One point to understand whenever you have a grouping or list of things in the Scriptures, is that the English translation may not be perfect. Keep that in mind to begin with. Keep in mind also that many times when the Buddha spoke he would say things that were directly opposite to the famous teachers who were alive at the time. He would often state things in a negative term or opposite to what some other famous teacher had as their view in their teachings.
In those days, some teachers taught there was no need to respect your mother and father or that you need not take responsibility for taking care of your parents. There were people who also taught there were no wise people on the entire planet. There were all sorts of odd views. Sometimes when the Buddha made a statement it was in counterbalance to something that was being taught that wasn't true.
Now when you look at the ten items mentioned in the Kalama Sutta, some of them look similar. The Pali words, what they really meant, may have overlapped, so the English words may look so similar they may even be the same. But keep in mind, translations they often lose things, they sometimes change meanings. So when the Buddha listed the ten most likely they were ten reasons why people did believe in their teachers.
For reflecting on reasons - we actually teach you to reflect on reasons. We teach you to think logically, we teach you to have wise reflection, however not to base everything on that is what the Buddha said. He was not saying it's a negative thing to do. He was not saying that is negative. Just not to believe something just because we reflect that way. Another example - grounds for the reliability of a person. I don't use those words in a retreat, but similarly I say, "because it's a famous person or it's our teacher who says this is so and this is so".
Rosemary and I never say that these ten reasons are not good to use, we don't say that. What we do say is "don't base all of your beliefs on just these things". For example, some of you have perhaps had 200 or more interviews with Rosemary or me. You've asked on average at least 5 questions per interview, so some of you have asked us a 1000 questions and you still keep coming back for more. (Great!) Now in those 1000 questions, and for some of the others it may have only been 15 questions, but you also came back for more. Why did you come back for more? Because you felt you received something that was good in those 15 or 1000 questions. So you developed a confidence in what Rosemary and I are teaching.
Now, if you've had 1000 questions answered very well, when you come in for another interview and ask another question, you automatically expect a good answer. You don't even doubt that a good answer is going to come; you expect one, because you have confidence in what you've been given before. Now, that's good and that's part of reliability of a person. You can expect something good but you don't have to absolutely believe it is the truth. That's where the Buddha is saying, "watch out" in the Kalama Sutta.
So reflecting on reasons, this is simply thinking logically. If this happens, what is the result? From your own experience, this is part of what we teach - reflecting on actions and the results of actions. Regarding the grounds for the reliability of a person. Steve and Rosemary are famous teachers with 17 years of experience teaching over 5000 students. Some of you came here because you heard or you read about us. and perhaps that made you think, "Ok, what has this person got?" Since we are famous, when people come to us, they expect that we will give them something of value. So that's what it means, grounds for the reliability of a person, or being a famous teacher and so on.
Points of view or inference? Ok, a person has a point of view such as "I think it's a lovely day today". That's my view. The farmer who has not had rain for seven weeks thinks "today is lousy, it's sunny again." These are points of views. Neither one of them is a reality in themselves. The fact that it's sunny, yes. But the fact that it's a beautiful day, no, that's my view. So the farmer who thinks "this is a lousy day", that's his view. The truth is it's definitely sunny. So this is where points of views are not necessarily the truth.
As for reasons and arguments - some people are brilliant with their ability to argue around something, to give you all sorts of reasons and to often trick you into believing something that's not true. So this is where you have to be careful about some people who are very skilled with their arguments. It's not uncommon, in fact they make movies about it all the time. It happens in real life, and if any of you saw the movie "Chicago" (I only know the ending of it) it was sickening for me, as a Buddhist practitioner, because the lawyer won the case. He defended a guilty woman and got her off free. He must have had a great argument - I didn't see it, but he must have had great reasons to convince the jury that she was innocent. But it was all lies because she had actually killed the person earlier. So regarding reasons and arguments, be careful when someone is throwing a lot of arguments and reasons at you, not to simply believe it because they seem convincing.