TDE’s Dharma Dialogues: Issue [4]
[As continued from the previous issue…]
Question [7]: If I’m interested in the Buddha’s teachings for attaining True Happiness, how do I know that they are reliable?
Answer: As the longest founding teacher of a world religion, the Buddha taught mainly via dialogues, with two-directional questions and answers between his students and himself. Thus, he was not ‘preachy’ in a one-directional way. In fact, there is the spirit of free enquiry encouraged, to maximise questioning of whatever seems questionable. Blind faith in any ‘mysterious ways’ that cannot be reasonably questioned is discouraged.
Question [8]: How is this a way to know the reliability of the Buddha and his teachings?
Answer: This means the Buddha’s confident teachings have been amply time-tested by active enquiries in his time, over the ages, and continues welcoming questions. This has always been highly appreciated by ordinary persons, philosophers, psychologists, scientists, and all who are naturally curious and skeptical. If you reflect on this spirit of free enquiry, this itself can be questioned too, which interestingly ‘insures’ itself, making it doubly reliable.
