Truth

In "The Shorter Discourse on the Dead End," the Buddha makes an astonishing revelation: he does not claim anything to be "the truth." This was undoubtedly a surprising thing to assert, given the context of religious debates and competing claims of truth. The declaration can be seen as one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Buddha's teachings. It also raises the question, if the Buddha does not teach the truth, what does he teach?

In accord with not teaching "the truth," in this twelfth poem [of the Atthakavagga] the Buddha offers no religious doctrine or teachings of his own. When asked whose claims are true, the Buddha avoids answering the question. Instead he respond by explaining that people "make their very own view to be true." In other words, the people who argue are not debating the truth, they are quarreling over what they have constructed as true.

Instead of arbitrating whose religious claims are true, the Buddha comments on the absurdity of how some people argue about the truth. Everyone would be equally a fool if the only criterion for being a fool is not approving an opponent's doctrine. On the other hand, no one would be a fool if one is wise merely because one claims to be. These contradictory conclusions are, of course, untenable. In these comments, the Buddha is not saying anything about the truth or falsehood of the people's truth claims. Rather he is pointing to the inadequacy of some of the (simplistic) ways people argue that they are right and others are wrong.

~Gil Fronsdal, in "The Buddha before Buddhism"