The Assurance of Free Inquiry

Throughout his teachings of the Dhamma (the Law of Nature) for forty-five years, the Buddha laid emphasis on analytical investigation, freedom of thought and the value of dissent. For the first time in human history we see a teacher i.e. the Buddha, calling on his listeners to think freely, without being bound by unverifiable propositions, solely due to the reason that they had been passed down from generation to generation. The Buddha taught his followers to use their critical faculty in defining what is good and wholesome. In one discourse, the Kalama Sutta (considered as the ''''Magna Carta'''' of Buddhism by some scholars) the Buddha draws attention to some fundamental rights and privileges for the seeker after the truth.