Fake Buddhism Quotes

(as posted at American Buddhist Perspective)

My friend and former meditation teacher Bodhipaksa has recently been collecting and commenting upon interesting "Fake Buddha Quotes."  This has been a source of occasional comedy, sometimes frustration, and also a bit of wonder. Why is it that people coin these fake new quotes? Why do others pick them up and spread them, unchecked, across the web and other networks? Why are some, like Bodhipaksa and myself, a bit frustrated with them? First a couple of those quotes (click the link for Bodhipaksa's comments):

“When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.” (from here)

“Suffering, if it does not diminish love, will transport you to the furthest shore.” – Buddha (from here)

“You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself”
–Buddha (from here)

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”
—Buddha. (from here)

He is able who thinks he is able. #Buddha (from here)

And finally, my favorite (from here):

Ok, so now that we've all had a good laugh, I have to ask: why create fake Buddha quotes? The simplest answer is that it's just plane old humane mistakes (plain... human). Little slips in translation or memory, or perhaps big ones and viola! (voilà) a new Buddha quote. As a guy who grew up believing that Americans fought a big war about silver in the 1860s and that the second World War was called "war war two" I can see where this is probably very often the case.

In good Buddhist fashion we can call that the ignorance cause. Then there would also be the greed and aversion causes (the three poisons). Greed perhaps for personal aggrandizement or mere attention, aversion could manifest in besmirching someone else (using a made-up Buddha quote) or making a silly one up to make the Buddha look bad.

And now, why do we repeat them? Well, probably for the same reasons - mostly ignorance if you ask me. We all, especially if we call ourselves Buddhists, owe it to ourselves and the world to read some early Buddhist teachings now and then. Check out Access to Insight (you can download the whole thing on your iPhone/iPod) if you haven't already. Even though I'm a bit of a Theravāda snob these days, I will also heartily suggest reading Tibetan, Zen, Ch'an, Shin, etc writings as well. It's very important to get a taste of each tradition; you don't need to believe it or practice it, but see where it is coming from so that you can see your fellow Buddhists and human beings. So don't forget the great Catholics (Thomas Merton, Merton movie, or Anthony De Mello, "I'm an ass, you're an ass"), Protestants, Hindus, Muslims and others.

And lastly, why are some of us a bit frustrated with these fake Buddha quotes? Well, as Bodhipaksa suggests in his comments, the Buddha simply didn't say that. Why make up new things when we already have HUGE canons of real Buddha quotes? Perhaps we could say it's disrespectful, not to mention the above (ignorant, greedy, malicious) potential roots behind the quote. The stated goal of Buddhism, along with the aleviation of suffering, is to know things as they truly are (yathābhūtaṃ ñāṇaṃ). So fake Buddha quotes, unless they are created out of the heart of a true bodhisattva, will potentially not only spread greater unclarity in the world but also increase suffering.

That brings me to a final, scholarly point. What about the Mahāyāna? And in particular a quote from the Adhyāśayasaṃcodana Sūtra, the “Sūtra for inciting determination”:

Yat kiñcin maitreya subhāṣitaṃ sarvaṃ tad buddhabhāṣitam.

Because, Maitreya, all that is well spoken is Buddha-spoken.

You can find this in some great contemporary scholarly books including: Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism (P.Williams) And On Being Buddha (P. Griffiths), and Elaborations on Emptiness: Uses of the Heart Sutra (D. Lopez).

The idea here seems to be that whatever is well spoken is the Buddha's speech; i.e. if you speak well, you speak as a Buddha. This is very definitely an innovation of Mahāyāna Buddhism. In an article (free to Jstror subscribers) L. Snellgrove explains that some "misplaced wording" in one of his articles had Aśoka, a great early Buddhist king, declaring that 'all which is well spoken is the word of the Buddha' when in fact he stated that 'whatever has been said by the Buddha, is well spoken'.  We can see where some semantic clarity makes a pretty big difference.

What do you think? Can we 'fake quote' the Buddha for good ends? Do we have a duty to point out fake Buddha quotes made by friends? Or is whatever is 'well spoken' an automatic 'Buddha quote'?

The Buddha Dogma

Do not believe in anything (simply) because you have heard it.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
Do not believe in anything because it is spoken and rumoured by many.
Do not believe in anything (simply) because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
But after observation and analysis when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conductive to the good and benefit of one and all then accept it and live up to it.

Gautama Buddha, Kalama Sutta

My aim is always to practice zen with my eyes and mind open as it were, since there seems to be a human tendency towards religiosity, ideology and dogma - a tendency to become partial and to develop rigid ideas, to conform and engage in 'group-think'. Why shouldn't that apply to Zen? The last thing I want to do is become another religious nut. Sometimes I think I see Zen practitioners seemingly getting very attached to the trappings of Zen and I wonder if that's helpful. I try to just be my ordinary self and to assume as little as possible about Zen. I don't assume that Soto Zen is always the best way. For example, sitting in the lotus position works well for me, but conceivably there could be better ways. There's no reason to imagine that there's anything magical about the posture - anything that allows us to remain motionless, alert and quiet for a long time without too much tension or pain fits the bill. For all I know Mike Cross and Pierre Turlur might be right - maybe the Alexander Technique is better. I don't know, I've never tried it.

One criticism that gets levelled at Zen quite a bit is that it does not emphasise direct cultivation of compassion. The justification I've heard for this is that trying to act compassionate or cultivate compassion when it isn't sincere is artificial and hence a distortion of our true selves. We cannot force ourselves to act and feel compassionate. I think there is some truth in this. I have met Buddhists that have the same sort of forced over-sincerity and over-niceness that many Christians seem to have. To try to do this seems to be a recipe for repression and self-deception and that can't be healthy. This is borne out by my own earliest experiences with Buddhism.

I originally came across Mahayana Buddhism some years ago as an undergraduate. I was very intrigued by the philosophy and seemed to get some benefit from meditation practice, but I had reservations about it: I found nothing to make me accept the notion that we will be reborn when we die, it all seemed like wishful thinking and not very well thought out and I wasn't keen on all that devotion to Boddhisatvas and so on. I'm a healthily sceptical and logical person, and I'd spent far too long debating with Christian apologists to accept such ideas on faith.

Some of the practice seemed insincere - I felt I was trying to make myself be nice and compassionate and serene, when in fact deep down I usually felt quite different. Was it because I was a beginner? Was I being badly taught? Or was it inherent in the teaching? It was as if I was meant to sprinkle sugar on top of all the 'negative' but real feelings I had and as such seemed to be encouraging me to regard my true feelings as unacceptable and thus repress them and replace them with something more 'wholesome' but less sincere.

The Zen approach is careful self-observation through the practice of Zazen so that the attachments of the 'personal self' are eroded away leaving a nature which is selfless and naturally compassionate.

It's an interesting theory, and it certainly seems likely to avoid artifice, but I don't know to what extent it would cultivate compassion. Without a personal self is our nature really more compassionate? There are enough stories of abuse by American 'Zen Masters', support for Japanese pre-war imperialism by Japanese roshi and use of Zen by samurai as a tool of violence to give me some doubts about that. It's for this reason that I supplement my Zazen with Metta Bhavana meditation. In the context of self-awareness and an attitude of acceptance I really think it is possible to cultivate compassion without the problems I described above.

The reason that I practice Soto Zen is mainly because it is light on metaphysical, philosophical and supernatural speculation. For obvious reasons you do need to have confidence in the practice, but that's about it. The practice is very down-to-earth, 'stripped down' and simple. Its not about believing or disbelieving, it's about paying attention to the actuual reality of here and now. Being a natural sceptic, that suits me fine. Of course, to practice Soto Zen formally you have to do it in a certain way. You have to try your best to live according to the Buddhist precepts. Practice involves certain rituals, if you are ordained you should wear a rakusu, a kesa etc when you're at the zendo. Beyond that it doesn't really matter what you think (if anything) about the afterlife or karma etc.

Another thing I try to remain agnostic about is the nature of Enlightenment. I think its important not to idealise it or pin hopes on it. To me, 'Enlightenment' is just being fully present with perhaps a gradual loss of illusions over time.

Now, these provisional personal views are all part of a process of personal investigation, not dissimilar to scientific investigation, although exploring subjective areas which are difficult for science to access. Nevertheless, there are a number of scientific studies which provide compelling evidence for many claims made about Buddhist practice.

This empirical approach is also encouraged in the Kalama Sutta (quoted above), not that I needed Buddha to give me permission not to take him as an absolute authority, but it's just as well that this sutta exists since the tendency to religiosity and to represent Buddha as an omniscient god-like figure is strong in Buddhism. Those words at least give independent-mindedness a fighting chance.

Some Buddhists use the Right View/Right Understanding principle of the Eightfold Path as a club to hit free-thinkers over the head with. I don't have beliefs in rebirth after death or karma (as traditionally described) and am accused sometimes of not being a 'real Buddhist'. Apart from the fact that I don't care whether these people consider me a real Buddhist or not (in a sense its a relief if they don't) as far as I'm concerned rebirth and karma are merely the philosophical backdrop against which Buddha had his realisations. He did not originate these concepts - they were standard Vedic beliefs, which most people in India at that time accepted without much questioning. All Buddha did was modify the concept of reincarnation to rebirth to attempt accomodate his principle of anatta - the absence of inherent self. He also did not refute the existence of gods, although he described them as limited beings, subject to birth and death like everyone else and discouraged reliance upon them.

To suppose that Buddha was omniscient is an extraordinary claim for which there is no evidence. It's not even something that he claimed about himself. How could he possibly have known what happens before and after people die. Modern, well-educated, rational people who are scientifically literate may realise that visions or apparent memories about such matters do not constitute good evidence any more than they provide good evidence of Satanic child abuse or the existence of spirits or elves or extraterrestrials. Buddha did not have the benefits of a 21st century education. And for me at least, the notion of rebirth after death is rendered redundant by moment-to-moment rebirth ie. a realisation of no inherent self.

As far as I'm concerned, Buddha's key and original insights were interdependence/emptiness and causes of suffering and the method of liberation from it. It is an understanding of these principles which constitutes Right Understanding.

And what, monks, is right understanding? Knowledge with regard to sadness, knowledge with regard to the origination of sadness, knowledge with regard to the stopping of sadness, knowledge with regard to the way of practice leading to the stopping of sadness: This, monks, is called right understanding.

Magga-vibhanga Sutta, An Analysis of the Path

An author I can really recommend on the topic of agnostic Buddhism is Stephen Batchelor especially his book Buddhism Without Beliefs.

Now, before anyone misunderstands me, I'm not suggesting that Buddhism is whatever you want it to be. It has a good breadth of interpretation, from the most rational and science-friendly to the most religious. There are sects which insist on belief in karma and rebirth and sects for which such metaphysical speculation is redundant. But there comes a point where it will stop being Buddhism and start being something else.

You can read more about the Kalama Sutra here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalama_Sutra

This is adapted from a post originally published in my personal blog in 2006.

It's a Kalama-ty - Free enquiry or faith:?

There is a common perception that Buddhism differs from other religions in that it doesn't rely on blind faith and instead encourages personal verification. The Kalama Sutra is sometimes referred to as 'a charter for free enquiry' by many western Buddhists. This factor is often presented as what makes Buddhism stand out as different from most other religions and more compatible with the modern mindset. I, like many others I'm sure, was drawn to Buddhism in part because of this apparent open-minded call for pragmatic empiricism.

Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor tradition; nor rumor; nor what is in a scripture; nor surmise; nor axiom; nor specious reasoning; nor bias towards one’s beliefs; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, 'The monk is our teacher.' When you yourselves know: 'These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,' enter on and abide in them.

On the other hand, every school of Buddhism includes faith. In certain circles, the merest hint that Buddhism encourages (or possibly even allows for free enquiry) or that this is the meaning of the Kalama Sutra will get shouted down usually along with reference to an interpretation of the sutra by Bikkhu Bodhi. So how should we interpret this sutra? Interpretations vary and we have to bear in mind of course that contemporary interpretations may have drifted somewhat from the original intention of the teaching(probably in the direction of faith-based dogmatism if the 'meme' theory of religious evolution has much truth to it).

Bikkhu Bodhi argues that the advice to disregard dogma, rumour, spurious logic, personal bias, the authority of one's teacher and so on, but to go upon that which can be personally verified and that which is 'praised by the wise', is directed at non-Buddhists and that once someone accepts the Buddha as one's teacher, this advice no longer applies and one should accept the authority of Buddha on faith.

...because the Kalamas had not yet come to accept the Buddha in terms of his unique mission, as the discloser of the liberating truth, it would not have been in place for him to expound to them the Dhamma unique to his own Dispensation... These teachings are specifically intended for those who have accepted the Buddha as their guide to deliverance, and in the suttas he expounds them only to those who "have gained faith in the Tathagata" and who possess the perspective necessary to grasp them and apply them....
We begin with an immediately verifiable teaching whose validity can be attested by anyone with the moral integrity to follow it through to its conclusions, namely, that the defilements cause harm and suffering both personal and social...This increased confidence in the teaching brings along a deepened faith in the Buddha as teacher, and thus disposes one to accept on trust those principles he enunciates that are relevant to the quest for awakening, even when they lie beyond one's own capacity for verification.

While it seems clear that the Kalama Sutra doesn't necessarily encourage dispensing with all faith in favour of personal investigation, this interpretation seems problematic.

First of all, the logic is pretty convoluted - we are to believe that, purely as a means of teaching/indoctrinating these people, the Buddha encouraged them to believe he was in favour of independent verification, but neglected to mention that after they 'signed up' they would be increasingly encouraged to discard it in favour of faith in metaphysical doctrines which they would never be able to verify. This seems to characterise the Buddha as exactly the sort of spiritual con-artist that the Kalamas had encountered before and were trying to defend themselves against. Also, this would involve the Kalama's directly contradicting Buddha's own advice to not go solely upon the consideration, 'The monk is our teacher.' Surely such advice was not to be disregarded after the monk Siddharth Gautama became their teacher?

It is further contradicted by the next section which is often regarded as a sort of Buddhist-equivalent to Pascal's Wager. Bikkhu Bodhi himself summarises this nicely where he describes the solaces of a ... "noble disciple [i.e. a monk, a disciple of Buddha] , devoid of covetousness and ill will, undeluded" dwells pervading the world with boundless loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity. Thus purified of hate and malice, he enjoys here and now four "solaces": If there is an afterlife and kammic result, then he will undergo a pleasant rebirth, while if there is none he still lives happily here and now; if evil results befall an evil-doer, then no evil will befall him, and if evil results do not befall an evil-doer, then he is purified anyway.

In other words, it doesn't matter whether followers of Buddha believe in literal rebirth and Kamma, they will benefit from the practice anyway. Sounds pretty reasonable.

Human beings are naturally empirical animals - we build up our understanding of the world by interacting with it. But we are also social animals and this is where much of our strength comes from - no individual has enough direct experiences in a lifetime to build up a really broad understanding - we rely on the experiences of others. Buddha, it seems to me, is pragmatically urging the Kalamas to rely primarily on what they can directly verify and on trusted opinion.

The Sutra certainly doesn't suggest that people can believe whatever they like, however empiricism is not believing whatever you like, it is being humble before reality. On the other hand, it doesn't, as I interpret it, imply at all that we don't need any faith at all. Without faith, we have no constancy in our practice or our mind - we need to have confidence in the teacher and in the teaching. But this is confidence that is reinforced by direct experience.

Links:
The Kalama Sutra
A Look at the Kalama Sutra - Bikkhu Bodhi
Buddhism and Science: Probing the Boundaries of Faith and Reason - Dr. Martin J. Verhoeven
How Free is Freedom of Thought - Sanath Nanayakkara

About this blog

Purpose:
The purpose of this blog is that it will be a group-blog on the topic of progressive, modern Buddhism with the following aims :

• looking at Buddhism in the light of modern knowledge, free from over-attachment to ancient dogmas,
• looking at the best ways to integrate Buddhism into Modern/Western societies
• discussing and encouraging an empirical or scientific approach
• Seeing insight and awakening as a living tradition

We could review articles, research, books and publish our own thoughts (and non-thoughts). If we get a bit of momentum I'd like to perhaps invite guest contributions from authors, academics or Buddhist teachers.

The style I would hope for would be middle-brow - with informal blog entries and perhaps more academically rigorous for anyone who has time to write a proper article.

Attitudes:
I don't think it's at essential that all contributors have the same attitudes, but it helps if they at least harmonious. Here's an outline of mine:

• Gautama Buddha is a greatly respected teacher of dharma teachers
• He was an awakened human, not omniscient, nor an absolute authority
• He also represents an ideal or principle of awakening
• Although faith in the sense of confidence is important in the practice, blind faith is not
• The principles of empiricism apply to Buddhist practice as they do to all pragmatic ways of knowing
• This means humility to reality, established through experience and evidence, rather than domination of personal belief
• Whatever our opinion of the received teachings, we should strive to represent them truthfully, and not misrepresent them
• We should conduct ourselves in a way which is respectful to each other and to the Buddha-dharma
• There is only one Buddha-dharma, and a number of expressions or understandings of it. We should be able to express our understanding freely, but in a way that is respectful of different sectarian understandings and customs.

Contributing:
Anyone who is interested in being a regular, occasional or guest contributor leave a comment below. I would want regular contributors to regard themselves as equal partners and decision-making would be done on group consensus.

Blog Style and location:
We may opt to make changes to both the style of the blog (I might have a go at this later) and to the web address if we want something more unique and repectable looking than a blogger address. (To be discussed)