The Fourteen Questions to Which Buddha Remained Silent
There are fourteen unspecified points (lung-du ma-bstan-pa bcu-bzhi), which are points about which Buddha did not specify an answer when asked. Often this set of fourteen is referred to as the “fourteen questions to which Buddha remained silent.”
The Theravada Version
An earlier, abbreviated list of ten unspecified points appears in the Pali canon in the Sutta of Shorter (Instructions) to Malunkya (Pali: Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta, within the The Collection of Middle-Length Discourses (Pali: Majjhima Nikaya). In this version, the monk Malunkyaputta was continuously distracted by metaphysical speculation during his meditation. In order to turn him back to his intensive meditation practice, Buddha remained silent when Malunkyaputta asked whether:
the universe is eternal,
the universe is not eternal,
the universe is finite,
the universe is infinite,
after death, a Buddha continues to exist,
after death, a Buddha does not continue to exist,
after death, a Buddha both continues to exist and not to exist,
after death, a Buddha neither continues to exist or not to exist,
the body and the “self” are the same entity,
the body and the “self” are totally separate and different entities.
There are fourteen unspecified points (lung-du ma-bstan-pa bcu-bzhi), which are points about which Buddha did not specify an answer when asked. Often this set of fourteen is referred to as the “fourteen questions to which Buddha remained silent.”
The Theravada Version
An earlier, abbreviated list of ten unspecified points appears in the Pali canon in the Sutta of Shorter (Instructions) to Malunkya (Pali: Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta, within the The Collection of Middle-Length Discourses (Pali: Majjhima Nikaya). In this version, the monk Malunkyaputta was continuously distracted by metaphysical speculation during his meditation. In order to turn him back to his intensive meditation practice, Buddha remained silent when Malunkyaputta asked whether:
the universe is eternal,
the universe is not eternal,
the universe is finite,
the universe is infinite,
after death, a Buddha continues to exist,
after death, a Buddha does not continue to exist,
after death, a Buddha both continues to exist and not to exist,
after death, a Buddha neither continues to exist or not to exist,
the body and the “self” are the same entity,
the body and the “self” are totally separate and different entities.
