Saturday, August 15, 2009

The Kalama Sutta


The Kalama Sutta teaching comes to me through the I Liq Chuan Association. It comes to all of us from The Buddha. It is, I think, one of the most important teachings I have come across. In short the the Buddha teaches here to not believe religious or spiritual teachings just because certain teachers or scriptures claim them to be true, but to rely always on one's own experience. This is important because mindfulness practices are premised on experience. One may be instructed on technique, which may or may not be helpful. But eventually what rings most true to us are the things we experience directly. Further, mindfulness is all experience, all the time.

This carries over to the Internal Martial Arts as we are focused on awareness, sensitivity, and centering. They are not effective otherwise. That is also why they are never quite mastered. Quite like enlightenment, true awareness is something we are always striving for, experiencing over and over again. There simply is no end, there is only continual being.