The endless round of fake Buddha quotes

Fairly often I see quotes attributed to the Buddha that bear no little or no resemblance to anything that’s found in Buddhist scriptures. One example is from a Christian minister who hold’s meetings in prison at the same time I’m there leading my Buddhist study group. He informed me that the Buddha had said that a greater teacher than him would arise in 500 years, and that we should follow that guy instead. Guess who that would be. The pastor and I had an interesting conversation about the ethics of making up quotes to denigrate other religions and promote your own (not that I was accusing him of having invented the quote — but someone had).

A less egregious, but as far as I’m aware equally inaccurate one appeared on Twitter yesterday, posted by @tricyclemag. They didn’t invent the quote — I’ve seen it circulating endlessly, and it will no doubt appear on more and more blogs (and books — it’s in dozens), and thus be accepted by more and more people as the actual word of the Buddha. Here’s the quote:

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and common sense.” -Buddha

Unless I’m mistaken, this seems to be a poor paraphrase of part of the Buddha’s teaching to the Kalamas, which runs like this:

…don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm & to suffering’ — then you should abandon them.

Now a caveat: the Buddhist scriptures are vast and I can’t claim to have read all of them. To some extent I’m relying on the tone and language of the alleged Buddha quote, plus its obvious similarity to the Kalama sutta, to state that I think it’s a false quote. I may be wrong.

But assuming I’m correct, the Tricycle quote says you should trust your reason and common sense, while the Buddha says you shouldn’t trust “logical conjecture … inference … agreement through pondering views … [and] probability.” Collectively the Buddha’s list of things you shouldn’t reply on would seem to overlap totally with those Tricycle magazine thinks we should reply upon.

The Buddha of course isn’t saying we should jettison reason and common sense. What he’s implying is that both those things can be misleading and what’s ultimately the arbiter of what’s true is experience. It’s when you “know for yourselves” that something is true through experience that you know it’s true. (Also, we can rely on the opinion of “the wise.” This doesn’t mean accepting other people’s opinions blindly. It means that in your experience you can come to know that certain people tend to have a clear perception of what’s true and helpful in terms of spiritual practice, and so you don’t have to go around making every mistake under the sun in order to establish that they are in fact mistakes.)

The Tricycle quote displaces the role of experience in spiritual practice in favor of reason and common sense, which I think is very questionable. It suggests learning is something that happens in the head, rather than something that is gained through living, and it allows us to dismiss anything that contradicts our prejudices (common sense is often nothing other than clinging to established views.

More than that, though, I think it’s ethically problematical to pass on the message “the Buddha said such-and-such” without checking out that he actually did say that. Otherwise it’s not dissimilar to gossip, although presumably better-intentioned.

Because I write a monthly column based on quotations, I like to make sure that the statement I’m quoting is accurate and was actually made by the person in question. (Confession: I didn’t used to be so careful). There are many quotation sites that do no fact-checking at all and that are full of inaccurate, false, and misattributed quotes. Because these sites endlessly plagiarize each other, these false quotes end up all over the internet. It’s a shame that Buddhists join in with this trend, especially when it distorts the Buddha’s teaching, as I believe this “quote” does.

16 Responses to “The endless round of fake Buddha quotes”

Joyce/saddha says:

June 19, 2009 at 2:02 pm

trans.of Kalama Sutta by Buddhadassa bhikkhu that makes sense ~
“Any teaching [said the Buddha] should not be accepted as true for the following ten reasons: hearsay, tradition, rumor, accepted scriptures, surmise, axiom, logical reasoning, a feeling of affinity for the matter being pondered, the ability or attractiveness of the person offering the teaching, the fact that the teaching is offered by “my” teacher. Rather, the teaching should be accepted as true when one knows by direct experience that such is the case.”
“Direct experience” means knowing directly via correct meditation. Most seem satisfied with intellectual understanding or what passes for reasoning and common sense (it rarely is
I have once or twice seen a correct quote on Twitter but usually the Dharma doesn’t lend itself to 140 characters.

Thanks,

Joyce

Joyce
Dirk Johnson says:

June 19, 2009 at 3:13 pm

Excellent. This is why I always prefer to have the exact source of the citation accompany the quotation. In Twitter can be challenging, but there are ways to source all quotations without very much effort.

I’m suspicious of any quotation from “Buddha” Dhammapada? yes. Heart Sutra? yes. Lalitavistara Sutra, yes. Samyutta Nikaya? yes. Guhyasamaja tantra Tantra? yes. Buddha? No.

Well, you get my point…
bodhipaksa says:

June 19, 2009 at 8:21 pm

Hi Joyce,

I think of “direct experience” as encompassing the ordinary daily activity as well as meditation — in other words as including the realm of ethics (sila). But meditation’s obviously an important field for learning as well.

By the way, Dirk (who commented just after you) published a very good poem today that illustrates one way people misuse the Dharma by using intellectual rationalizations to justify their behavior: http://tinyurl.com/m4jcls.

And you’re right that Twitter doesn’t lend itself to full and accurate quotes. The Buddha doesn’t seem to have been very concise, except in verse, which makes it hard to find pithy sayings that fit into 140 characters or fewer.
bodhipaksa says:

June 19, 2009 at 8:21 pm

I do get your point, Dirk. And it’s a good one!
~C4Chaos says:

June 19, 2009 at 8:26 pm

“I think it’s ethically problematical to pass on the message “the Buddha said such-and-such” without checking out that he actually did say that.”

exactly! excellent point. this also the main reason why, as much as possible, i include links on my Twitter stream and blogs, to establish context as well as to cite the source of the statement or idea.

thanks for posting this very useful reminder.

~C
- bodhipaksa says:
  
  June 19, 2009 at 8:33 pm
  
  I like the way the Pali suttas begin with “evam me suttam,” C4Chaos. It suggests to me that the compilers were saying, “Look I wasn’t there so I don’t know for sure this is what the Buddha or anyone else mentioned actually said, but this is what I’m told…”. That strikes me as being very ethical. I believe there’s also a south american language where it’s grammatically impossible to say something without indicating whether this is something you’ve merely heard about or actually experienced (the actual details, I think, are a bit more complex — I think there were three sources of knowledge).
Rosana says:

June 20, 2009 at 7:21 am

I feel a little stupid, I usually believe the quotes I read were usually said by the indicated authors.

I would be interested in knowing which South American language is the one you mentioned in your last message, Bodhipaksa.
Joyce/saddha says:

June 20, 2009 at 8:55 am

As recorded in the Anguttara-nikaya, Buddha gave the discourse to the Kalama people when they asked him how to distinguish correct teaching from among the mass of various teachings offered by different monks, ascetics, philosophers and yogis (same then as now). The Buddha’s reply in the form of the Kalama Sutta was an invitation to radical intellectual independence. Our times are no different. The Buddha offered one guide for investigation in the form of the Satipatthana Sutta as the “only way”. He did not mean the “Buddhism”, a term never found in the Pali Canon, was the only way but that awareness is the only way for the overcoming of suffering. The Buddha invited inspection, “ehipassiko!”

Metta,

Joyce
bodhipaksa says:

June 20, 2009 at 12:18 pm

Rosana: The language is called Tariana. Here’s an extract from a New Scientist article that mentions the grammatical feature I referred to:

In English I can tell my son: “Today I talked to Adrian”, and he won’t ask: “How do you know you talked to Adrian?” But in some languages, including Tariana, you always have to put a little suffix onto your verb saying how you know something – we call it “evidentiality”. I would have to say: “I talked to Adrian, non-visual,” if we had talked on the phone. And if my son told someone else, he would say: “She talked to Adrian, visual, reported.” In that language, if you don’t say how you know things, they think you are a liar.

This is a very nice and useful tool. Imagine if, in the argument about weapons of mass destruction, people had had to say how they knew about whatever they said. That would have saved us quite a lot of breath.

I’d imagine you could find out more by Googling the name Tariana.
bodhipaksa says:

June 20, 2009 at 1:02 pm

Hi Joyce,

Yes, the situation the Kalamas were in always reminds me of the modern west, where there’s a melting pot of religious traditions available, all making competing claims about how to live life.

I see the sutta, though, as going beyond “an invitation to radical intellectual independence,” although it certainly does include that. It’s an invitation to an experiential exploration of spiritual teachings: not just thinking things through but putting them into practice in your life and seeing what the results are. It’s reducing spiritual practice to an intellectual exercise that the Tricycle misquotation unfortunately seems to do.

There’s a nice passage in the Vinaya that confirms that the path to Enlightenment isn’t limited to the Buddha’s teaching:

“Whatever teachings conduce to dispassion not to passion, to detachment not to bondage, to decrease of worldly gains not to increase of them, to frugality not to covetousness, to contentment not to discontent, to solitude not to company, to energy not to sluggishness, to delight in good not delight in evil…. This is the Dharma. This is the Vinaya. This is the Master’s Message.”
bodhipaksa says:

June 20, 2009 at 1:43 pm

More on Tariana, from an Australian (ABC) documentary:

I cannot just say ‘the dog stole a fish’. If I want to speak proper Tariana, I will have to add a little suffix at the end of the verb.

1. If I did see the dog drag the fish from the grid over the fireplace, where fish is usually kept, I say ‘The dog stole-A the fish’ –KA shows that I saw what happened.

2. If I didn’t see this happen, but heard the noise of a fish falling from the grid in the next-door kitchen, I will have to say, ‘The dog stole MAHKA the fish.’ –MAHKA shows that I either heard what happened, or perhaps smelt or tasted it.

3. If I come into the kitchen and see the fish missing, and the dog sitting there looking full and pleased with itself, and fish bones are scattered around, this is enough for me to infer that the dog ate the fish. I then say ‘The dog stole-NIHKA the fish’. NIHKA shows that what I say is inferred, based on the results I saw.

4. But if I come in and the fish is gone, and my general knowledge is that only dogs steal fish (Tariana normally do not have pussy-cats) I will say ‘The dog stole-SIKA the fish’. –SIKA is the way to mark information based on general assumption.

5. Finally, if someone else told me what had happened, and I am reporting this, I have to use the ‘reported’ suffix: the dog stole-PIDAKA the fish.

So this points to five ways of indicating how knowledge was obtained. It seems a bit better than just sticking “Buddha” after a quote!
Rosana says:

June 21, 2009 at 4:46 am

Hi Bodhipaksa

Thank you for the explanation about Tariana, I´ve just read a little about it on Wikipedia, where it is suggested there are only 100 people who speak it and they are switching to another language. The fact that there are different suffixes to show how you got the information is amazing. But I think that even if we had that in our first languages, we´d find ways to trick it. It seems to be a human tendency to be less worried about the truth than about convincing others that we are right. I think I should write ‘nihka’ after this opinion.
john Allan says:

June 22, 2009 at 1:09 am

Thanks for putting this up. However there are 4 conditions or thing’s that we have to know for ourselves, listed in the Kalama sutta that we could call a verification of authority.
“So, as I said, Kalamas:
When you know for yourselves that,
1.”These qualities are skillful;
2.these qualities are blameless;
3. these qualities are praised by the wise;
4. these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness” — then you should enter & remain in them.’

Just about everybody who quotes the kalama sutta leaves out #3 “these qualities are praised by the wise.” What is meant by this is that a person with some degree of awakening to the Dharma would agree with you. I think this gets left out either because people don’t feel it meshes with “knowing for one self” or because people don’t understand the significance of the term.

If we compare this ‘Kalama model’ to the experimental model of science we could say that.
Points 1and 2 are about running experiments to validate a theory or hypothesis. Point 3 is peer review. And in point 4. the language of, ‘when adopted and carried out’ suggests that other people running the same experiment would have the same results, which would also be part of a review process.

Of course in this sutta the Buddha is specifically talking about matters of behavioral ethics, and a certain level of meditative practice, to members of the general public. (The Kalamas are not students of the Buddha.) The advice has, by inference, a broader application beyond such ethical matters. That said one should remember the context.
Cheers
John Allan Australia
RogerHyam says:

June 22, 2009 at 5:22 am

Alas my 6 year old daughter came home from school last week with the belief that the middle way meant not eating too many sweets (that’s too much candy to you guys on the wrong side of the Atlantic). I must admit I was tongue tied. Do I understand the middle way well enough to discuss it with an adult let alone to a six year old let alone in a 140 character twitter. Moderation in sugary confectionery is probably a good starting point. Perhaps we have to accept fuzzy interpretations on our way to refining them.
bodhipaksa says:

June 22, 2009 at 9:08 am

Hi John Allan,

Thanks for your clear breakdown of the criteria in the sutta. I just want to stress that I wasn’t trying to offer a complete exegesis of the text, but simply to make the point that the Buddha was doing far more than giving people permission to think for themselves, which is how the Kalama sutta is often read, and what the Tricycle quote suggests. Your comparison with the scientific method is very apt, because it highlights the same point — the Kalama sutta is encouraging experimentation.

You’re correct that many people miss out the part concerning “these qualities are praised by the wise.” You may be right that people don’t know the significance of the term. I tend to think that people are fearful that the sutta is encouraging deference to authority and that they can’t reconcile this with the view that the sutta is saying we should all “think for ourselves.” After all, if we think for ourselves, why should we simply take the word of the wise — and who are they anyway? — about what’s right and wrong.

My sense about “the wise” is, as I mentioned in the eighth paragraph of my article, that it’s we who have to determine who the wise are. We can’t simply trust that people are wise because they say they are of because they’re generally acknowledged to be wise. We have to observe them, test them, and see how far their insight corresponds with what we can personally verify through our own experience. The wise are simply those that have gone further on the path than we have, and who therefore have a clearer sense of where we’re going, the obstacles we have to face, and the most effective approaches to bypassing those obstacles.

Anyway, thanks for a thoughtful response.
bodhipaksa says:

June 22, 2009 at 9:12 am

Hi Roger,

I remember someone pointing out that the Buddha’s idea of a middle way between hedonism and asceticism involved living on begged scraps of food and sleeping under trees. But that aside, I’d agree that a good starting point for a young child would be encouraging moderation. It’s an opportunity to learn the difference between pleasure and happiness, and also to consider the pleasant and painful consequences of the actions we take.

Now I’m off to explain pratitya-samutpada to my toddler.