Since I was born in the early 80’s, and experienced my teenage years in the 90’s, I’ve been able to watch technology weave its way into every facet of our lives. And now, the Internet is accessible to us at any time, day or night. Having access to so much information is both a precious gift and a very real concern. In addition to this, social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram keep us plugged into the minds of others and the biased perspectives that algorithms are programmed to feed us. So what is the result of all this connectivity? We end up living our lives immersed in a sea of views.
Some of the views are related to cultural norms, like to marry or stay single. And some of these views are about finding solutions to society’s problems. But, depending on which cultural or religious side of the problem you are looking in from, what you see as a solution, might be what your neighbor sees as a problem. Here is one very present example... In a world that is relying on modern medical science to discover viable treatments for the coronavirus, how is it possible that there are so many people who still believe that ‘vaccines are a hoax’ and that modern medicine is all a big fraud? It’s hard to believe, but in the United States, over the past 20 years, there have been more than 200 well-documented cases of children who died after they were denied medical treatment because of their parent’s beliefs, and those are only the clearly documented cases...With so many people spouting views that seem so polar, so distantly separated from each other, how can we possibly determine what is real, true and trustworthy? How can we determine which views are right and which views are wrong?
At the time in history when the Buddha was alive, delusions, superstitions and wrong views were all around him. In various sutras from the Pali Canon, we can hear the Buddha responding to other Brahmins and teachers whose teachings represented an incorrect view of reality from the Buddha’s perspective. And that is why the Buddha told his followers not to trust even his own teachings blindly, without questioning them first. In the Pali Canon, The Buddha’s teachings repeatedly emphasize the importance of using objective reasoning to see our views and our own experiences, in a clear and thorough way. That is why Buddhism focuses on the practice of meditation and developing a clear understanding of the mind. If we can see how the mind works, and start to understand it clearly, then it will be harder for us to be fooled by the mind’s illusions and delusions. There was a famous 19th century philosopher and mathematician named William K. Clifford who also had deep concerns about our minds becoming distorted by views that were not based on the real world. In an essay he wrote, titled The Ethics of Belief, Clifford used a story to describe the responsibility that we all have to very honestly question if our beliefs are true or not. In his story, a ship owner starts to realize that his old ship is becoming too broken down to be
seaworthy. So he agonizes about the potential cost of retiring his ship. But he knows that any future voyage the ship takes will endanger the lives of every passenger on it. For days, he stresses and ruminates about his ship. Slowly, he convinces himself that the condition of the ship might not really be ‘that bad’, and maybe he can get a couple more voyages out of it. Then, a day or so later, a customer approaches him and asks if his ship can ferry the man’s cargo and employees to a not-so-distant destination. The ship owner accepts, the customer’s cargo and employees are loaded onto the ship, and the ship sets sail. But it never reaches its destination. All of the cargo and everyone aboard the ship is lost at sea. Sadly, Clifford’s story became a tragic reality on April 16th, 2014, while I was living in South Korea. On that day, a ship owner’s intentional disregard for numerous safety standards caused the deaths of more than 300 people. No one could have thought that such a short trip would be so deadly. Two hundred and forty of the lives lost that day were high school students on a school trip to Jeju Island; 240 kids.
Now that the true gravity of Clifford’s story is clear in your minds, there are two questions that he poses to us. The first is simple, “Do you think that the ship owner should have been punished because his negligent views were responsible for so many deaths?” The second is, “Even if the ship had landed safely at its destination, would the ship owner still be guilty of an immoral act, an act that violates his ethical responsibility to others?” Clifford thought that his hypothetical ship owner was guilty in both cases because the clear evidence that was right in front of him showed the ship was no longer seaworthy. Yet, he knowingly disregarded the evidence that was in front of him and endangered the people on his ship. After reading numerous texts on Buddhist ethics over the years, I feel confident in saying that the Buddha probably would have agreed with Clifford as well.
Wrong views are still wrong views, even if they are not causing us harm right now. Ignorance always contains the potential for harm because it distracts us from the realities that are arising in each moment. Realities, or truths, are like rivers. Although they seem to be set in place, they are actually changing in subtle ways all the time. New truths can also ‘emerge’, and old ones can ‘dry up’. This is why we should do our best to sharpen our focus on present realities and avoid holding wrong views as much as possible, even holding our ‘right’ views softly. Just as we would struggle to catch a ball if we were holding something in our hands, we will also struggle to follow the situations that life throws at us if our minds are clinging too tightly to certain views.
In the Pali Canon, the Buddha is said to have listed five kinds of natural causal factors or laws that underpin all of existence and we can use our knowledge of these five factors to test if a view accurately represents reality, or if it is just a delusion. Even though they come from a very different time, 2,500 years ago, they were surprisingly ‘science-based’ and relevant to the modern world. They are called the ‘Five Natural Laws’ or Pancha Niyama, and we can use our knowledge of them to confirm or reject the validity of beliefs.
Utu Niyama: The natural laws of inorganic materials (such as weather, physics or geology).
Bija Niyama: The natural laws of living beings and organic materials (biology and chemistry).
Kamma Niyama: The natural laws of cause and effect (existence is affected by all that arises).
Dhamma Niyama: The natural laws of the Dharma (emptiness and the interdependent nature of life).
Citta Niyama: The natural laws of the mind (psychology and cognitive science).
The Buddha’s teachings are like a line of orange cones guiding us to a safer path on the road that is our life. They are here to direct us towards a better path, away from imbalance, delusion and suffering. On this path, we are asked to let go of our mind’s illusions so that we can see each moment clearly, live with balance and show compassion to others.
But we should be careful when we respond to the views of others. The classic Buddhist story of the five blind men describing an elephant is a clear message of caution when we have thoughts of judgment about the beliefs of others. Even though each of the five blind men knew the clear reality that they were touching an elephant, they were experiencing different parts of it and had different impressions of it.
Just like this classic story, different traditions may focus on different aspects of reality, life and practice, but that is natural and not a problem as long as we all continue to recognize the existence of ‘the elephant’ clearly.