Read the early discourses critically — including your own reading

Go back to the Pāli discourses as a primary source, ask what in them speaks to this life, and stay alert to the charge that secular readings pick what they like.

Perché funziona

Batchelor’s method in After Buddhism alternates close readings of the earliest texts with portraits of the Buddha’s followers, looking for teachings that “do not appear to be derived from the pre-existing context of Indian culture.” Secular group leaders name a secular reading of the Pāli canon as their primary source and “no sacred cows.” The Kālāma discourse is the favourite text: it tells its listeners not to go by tradition or scripture “but when you know for yourselves.” Bhikkhu Bodhi warns that this passage is often quoted out of context, and Philippe Turenne argues that Batchelor uses sources selectively. Reading critically means applying the same scrutiny to your own reading as to the tradition’s.

Come farlo

1. Pick one short discourse — the Kālāma discourse (AN 3.65) or the first discourse (SN 56.11) — and read the whole of it on SuttaCentral, not an excerpt.
2. Note what it says that speaks directly to how to live now.
3. Note, just as carefully, what it says that does not fit a secular reading — rebirth, other worlds, going for refuge.
4. Read one traditional commentary on it, such as Bhikkhu Bodhi’s essay on the Kālāma discourse.
5. Write a sentence on where you are choosing, and why — making the selection visible rather than hidden.

Prove scientifiche

AN 3.65 contains both the “know for yourselves” passage and the four consolations. Bodhi’s essay argues that the Kālāmas were not yet the Buddha’s disciples and that their perplexity concerned rebirth and kammic retribution, so the discourse is not a charter for accepting only what one likes. Batchelor’s synopsis describes his method; the Secular Buddhist Network gives the group leaders’ principles; Schwerk’s review summarises Turenne’s three criticisms, the first being selective use of scholarship and Pāli sources. The exchange between Seth Zuihō Segall, who objects that “secular” connotes rejecting religion and the sacred, and Winton Higgins, who answers that many secular Buddhists take an interpretive rather than scientistic approach, shows the same debate among sympathetic practitioners. (anecdotal)

Which layers of the canon are “earliest,” and which teachings are borrowed from Indian culture, are contested scholarly questions; this practice does not settle them, it only asks that the choices be made openly.

Fonti

• Sujato, B. (trans.). With the Kālāmas of Kesamutta (Kesamuttisutta, Aṅguttara Nikāya 3.65). SuttaCentral.
• Bodhi, Bhikkhu. A Look at the Kalama Sutta (Buddhist Publication Society Newsletter essay 9, Spring 1988). Access to Insight.
• Batchelor, S. (2015). After Buddhism: Synopsis. Horizonte (Belo Horizonte), 13(37), 655–656 — the author’s own summary of the book.
• Secular Buddhist Network (2022). What are the core elements of a secular approach to the dharma? (perspectives from secular Buddhist group leaders).
• Schwerk, D. (2022). Review of Secularizing Buddhism: New Perspectives on a Dynamic Tradition, ed. Richard K. Payne (Boulder: Shambhala, 2021). Journal of Global Buddhism, 23(1), 87–94 — summarises the chapters by Bhikkhu Bodhi, Philippe Turenne, Roger Jackson and Gil Fronsdal.
• Secular Buddhist Network (2020). Seth Zuihō Segall and Winton Higgins debate the meaning and value of secular Buddhism.

Errore comune

Quoting “know for yourselves” as permission to keep the congenial teachings and drop the rest — the very move Bhikkhu Bodhi criticises. In the same discourse the Buddha guides the Kālāmas to abandon greed, hate and delusion; the inquiry has a direction.