[Buddha-l] Re: Multi-cause vs single-cause

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Fri, 2005-03-11 at 22:48 +0100, Benito Carral wrote:

> On Friday, March 11, 2005, Richard P. Hayes wrote:
> 
> > [...]  I  see  no  reason  to  believe the Kalama sutta, since it is
> > merely a scripture that is unreliable by itself.
> 
>    I  agree with you here. It is not a consistent scripture. :) Beside
> that,  I  think  that the usual understanding of the _Kalama sutta_ is
> quite unwholesome. According to Buddhist teaching, our samsaric stream
> of  consciousness  is characterized by ignorance, so how could we rely
> on ignorance to make our decisions? I have never understood it.

I am not sure what the "usual understanding" of the so-called Kalama
Sutta (more properly called the Kesaputtiya, as I recall) is. The sutta
itself is not really very confusing, but in English translation it
becomes confusing. 

The sutta warns against speculation and being swayed by people who are
expert in quoting traditional texts and recommends listening to the wise
and seeing for oneself whether they are giving good advice with respect
to what is healthy (kusala) and what is unhealthy (akusala).

There is nothing at all mysterious about this message, nor is it
inconsistent in any way. According to nearly all the buddhist texts I
have studied, the consciousness of ordinary people is capable of
ignorance, but no one (except perhaps for some interpreters of the Lotus
Sutra) says ordinary consciousness is completely and hopelessly
ignorant. For the most part, we can see pretty clearly, but sometimes we
have blind spots, and they get us into trouble (dukkha). If we could not
see pretty clearly in the first place, dharma would make no sense to us
at all. But dharma does make sense to most of us, even if we do fail
sometimes (or, in my case, nearly all the time) to put it into perfect
practice. 

The problem, as I have said many times, is not that the buddhas' dharma
is difficult to comprehend but that even most of those who comprehend
it, even those who comprehend it quite well, have bad habits, such as
laziness and anxiety and maliciousness and various addictions, that
undermine their efforts.

Read the Kalama Sutta again, and I think this time you'll understand it
(but only if you first cleanse your mind of distracting thoughts about
such things as D--s).

Kalamically yours,
Richard

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico