Doubt in Buddhism
The Kalama Suttra[1] is one of the most important Buddhist texts. It is a short sutra in which the Buddha visits some Kalama’s who ask him which of the many doctrines and claims they should believe in. The Buddha’s answer is clear: he instructs that they, and thus we, should doubt everything:
“Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom[2]; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, 'The monk is our teacher.' “
There are many translations of this, and many interpretations of the specific ten items of doubt, but the general thrust of the Kalama Suttra is that all things are doubtable and should be doubted.
But this proposal of Universal Doubt might seem at odds with another key aspect of Buddha’s teaching, The Five Hindrances. One of these hindrances is Doubt. So it seems we have one part of the Buddha’s teaching is to doubt everything and another part specifies that Doubt is a hindrance to Dharma Practice. Is this an incompatibility?
I think it isn’t, and we can see this by the Buddha’s specification for the removal of Doubt in the Kalama Suttra. The answer is simple. The Buddha instructs the Kalamas that when “you yourselves know ” or, as some translations say, when you “know directly” something that you were doubting, then, and only then, can you be rid of the doubt.
When the Buddha uses “Know” in this context I think he must be using it as meaning Knowing that something is the case because one knows it couldn’t be any other way. To start from the position of Knowing one knows nothing and building on that. It is Knowledge derived by certainty from Universal Doubt, this is the justification for the true beliefs that are known.
The Initial state is Doubt. The problem is that Doubt prevents knowledge; the solution is to know that which cannot be doubted.[3]
The Kalama Suttra is an amazing text, that establishes the critical, skeptcial, rational method, with doubt as its starting point and reflexive certainty as the only viable destination. Doubt is a hindrance and it’s only solution is its removal.
Everything, including the dogma and supernaturalism that has distorted Buddhism over the millennia should be doubted, questioned and tried to be disproved, just as The Buddha instructs with all doctrine and belief. Of course, this means also that the Kalama Suttra should be doubted, and it should! All teachings should be doubted including the one that purports that all teachings should be doubted. But this is not an obtuse paradox, it’s a perfect gem of the Dharmic methodology[4] .
Doubt everything, be your own light.
[1] A version of the Kalam Suttra can be here and four versions of it here.
[2] It always struck me as awkward that The Buddha cites we should doubt axioms, or logical inference, as another translation calls the item. But I was mistaken in this, now I think that it is saying doubt even logic and reason until, as with all claims, they can no longer be doubted.
[3] This state/problem/solution strategy can also be seen with Dukka and the Four Noble Truths. State:Dukka, Problem: Tana/Ignorance, Solution: The Noble Eightfold Path.
[4] Elsewhere The Buddha states that even his words should be doubted. Eg Vimamsaka Sutta. Western philosophers may note how this is similar to the Tratarian “ladder throwing”.
