The Buddha never expected blind faith from anyone and this is one of the reasons why Buddhism is appealing to people from cultures where other religions demand unwavering faith. The Buddha’s famous advice to the Kalamas to test things for themselves shows that he welcomes believers and non-believers alike. In fact, some people say that faith is not a part of Buddhism at all and that the proper Buddhist attitude is one of skepticism.
Even though the Buddha recommends tolerance and a healthy skepticism, he still requests that people have some faith if they want to end suffering. He suggests that people take certain things on faith and then test them by following his path of practice.
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Is there a hint of need for faith?
“Don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These mental qualities are skillful; these mental qualities are blameless; these mental qualities are praised by the wise; these mental qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare and to happiness’ — then you should enter & remain in them.”
— AN 3.65
This passage begins by disputing the authority of scripture and tradition, but later argues that you should consider what is praised by the wise. This makes sense of the Buddha’s teachings as a whole, as he would not have left so many other teachings if he only wanted you to trust your own unaided sense of right and wrong.
Is questioning OK?
In other words, the Buddha is saying that it is okay to question what you are told, but you should also be open to the wisdom of others. People who are wise can be identified by their actions and words, and we should have faith in them.
“For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher’s message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this: ‘The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I’… For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher’s message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this: ‘Gladly would I let the flesh & blood in my body dry up, leaving just the skin, tendons, & bones, but if I have not attained what can be reached through human firmness, human persistence, human striving, there will be no relaxing my persistence.'”
— MN 70
The Buddha said that you have to have faith in a teacher in order to learn from them. He also said that you need to have faith in his own Awakening in order to attain Awakening yourself. This faith is key to success and can help you achieve anything you want in life.
What are the tensions?
The tension between the Buddha’s recommendations about faith and empiricism is something that Western Buddhists find very disconcerting. In discussing the issue with them, it is clear that they are trying to resolve it in the same ways that the tension between Christian faith and scientific empiricism has been resolved in our own culture. There are three general positions that stand out as being the most common and also because they are so clearly Western.
In the first interpretation, the Buddha is seen as an agnostic who Western culture can relate to. This view holds that any references to faith in issues such as past karma or future rebirth are later additions to the texts, which agnostics should try to reject.
If you don’t, don’t. The second interpretation of the Buddha sees him as a Romantic hero who understood that faith is an essential requirement for mental health, regardless of where that faith is directed. This interpretation is tolerant and opposed to dogmatism, and sees the psychological benefits of faith as more important than its specifics.If you want to believe in a God or Goddess, the Buddha wouldn’t object. What’s important is that your relationship to your faith is emotionally healing, nourishing, and empowering.
Is to explore the Buddha’s awakening helpful ?
To explore the Buddha’s awakening further, it is helpful to include insights from a number of highly respected Buddhist teachers:
Interdependent Co-Arising is a deep and subtle teaching. Those who can see the nature of Interdependent Co-Arising can see the Buddha. All teachings of Buddhism are based on Interdependent Co-Arising. If a teaching does not align with Interdependent Co-Arising, it is not a teaching of the Buddha.
At the core of Buddhist cosmology is the belief that multiple worlds, including our own universe, are constantly being created and destroyed.
The world is always changing and evolving, with new things being created and old things being destroyed.
Now is the beginning of the universe, as all things are currently being created. Now is also the end of the universe, as all things are currently passing away.
When someone is a practiced disciple, they see that trees, stones, and animals are not solid and durable. Instead, they see that everything is constantly changing and only exists for a short amount of time.
The universe is in a state of constant change?
The Buddhist scholar and former monk Stephen Batchelor (2010) writes that the Buddha gave the following description of his foundational insight:
Heraclitus believed that the universe was in a state of constant change and that it was impossible to step into the same river twice. Gotama’s perspective shift was a realization that everything is constantly changing and that there is no fixed truth. He realized that conditioned arising is the truth and that everything is connected.
Experienced teachers say that the Buddha’s awakening was not simply an immersion in a formless realm where “nothing is arising”, as is often thought. Instead, they believe that the full depth and meaning of the Buddha’s awakening is still being discovered, more than 2,000 years after his death. The Buddha himself said that this insight is “deep, hard to see, difficult to awaken to, quiet and excellent, not confined by thought, subtle, sensed by the wise”.
To be interdependent is to be mutually and conditionally supportive, like two sides of a coin or two siblings sharing the same DNA. To co-arise is to come to be together, or to develop concurrently, like the sprouts of a new plant or the acquisition of new skills. It is helpful to think of the words interdependent and co-arising separately, even though they are one expression with a single meaning.
To be interdependent is to be mutually and conditionally supportive, like two sides of a coin or two siblings sharing the same DNA. To co-arise is to come to be together, or to develop concurrently, like the sprouts of a new plant or the acquisition of new skills. With this caveat, let us consider each word individually:
Everything that exists is intertwined with everything else. The universe is one big system where everything affects each other.
The universe is constantly being created and everything is emerging as a unified whole.
In other words, reality is both what happens to us as a result of our past actions, and what happens to us in the present moment as a result of everything else that is happening.
The Buddha realized that everything is constantly changing and that there is no solid reality. He taught that our failure to see this causes us to have an inaccurate and dissatisfying view of life. For example, if we assume that the universe changes at a pace of 100 frames per second, and our perception works at a pace of 25 frames per second, then the universe will seem to us like a solid whole that endures over time, rather than something that is constantly flashing into existence.
We can lose ourselves in the cosmic movie theatre if we’re not paying attention. If we focus our perception more carefully, we can see that everything is happening at the same time and there’s no separation between us and the universe. We can experience wisdom and compassion when we understand that everything is connected.
Appreciating that the universe is constantly changing can help us understand spiritual insights such as “impermanence.” When we see the world around us as solid and enduring, we are not seeing how it is always changing. If we think the world is solid and permanent, we may try to hold on to things. But this goes against the true nature of existence, which can cause feelings of dissatisfaction and disconnection.
This creative energy or Shakti is always pouring forth and pervading all that exists, registering all events and changes, and projecting into existence an endless succession of fresh forms. According to the author, the concepts of impermanence and emptiness are difficult to understand from a traditional point of view, but they become much simpler when considered from the perspective of the universe as a whole. Existence is constantly changing and growing, with no permanent state. Every moment, everything disappears and is reborn anew. This creative energy is always present, registering all events and changes and creating new forms.