Faith in Buddhism

Faith or srâddha in Buddhism, unlike with almost all other religions, is not that difficult to establish if we understand where Buddhism is actually coming from.  We establish faith in Buddhism when we believe that what animates us and, for that matter, all other beings is what, directly, the Buddha awakened to.  

By each of us looking within it is evident that our thinking or our speaking is but a manifestation of this spirit or animativeness.  Our very life depends upon it.  This is what separates a corpse from a living being.  We are intimately connected with it through the first-person although we have not yet realized it like a Buddha or even a beginning Bodhisattva.  

When Emperor Wu of Liang asked Bodhidharma, “What is Buddha?” Bodhidharma answered by saying: “Seeing one's nature is Buddha” [chien-hsing shih fo]. The Emperor then asked:  “Does the master see his own nature, or not?” Bodhidharma replied: “I see the Buddha-nature.” The Emperor finally asked: “Where does [ Buddha-]nature exist?' Bodhidharma replied: '[ Buddha-]nature exists in activity' [tso-yung]."  This also helps to explain the reason behind Bodhidharma saying, of sentient beings, “Not one of them understands the movement of his own hands and feet”!  

When we realize our true nature or Buddha Mind, first hand, we awaken, directly, to this animative principle (it is synonymous with âtman, cetas, citta, manas, etc., depending upon the context).  Until that time, we can have faith just by moving our hands and feet, or speaking, or chanting—even by chopping wood and carrying water.  The gestures of the old Zen masters such as when Joshu straightened his robe, bid us to have faith, including the words, “Go wash your bowl”

All this helps to explain why Buddhism is the religion of light and why when we remove the adventitious defilements from our mind it becomes radiant or clear light (the very animativeness itself).  But this same light appears to not exist when it is formed and phenomenalized, like water that has become a whirlpool or ice.  Unawakened, we mistake it for material shape, feeling, perception, habitual tendencies or consciousness (the Five Aggregates).  As a result we become a slave of these temporal phenomenalizations.  We  lack any faith.  

Once we are established in faith, it is only by penetrating through phenomena, which is the real meaning of meditation, that we are able to return to our self and experience illumination (the animative principle itself).  This is also the Buddha Mind which is undying.

Comments

[Neti-Neti Yeti]

The notion of faith as not knowing seems to be embodied in the following scripture:

"O good man! Such matters of dispute are the things that belong to the world of the Buddha. They are not what sravakas and pratyekabuddhas can fathom. If a person can indeed gain a doubting mind, such a person can crush out innumerable defilements, as great in size as Mount Sumeru. When a man gains an immovable mind, this is what we call clinging."

Mahaparinirvana sutra (Mahayana version)
Chapter 41

[Neti-Neti Yeti]

Last night there was a dream where Thich Nhat Hanh manifested and told me there is One buddhism. That's all he said.

Now, clearly at one level I can recognize this as a simple trick of the brain in sleep, a little slight of hand by the subconscious to put my daytime, waking religious contemplation (dhyana), into a neat package of mental visualization and recognition. Thay didn't actually _say_ anything. But the nothing that said nothing has abundant meaning. How can this be, but through faith?

At another level, I find myself wondering who is the dreamer and what is, ultimately this dream? Or any dream? And this goes far beyond whether there is a dream or not a dream, whether there is a Thay or not a Thay, whether there really is One buddhism (which I had not consciously thought of before, but now that I do, I think, ok, why not?), whether there is spiritual meaning in dreams or not, whether there is spiritual meaning at all or not, and into the realm of pure faith. The meaning is the faith, and the faith the meaning.

Faith that there is a dream, faith that there is a Thay, faith that there is One buddhism, and faith that where there is not the dream, the Thay, and the Buddhism, there is still something. Even if it doesn't exist there is still something. It is neither something nor not something, but it is there.

What is it? I don't know. I keep telling myself, over and over, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Faith is like that. It is neither knowing nor not knowing. But it is something. It opens the door to being in harmony, because it allows us to see what we believe in may or may not be, but we at least have the power to believe. If there is the power to believe, there is the power to transcend what is and what is not, and belief, intention, thought, dreams, all are different manifestations of the Buddha principle.

That it is. I wish I had more of it. Or to at least recognize more continously that each of us have all of it in the universe, flowing abundantly, unrestrained, in perfect freedom and syntony with everything, somewhere under the ice floes of doubt that block us from really being free from the things we know. Free to just be faith. Free to just be. Free.

[minx]

My Master told me;

"You are a slave to birth and death, held down by mighty chains you have forged during an incalculable span of deep desires and bad habits.

Now, you might dream of freedom. You might think of freedom, and you might even speak of freedom, but not until you apply the awesome light of Mahayana upon them, dissolving them completely, will you experience true freedom in the luminous Mind of all bodhisattvas and Buddhas. Until that happens, make no mistake; You are a slave to birth and death!"