Buddha's Warning Label seems a very difficult prescription: we are to learn and "know for ourselves" which "qualities" are to be abandoned and which are to be "adopted and carried out" by "entering and remaining in them." Learning and applying all this looks like a long, hard slog. So why bother?
The Buddha answers this question in the Four Assurances(1) :
— with a mind thus free from hostility, free from ill will, undefiled, and pure —
acquires four assurances in the here and now:
'If there is a world after death,
if there is the fruit of actions rightly & wrongly done,
then this is the basis by which,
with the break-up of the body, after death,
I will reappear in a good destination, the heavenly world.'
This is the first assurance.
if there is the fruit of actions rightly & wrongly done,
then this is the basis by which,
with the break-up of the body, after death,
I will reappear in a good destination, the heavenly world.'
This is the first assurance.
'But if there is no world after death,
if there is no fruit of actions rightly & wrongly done,
then here in the present life I look after myself with ease —
free from hostility,
free from ill will,
free from trouble.'
This is the second assurance.
if there is no fruit of actions rightly & wrongly done,
then here in the present life I look after myself with ease —
free from hostility,
free from ill will,
free from trouble.'
This is the second assurance.
'If evil is [unintentionally] done [by me] through acting,
still I have willed no evil for anyone.
Having [willed] no evil action,
from where will suffering touch me?'
This is the third assurance.
still I have willed no evil for anyone.
Having [willed] no evil action,
from where will suffering touch me?'
This is the third assurance.
'But if no evil is done [by me] through acting,
then I can assume myself pure in both respects.'
This is the fourth assurance."
then I can assume myself pure in both respects.'
This is the fourth assurance."
Kalama
Sutta (AN 3:66).
Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
(1) See also Pascal's
Wager.