A Proponent of the Dharma Does Not Dispute with Anyone

A well-known story recounts that Gotama—the Buddha—was once staying in Jeta's Grove, his main center near the city of Savatthi, capital of the kingdom of Kosala. Many priests, wanders, and ascetics were living nearby. They are described as people "of various beliefs and opinions, who supported themselves by promoting their different views." The text enumerates the kinds of opinions they taught:

        The world is eternal.
        The world is not eternal.
        The world is finite.
        The world is not finite.
        Body and soul are identical.
        Body and soul are different.
        The tathagata exists after death.
        The tathagata does not exist after death.
        The tathagata both exists and does not exist after death.
        The tathagata neither exists nor does not exist after death.

They took these opinions seriously. "Only this is true," they would insist. "Every other view is false!" As a result, they fell into endless arguments. "wounding each other with verbal darts, saying 'The dharma is like this!' 'The dharma is not like that!' "

The Buddha commented that such people were blind. "They do not know what is of benefit and what is of harm," he explained. "They do not understand what is and what is not the dharma." He had no interest at all in their propositions. Unconcerned whether such views were true or false, he sought neither to affirm nor to reject them. "A proponent of the dharma," he once observed, "does not dispute with anyone in the world." Whenever a metaphysical claim of this kind was made, Gotama did not react by getting drawn in and taking sides. He remained keenly alert to the complexity of the whole picture without opting for one position over another.

Gotama relates a parable as a commentary on the quarreling priests and ascetics. He tells of a king in Savatthi who instructed his servants to gather together all the people of the city who had been born blind from birth. He ordered an elephant to be brought before them, then led each blind person to the creature and had him or her touch a different part of the elephant's body. Some rubbed the ears, some felt the trunk, some put their arms around a leg, some stroked the side, and some pulled the tail. He asked: "Now tell me: what is an elephant?" Some said an elephant was "just like a storeroom," some said it was "just like a pillar," and others said it was "just like a broom." They argued—"An elephant is like this! An elephant is not like that!"—until a fight broke out, and they began beating each other with their fists.

The moral of this story is that the dharma cannot be reduced to a set of truth-claims, which will inevitably conflict with other truth-claims. Only by letting go of such views will one be able to understand how dharma practice is not about being "right" or "wrong."

---Stephen Batchelor, in after buddhism---