to the Truth as a lamp; hold fast to the Truth as a refuge. Look not for a refuge in anyone beside yourself. And those, Ananda, who either now or after I am dead shall be a lamp unto themselves, who take themselves to no external refuge, but holding fast to the Truth as their lamp, and holding fast to the Truth as their refuge, shall not look for refuge to anyone beside themselves, it is they who shall reach the highest goal.”
– Mahaparinibbana Sutta
Thanks, Ron, very good!