Kalama Sutta - Buddha's charter of free inquiry

The Kesamutti Sutta, or better known as Kalama Sutta, is a Buddhist Sutta in the Anguttara Nikaya of the Tipitaka. In this Sutta, it is clearly seen how generous, practical and flexible Buddhism is.

Once, Gautama Buddha passed through the village of Kesaputta and was greeted by the people who lived there: the Kalamas. The Kalamas greeted the Buddha and asked for advice. According to the Kalamas, many wandering holy men and ascetics had passed through their village, expounding their teachings and criticizing others'. The Kalamas asked the Buddha whose teachings they should follow. In response, he delivered a sutta that serves as an entry-point to Buddhist tenets for those unconvinced by revelatory experiences.

The Buddha instructed the Kalama People on which basis one should decide which religious teaching to accept as true. The Buddha told the Kalamas to not just believe religious teachings because they were claimed to be true by various sources or through the application of various methods and techniques. He urged that direct knowledge from one's own experience should be called upon. He counseled that the words of the wise should be heeded and taken into account when deciding upon the value of a teaching. This was not a dogmatic acceptance but rather a constantly questioning and testing acceptance of those teachings which could be proven to reduce suffering.

Buddha preached:

• 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
• 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."
• Kalamas, 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.

Buddha also instructed, the sources of wisdom to be avoided, as follow:

1. Oral history
2. Traditional
3. News or sources
4. Scriptures or other official texts
5. Logical reasoning
6. Philosophical reasoning
7. Common sense
8. One's own opinions
9. One's own teacher

Instead, he said, only when one personally knew that a certain teaching was skillful, blameless, praiseworthy and conducive to happness, and that it was praised by the wise, should one then accept it as true and practise it.

So, all Dhamma, what Buddha preached, are able to be practically tested, questioned or examined as it is really truthfulness. Comapred to other religious, Buddhism is the freedom of religious and it can be said the religious of wise.

Source: www.en.wikipedia.org