The Buddha And The Pudding

“The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”

Both the Buddha and the proverb reject blind faith. They demand personal, practical experience before something is declared to be true.

A group of villagers asked the Buddha how to discover the truth when so many different teachers were contradicting one another. The Buddha responded with what is essentially the spiritual version of ‘taste it for yourself’.

He told them not to believe in something just because of repeated hearing, tradition, rumour, hearsay, religious texts, speculation, mere logic, the prestige of a teacher …

Instead, he said: “When you know for yourselves that these things are true … then abide in them.”