The Buddha’s teaching to the Kalamas has to be one of the most popular suttas in the Pali Canon. A Google search turns up more than 35,000 hits (most of which seem to be re-postings of Soma Thera’s translation). There are two excellent translations at Access to Insight, one by Soma Thera, and one by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. In addition, there is a fine essay by Bhikkhu Bodhi, cautioning us against reading the sutta as a simple-minded justification of subjectivism or relativism. And finally, there is an excellent brief introduction to the Soma Thera translation of the Kalama Sutta on the BuddhaNet website.

The Kalamas lived in a town called Kesaputta, which was, apparently, on the edge of a large and rather dangerous forest, through which a major road passed. Travellers on that road would frequently stop at Kesaputta until enough of them had gathered to traverse the forest in relative safety. In this way, Kesaputta was similar to the oasis towns of Arabian peninsula, where caravans assembled to make the dangerous crossing of the desert.

Given its location, Kesaputta received more than its share of visits from the various ascetics, sages, and dharma teachers who wandered through Northern India at the time of the Buddha, and the Kalamas had more opportunity than residents of other towns to hear the gossip of the day and get some feel for the reputation of the teachers who came their way. When the Buddha came, they were waiting for him, and they hit him with a tough question—tough then, and tough now. All these teachers come through here, they told him, and each one has his own particular point of view; and each one claims that he’s the only one with the truth, and all of the others are full of baloney (or whatever passed for baloney in 400BCE India). How do we know, they asked the Buddha, which of these teachers we should follow?

The Kalama Sutta is his answer. In it, the Buddha demonstrates a few techniques which he refined quite skillfully through his teaching career. For one, his response demonstrated his deep empathy for where the Kalamas were—the confusion they felt and their distrust of those who kept trying to prosetylize, their relative lack of sophistication regarding deep philosophical notions and fine points of logic, their position as prosperous householders, involved with their businesses and their families, and, above all, their situation as human beings, caught up in the suffering inherent in that situation, caught up in this samsara.

The sutta demonstrates another common technique of the Buddha; he starts by agreeing with his questioner—in fact, he expresses the Kalamas’ doubts much more precisely and exhaustively than they had in their initial question to him. And he doesn’t press his own point of view, but asks the Kalamas for their point of view about various critical questions involving the kind of actions, the kind of life, that is most likely to bring happiness. Then, working from that foundation, he skillfully outlines the way in which that kind of life works to improve the lot of those who find the way to live it. And he concludes, not by promising them a fortunate rebirth or other pie in the sky reward for living that life, but by outlining all of the alternatives. He shows clearly that no matter what one believes about the more esoteric doctrines—whether we will or will not be judged on our behavior, whether we will or will not be reborn—it is still good to lead a good life, one characterized by generosity, good behavior, and loving kindness.

Here’s a link to the rendering of the Kalama sutta that I’ll be reading in class on Monday. If you have time to read it before class, that would be a good idea.