Section outline
-
Lesson 2.1.1 Kesamuttisuttaṃ, Part One – Don’t Believe In Tradition, in Hearsay, in Teachers but Your Own Experience, Understanding What Is Unwholesome
The Kesamuttisutta, divided into two parts, presents the renowned advice that the Buddha gave to the Kālāmā at the market town Kesamutta. The Buddha reveals to them that proper knowledge of what is harmful or wholesome can be gained only by realising the truth through one’s own experience, leaving aside all that is heard, learned through tradition, scriptures or teachers. Additionally, a short history of how the Dhamma was maintained up to the current period begins by referring to a contradiction that King Milinda asked his opposite, the Venerable Nāgasena. He quotes two conflicting statements of the Buddha, who at one time foretold that the teaching now was to remain only for the next five hundred years, but at another time said that Arahants would continue to inhabit the world as long as they lived perfectly.