The sutta begins as the Kalamas, a group of people who live in Kesaputta, approach the Buddha and say:

Lord, there are some priests & contemplatives who come to Kesaputta. They expound & glorify their own doctrines, but as for the doctrines of others, they deprecate them, revile them, show contempt for them, & disparage them. And then other priests & contemplatives come to Kesaputta. They expound & glorify their own doctrines, but as for the doctrines of others, they deprecate them, revile them, show contempt for them, & disparage them. They leave us absolutely uncertain & in doubt: Which of these venerable priests & contemplatives are speaking the truth, and which ones are lying?

The Buddha replies, “Of course you are uncertain, Kalamas. Of course you are in doubt. When there are reasons for doubt, uncertainty is born.”

The Buddha proceeds with a lengthy answer that begins with a series of questions focusing on greed, hatred, and delusion. Is this teacher or that one governed by these three ignoble motivators? Does what they teach lead to harm or long-lasting happiness? The Buddha ends with some good advice on what qualities to look for in a good and noble teacher or disciple.

With this as background, I travel now from the small world of Kesaputta to the infinitely larger World Wide Web. It’s not a physical place, but a place nonetheless. Many of its inhabitants are like the Kalamas, full of questions and confusion. Many others are like the priests and contemplatives, full of knowledge and opinions and ideas about everything. Some of these “priests and contemplatives” are worth following, others, well…

Anyone with a net-connected computer has access to this world of seekers and sages and charlatans and crooks. Fifteen years ago – when the Web was not more than a few threads – I wanted to learn about meditation. I’d read that meditation may be helpful with managing depression. I wanted to find out if it were true. But I didn’t want to mess around with too much experimenting. I didn’t want to go down any blind alleys. I wanted to know the right way to meditate right now. I discovered, though, that there was a lot of nonsense out there and many blind alleys. A particular bit of nonsense involved sitting with my eyes closed, but moving my eyeballs up, down, right, left over and over and over. I tried it. Really. What did I know? Maybe it was the right way. It wasn’t.

I realized I was not going to find what I was looking through my explorations of the Web. I went to a bookstore and bought Mindfulness in Plain English instead. Even then I worried about getting the right advice.

But this is not about me or my practice. This is about information – particularly information about Buddhism that can be found on the Web. If I’m new to Buddhism, and I’m searching for information and answers about it, how do I know what’s reliable and what isn’t? Being ignorant of all things Buddhist, and I find myself on this blog or that website, for example, how do I know “Which of these venerable priests & contemplatives are speaking the truth, and which ones are lying?” How do I separate fact from truth from opinion from…

The answer, of course, is the same as the Buddha gave the Kalamas: study the teacher and the message in terms of greed, hatred, and delusion. But it’s not so easy, and may take a long time. Patience, after all, is an aspect of Buddhist practice. When the Buddha addressed the Kalamas he was talking about discernment. That is, seeing the difference between what is good and what is not, what is skillful and what is not, what is truth and what is not. Discernment is yet another important aspect of Buddhist practice. But I wouldn’t know that until I was well into it. It’s a quality worth cultivating, because without it wisdom is impossible.

I’d always known from the way he lived he that he was religiously conservative. “Devout Catholic” is an apt description. But I was well into my adult life before I got a sense of where he was politically. He usually kept his political opinions to himself while I lived within his household – at least he didn’t discuss them much with his children. It surprised me to learn that his political views were so different from my own.

Perhaps my mother had something to do with this. Even though she also was steadfastly Catholic, there was never any doubt about her open-minded slant – however quietly she presented it. Maybe it was she who – in order to keep the peace – was responsible for the dearth of political discussion in the home.

Anyway, I’ve recently had a few conversations with my father about the political state of things. He’s as conservative in his political views as he is in his religious views. From our last talk I came away shaking my head in wonder: How can it be that he cannot see how wrong he is?

But wouldn’t he have similar thoughts of me? How is it, he must surely wonder, that my first-born son can be so wrong? How can he not see the danger in this liberal nonsense?

And then there are our divergent religious views. After he read my book, Mapping the Dharma, he said to me, “That Buddha was a pretty good psychologist.” Then he added, “I don’t agree with him, though.” Now there’s an understatement.

But this isn’t about me or my father, nor is it about politics or religion. It’s about being attached to views – any views. “A thicket of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views,” is what the Buddha called this ocean of opinions we so enthusiastically – and often angrily – navigate every day.

It’s so easy to get caught up in what we believe to be right. And it’s easy to let everyone around us know, not  just how right we are, but how wrong they are if they don’t agree with us. We want the world to be a certain way and it’s difficult to accept that others see things differently. It churns and churns in the mind. If we’re not careful, agitation and anger are the results. Even the most superficial disagreement is stressful.

The Internet with its World Wide Web is an unimaginably vast Thicket of Views. It can be a very good – and even reliable – source of news and information as well as a means of personal communication and honest discourse. It’s also the prevailing medium of disinformation, propaganda, and a channel for outright hatred. Through the Internet I can find people who will agree and sympathize with me. And I can find people who despise me and my views.

My father gets his news and information much the same way most of us who use the Internet do. He reads from websites that suit his tastes. So do I. Each of us has our ideas, our points of view, reinforced daily. That’s a problem. Not just for my father and me, but for anyone who has a view to cling to.

One of the websites I looked at daily (that is, several times every day) was TruthOut. It’s a compendium of liberal news stories grabbed from diverse but mainstream sources. Many of the articles would stimulate mental debates with a stereotypical conservative. With these debates I would sharpen my views, refine my logic, and undermine the views of my imaginary opponent. A the the same time I would tighten the grip on my own political or spiritual views and on the view that I am so smart and so clever.

But that cleverness is all in my imagination. And my views have no more substance than the bits and bytes that form the letters on this screen. A few taps on the delete key and they disappear into nothingness. After that discussion with my father, I deleted the link to TruthOut. Not because I’m not interested or don’t want to be informed. But because I do not need that kind of mental agitation. The politicians will do what they do regardless of what I think about it, regardless of how irritated I get with one side or inspired by the other. This has helped me gradually loosen my grip on a particular political viewpoint.

There is no value in being enmeshed in a thicket of views. But there is lots of value in being free of its entanglements.

Understanding the law of cause and effect is central to – critical to – Buddhist practice. In the external world it’s easy to see how this may play out. If I smile at you when we meet, then I am much more likely to get a positive response from you than if I scowl. One could come up with thousands of examples. The point here is that I have a choice in my actions. That is, if I choose my actions wisely, I can influence what happens next. This is not speculation or something I take on faith. I have direct experience with this phenomenon in my own life. Therefore, I know it to be true.

Still, despite what I know to be true, I sometimes work myself into certain unwholesome mind states. Most often it’s because of something someone has said to me or something I have said to myself in the form of a thought. Either way, the result is a bad mood. Sometimes the mood builds gradually, other times it’s instant. Sometimes I can stop it before it gets too far. Other times the mental state gets to the point of no return as the negative, self-critical thoughts churn over and over, reinforcing themselves. Until the mood lifts I’m not very good company.

Through Ajahn Jayasaro’s words I got a clear understanding of the purpose behind practicing the Brahma Viharas – the four sublime mind states of loving kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. These create the mental conditions for spiritual transformation. All that is necessary is training the mind to overcome decades of unskillful practices. This takes place through the combined and ongoing practices of acting forthrightly in the external world of society and the inner world of the mind.

Imagine someone saying, “I’m not a Christian. I just follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.” Doesn’t that by definition make one a Christian? OK, maybe that’s not a good example, because, first, one has to be baptized to be a Christian. Second, not all Christians follow the teachings of Jesus, so that doesn’t seem to be a prerequisite.

Unlike Christianity, one doesn’t become a Buddhist through the performance of any rite or ritual. One becomes a Buddhist by taking refuge in the Buddha (the teacher), the Dharma (the teachings), and the Sangha (the community of monks and nuns who practice the teachings) – collectively known as the the Three Jewels or Triple Gem. But what does taking refuge mean? 

Historically, common people sought the protection of those who had the capacity to protect them. It was a matter of physical survival. Also, in matters of spiritual survival, people would take refuge in spiritual leaders. Very simple, really. Taking refuge, then as now, is a matter of putting one’s faith in a protector. In this case, the Three Jewels. 

The Buddha teaches the end of suffering. One needs faith that practicing what the Buddha teaches will lead to that end. The only effect of a lack of faith (which implies a lack of skillful practice) is more suffering. It’s not punishment, but a logical consequence.

The teachings of the Buddha are divided into eight categories that instruct on living skillfully, so skillfully that when all these skills are sharpened to perfection, ultimate happiness is realized. In other words, the effect of skillful living is happiness, the effect of unskilful living is unhappiness. The eight categories are known as the Eightfold Path of Right View, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.

Following the Eightfold Path to the best of one’s ability is practicing the Dharma. Practicing the Dharma is applying the teachings of the Buddha to one’s life. This seems to me a good description of Buddhist. Why not just say so? If that’s what I do – skillfully or not – that’s what I am.