The Buddha did not have any secret knowledge that he wished to conceal. Yet, for the Buddha there was to be recognized a sharp distinction between what today we would call “faith” and “belief” or the real and the seeming. In this light, it would be correct to say that faith is esoteric (direct) while belief is exoteric (through another).
Faith (shraddha), according to the Avatamsaka Sutra is said to “extinguish all doubts” and “reveal the peerless way.” Faith, accordingly, is reckoned to be not the same as belief. Belief, in fact, is nothing more than an unproved proposition that can be either true or false. We have many beliefs that are no more than proposed or possible truths which remain unproved. We have beliefs about history or the very structure of matter. We have beliefs about our future. And we have many beliefs about the absolute such as a God or the nonexistence of God. But no belief, however strongly adhered to, can produce faith. As for a crisis of faith, there is none except that it is really a crisis of belief—a belief that is faithless.
Analyzing the two statements from the Avatamsaka Sutra, mentioned before, one can easily draw from these that faith, first of all, corresponds with the real and not the seeming. One has overcome, in fact, belief. On a personal level, faith is like a lodestar that convinces a person to take the Buddha’s path; perfecting their being. Foremost, faith, unlike belief, is the very apex of rationality insofar as faith reasons from the very inception of truth.
The matter of faith is always esoteric because within ourselves we have witnessed a spark of the ultimate, viz., our Buddha-nature. Without such faith, being in a continuous stream of deluded thoughts, how is enlightenment possible? In this state we can only believe, but never really know for certain. Thus, all of our steps will be those of a deluded person who mistakes their strong belief for faith. But for one who has true faith; who is no longer exoterically bound and oriented, profound faith is, foremost, a trusted guide on the path to enlightenment without which one is doomed.
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