Contesting Buddhist Narratives on face value.’ I furthermore ask fellow brothers and sisters not to be in a state of tizzy at every manufactured rumor, but to analyze them painstakingly and act upon them accordingly on their merit.”41 This admonition from the Buddha not to accept any claims on face value, but to investigate their sources, might indeed compel all citizens in Myanmar to critique rumors or generalizations made about others. Nothing should be accepted readily as “truth” about reality until it has been thoroughly examined from a trustworthy source. However, the further challenge is that much of what comes through rumors and hearsay can, at some point along the chain, be attributed to a “trustworthy” source, whether an elder, a neighbor, or a religious authority. There has been limited research on modes and networks of communication in contemporary Myanmar, but anecdotal accounts suggest that it could be challenging to develop a counternarrative that undermines the authoritative voice either of monastics or of the “community” writ large (Schissler 2014). It is also worth noting that, while some people interpret this sutta as a call to challenge tradition, one young man from a suburb of Yangon, who is active in his local Buddhist youth organization, explained to one of the authors that it needs to be understood in the proper context.42 That is, the Buddha gave this advice to people who were confronted with many different doctrines and needed a method to avoid confusion. Since Burmese Buddhists already had the teachings of the Buddha to follow, they should turn instead to the Mingala Sutta, which advises obedience to parents and elders. Differences of interpretation about the implications of the Kalama Sutta could limit its utility as a general scriptural justification for questioning the veracity of rumors, especially when the source of those rumors is a presumably authoritative monk. How to Defend the Sasana. The argument for protection of the sasana has always relied on an “end justifies the means” logic, in which the preservation of the Buddhist community as a whole allows Buddhists to act in ways that contravene the basic moral teachings of the religion. A different response, however, would be to argue that a commitment to democratic principles and religious pluralism need not be in opposition to defense of the sasana, but is, in fact, a more effective mode of defense. This type of argument is just beginning to be developed by 39