Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World

by Stephen Batchelor

famous passage from the Cūḷa Mālunkya Sutta in the Majjhima Nikāya of the Pali Canoṇ The Buddha says: Suppose Mālunkyāputta, a man were wounded by an arrow thickly smeared with poison, and his friends and companions brought a surgeon to treat him. The man would say, “I will not let the surgeon pull out the arrow until I know the name and clan of the man who wounded me; whether the bow that wounded me was a long bow or a cross bow; whether the arrow that wounded me was hoof-tipped or curved or barbed.” All this would still not be known to that man, and meanwhile he would die. So too, Mālunkyāputta, if anyone should say, “I will not lead the noble life under the Buddha until the Buddha declares to me whether the world is eternal or not eternal; finite or infinite; whether the soul is the same as or different from the body; whether or not an awakened one continues or ceases to exist after death,” that would still remain undeclared by the Buddha, and meanwhile that person would die.4 This passage shows quite clearly both the pragmatic nature of the Buddha’s teaching and its agnostic bent. It is important to distinguish between those questions that are addressed by the core teachings of the Buddha and those which are not really of central concerṇ