Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c7.s2.1

c7.s2.1

Of the individual traits of the teaching of the Buddha none is really more assured than his definite insistence on the limits to the investigation of reality which are imposed on his disciples. The one aim which he sets himself is to make an end of pain or ill for the individual who is willing to accept his teaching, and he reserves to himself the absolute right to decide what matters are profitable to the attaining of this end. He makes no promise to a disciple to teach him anything save what tends to the final end; he is a physician to heal a wound, who has no need and no time to answer such foolish questions as those affecting the personality of him who inflicted the injury or the kind of missile with which he worked his evil will.² The Brahmajāla Sutta³ gives, under the fallacious guise of an enumeration of existing doctrines which the Buddha rejects as of final authority, a list of sixty-two views which are laid aside as matters beyond the limits of legitimate research.