This story describes the Buddha’s response when he was asked various metaphysical questions about the nature of the universe and the nature of reality.

Turtles all the way down

      There is a story about a famous scientist who was once giving a lecture on astronomy and the structure of the solar system. After the lecture an elderly lady came up to the scientist and said, “Professor, your theory about the earth rotating around the sun has a very convincing ring to it, but I’m afraid it’s completely wrong.”
      “Oh yes?” said the professor politely, “So what is the correct explanation?”
      The elderly lady looked the scientist in the eye and said, “The correct explanation, Professor, is that the earth is a flat plate, which is supported on the back of a giant turtle.”
      Not wanting to offend the lady, the Professor tried to gently point out the basic flaw in the theory, “If that is correct, madam, what does this turtle stand on?”
      “You’re very clever Professor, and that’s a very good question,” she replied, “but the answer is simple: The first turtle stands on the back of a second, far larger, turtle, which stands directly beneath it.”
      The scientist sensed that the lady was not going to relinquish her theory, but nevertheless gently persisted, “But what, madam, does this second turtle stand upon?”
      Beaming, the elderly lady crowed triumphantly, “It’s no use Professor; it’s turtles all the way down.”

The scientific approach and the Buddha’s approach

Professor Stephen Hawking starts his 1988 book A Brief History of Time with a version of this story, and then comments:

“Most people would find the picture of our universe as an infinite tower of tortoises rather ridiculous, but why do we think we know better? What do we know about the universe, and how do we know it? Where did the universe come from, and where is it going? Did the universe have a beginning, and if so, what happened before then? What is the nature of time? Will it ever come to an end? Recent breakthroughs in physics, made possible in part by fantastic new technologies, suggest answers to some of these longstanding questions. Someday these answers may seem as obvious to us as the earth orbiting the sun—or perhaps as ridiculous as a tower of tortoises. Only time (whatever that may be) will tell.”

Science tries to find answers to these big questions, but the Buddha’s approach is very different. He was actually asked some very similar questions to the ones that Stephen Hawing poses, but didn’t give answers to them, for a very specific reason, as the following story involving the monk Malunkyaputta shows.

The Buddha’s response to some big questions

The Buddha was once staying at Anathapindika’s monastery in Jeta’s Grove, near the city of Savatthi. A monk called Ven. Malunkyaputta was also staying there, and whilst he was sitting alone these thoughts occurred to him: “The Buddha has never told us his position on these crucial question: ‘Is the universe eternal or not eternal?’, ‘Is the universe finite or infinite?’, ‘Is what we think of as a living being identical to the physical body, or are they different?’, ‘After death, does a Buddha a) exist, b) not exist, c) both exist and not exist or d) neither exist nor not exist?’ I’m not happy with this. I can’t accept that the Buddha has not declared his position on these questions. I’m going to go and ask the Buddha about these questions, and if he will declare his position on them, then I will continue to live as a monk and follow him. If on the other hand he refuses to declare his position on these questions, then I will give up being a monk and return to my previous life.”

These questions are sometimes referred to as the “Ten Undeclared Questions”, although they are really ten possible answers to just four different questions. The first question asks whether or not the universe is limitless in time, and the second asks whether or not it is limitless in space. The third question could be understood as asking, “Is a person just the physical body that we can see and feel, or is there anything in addition to that (like a soul for example)?” The four possible answers to the last question are a formulation which is found quite often in Indian philosophy. We really don’t need to understand what the last two answers might mean; the Buddha doesn’t declare that either of them is his position (or any of the others either).

That evening Ven. Malunkyaputta went to see the Buddha. When he got there he made a bow and sat to one side, as was customary, and then asked the Buddha, “Lord, earlier on whilst I was sitting on my own, it occurred to me that the Buddha has never told us his position on these crucial question: ‘Is the universe eternal or not eternal?’, ‘Is the universe finite or infinite?’, ‘Is what we think of as a living being identical to the physical body, or are they different?’, ‘After death, does a Buddha a) exist, b) not exist, c) both exist and not exist or d) neither exist nor not exist?’ I’m not happy with this. I can’t accept that the Buddha has not declared his position on these questions, and so I decided to come and ask you about them. If you will declare your position on these questions, then I will continue to live as a monk and follow you. If on the other hand you refuse to declare your position on them, then I will give up being a monk and return to my previous life.

In the original Pali text, the list of questions is repeated over and over throughout this story; here having told the Buddha what he had been thinking earlier, including the full list of questions, Ven. Malunkyaputta then proceeds to got through the whole list again, and specifically put each of the ten possible positions to the Buddha in turn. For each one of the ten he demands that the Buddha declares whether that is his position or not, and for each one he says:

“But if you don’t know or can’t see whether this is true, then you should just be honest and admit, ‘I don’t know, I can’t see.’

Ven. Malunkyaputta is really being quite confrontational and challenging with the Buddha. In answering him, the Buddha first points out to Ven. Malunkyaputta that he really has no grounds for coming and demanding answers to these sorts of questions:

The Buddha asked Ven. Malunkyaputta, “Malunkyaputta, did I ever say to you, ‘Come, Malunkyaputta, live as a monk and follow me, and if you do I will declare to you what my position is on all these issues.’?” (He lists all ten of them again).

Ven. Malunkyaputta has to admit that the Buddha never promised that to him when he became a monk.

“And when you became a monk did you ever say to me, ‘Lord, I will live the monastic life and follow the Buddha, but only on condition that he will declare to me what his position is on all these issues.’?” (listed again).

Again Ven. Malunkyaputta has to admit that he never asked that, and that the Buddha never agreed to provide those answers as a condition of accepting him as a monk.

The Buddha then admonishes Ven. Malunkyaputta, “That being the case, why do you think you are entitled to come to me now and make these demands of me? Malunkyaputta, if anyone was to say, ‘I won’t live as a monk and follow the Buddha until he declares to me his position on each of these issues’, that person would die without ever hearing me declare a position on these issues.”

The simile of the poisoned arrow
As a prelude to explaining to Ven. Malunkyaputta why he hasn’t declared a position on any of the issues that Ven. Malunkyaputta has raised, the Buddha tells him the famous simile of the poison arrow.

“It’s just as if a man was wounded with an arrow that had been dipped in poison. His friends and relations go and fetch a surgeon, but the man refuses to allow the arrow to be pulled out. He says, ‘I won’t let the arrow be pulled out until I know the full name of the man who shot it.’

“He then adds, ‘And I also won’t let the arrow be pulled out until I know

• the caste of the man who wounded me; was he a noble warrior, a brahman, a merchant, or a worker
• whether he was tall, medium, or short
• whether he was dark, ruddy-brown, or golden-coloured
• what village, town or city he came from
• whether the bow with which I was shot was a long bow or a crossbow
• whether the bowstring was made of fibre, bamboo threads, sinew, hemp, or bark
• whether the shaft of the arrow was wild or cultivated
• whether the feathers on the arrow shaft were from a vulture, stork, hawk, peacock, or other bird
• whether the arrow head was bound to the shaft with the sinew of an ox, a water buffalo, a langur, or a monkey
• whether the arrow was a common arrow, a curved arrow, a barbed arrow, a calf-toothed arrow, or an oleander arrow.’

“The man would die without knowing the answers to all these questions. Similarly Malunkyaputta, if anyone was to say, ‘I won’t live as a monk and follow the Buddha until he declares to me his position on each of these issues’, that person would die without ever hearing me declare a position on these issues.”

The man has a long list of questions that he wants to know the answer to before he will allow the arrow to be pulled out, but the poison is attacking him, and he shouldn’t put off having it removed. The Buddha is pointing out to us that we should similarly be turning all our attention to finding the end of suffering. In order to do this we need to let go of our attachments, our clinging, our craving, which like the arrow are causing our suffering. Greed, hatred and delusion are referred to as the three poisons, and are like the poison arrow which must be removed urgently to prevent the man from dying.

We need to urgently address our suffering, and yet we spend so much time engrossed in other things, which might be irrelevant to finding the end of suffering, or may even be continuing and increasing our suffering. When we are shot with a poison arrow, our only focus should be to pull out that arrow, not to ask pointless questions about how it got there.

The Buddha then goes on to explain why he hasn’t declared a position on the issues that Ven. Malunkyaputta has asked him about.

“Malunkyaputta, having the view, ‘The universe is eternal,’ makes absolutely no difference to the life of practice. It does not give rise to it, support it, sustain it or deepen it. Similarly, having the view, ‘The universe is not eternal,’ makes absolutely no difference to the life of practice. It does not give rise to it, support it, sustain it or deepen it. Whether we hold one of these views or whether we hold the other, there is still birth, old age, disease and death; there is still sorrow, lamentation, pain, despair and distress, which are not ended by having these views, or declaring a position on them. In contrast, what I do declare is the way to bring suffering to an end, right here and now.”

The Buddha then goes through the other three questions in turn, covering all ten of the different positions. He then advises Ven. Malunkyaputta that he should remember what things are not declared by the Buddha, and what things are declared by the Buddha. He first outlines the things that are not declared by him, which is the whole list (again) of the issues that Ven. Malunkyaputta initially asked him about, and then he states again why he doesn’t take a position on any of these.

“Why don’t I declare a position on these questions? Because they are not connected with the goal and are not fundamental to the life of practice. They don’t lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, calming, direct knowledge, self-awakening, liberation. That’s why I don’t declare a position on these questions.”

The Buddha’s refusal to engage with these questions doesn’t necessarily mean that he would have been opposed to modern science, or the technologies that we have to find out more about the universe that we live in. However, whatever activities we spend our time on, either professionally or personally, we shouldn’t let them distract us from the central aim of finding the end of suffering and living the Life of Buddha. In particular, if we hold to a particular belief on something and put all of our energies into justifying and defending that position, we are actually building up and strengthening our attachment to a self, and increasing our own suffering. This doesn’t mean that we should never express a view on anything, or that there is no such thing as truth, but it does mean that we shouldn’t be attached to the views that we have, and that we should be willing to reconsider them if new facts emerge.

The Buddha then outlines the things that he does declare. There are, of course, many teachings that the Buddha gave during his lifetime, including the Middle Way, Dependent Arising, the Three Marks of Existence, the Law of Karma etc., but here he focusses on one of his most fundamental teachings, the Four Noble Truths.

“What things are declared by me?

‘This is suffering,’ is declared by me.
‘This is the cause of suffering,’ is declared by me.
‘This is the end of suffering,’ is declared by me.
‘This is the path of practice which leads to the end of suffering,’ is declared by me.

“And why do I declare these things? Because they are connected with the goal and are fundamental to the life of practice. They lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, calming, direct knowledge, self-awakening, liberation. That's why I declare these things.”

The Buddha ends by advising Ven. Malunkyaputta again that he should remember what things are not declared by the Buddha, and what things are declared by the Buddha. Ven. Malunkyaputta was very grateful to have received the Buddha’s teaching.

Sources:
The “turtles all the way down” story is based on a version in:

John R. Ross (1967). Constraints on variables in syntax. (Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Available at MIT Theses (http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/15166). See page iv of the ms., page 4 of the electronic file.

Stephen Hawking’s comments are from:

Hawking, Stephen (1988). A Brief History of Time. Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-05340-1.

The story of the ten undeclared questions and the simile of the poison arrow are base on:

MN 63 PTS: M i 426 Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta: The Shorter Instructions to Malunkya, translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu © 1998 from https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.063.than.html.