On Buddhism and Faith

Hi everyone.

Over the past few weeks, I've noticed that the Buddhist world plays host to a variety of different ideas about whether there's a place for faith in Buddhist practice.

As one might expect of any religion, in Buddhism we have subscribers to all sorts of extreme views. As much as Buddhists like to portray themselves as particularly open-minded and tolerant of other viewpoints, especially in comparison to adherents of "all those other religions," Buddhism does have its own set of crazy dogmatic fundamentalists who unconditionally accept the Buddha's words, often without having examined them thoroughly. On the other end, we have the staunch skeptics, who apply the Buddha's teachings very selectively, attempting to practice his teaching even as they categorically reject any doctrine that doesn't immediately agree with their intuition and logic.

Of course, most people walk somewhere in the middle, which is the way it should be. I was flipping through the second edition of Peter Harvey's much-loved Introduction to Buddhism earlier, and one passage struck me as particularly relevant. I've taken the liberty of quoting him here:

"While the Buddha was critical of blind faith, he did not deny a role for soundly based faith or ‘trustful confidence’ (saddhā, Skt śraddhā); for to test out his teachings, a person has to have at least some initial trust in them. The early texts envisage a process of listening, which arouses saddhā, leading to practice, and thus to partial confirmation of the teachings, and thus to deeper saddhā and deeper practice until the heart of the teachings is directly experienced (M.ii.171–6). A person then becomes an Arahat, one whose confidence is rooted in insight. Even in Theravāda Buddhism, which often has a rather rational, unemotional image, a very deep faith in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha is common. Ideally, this is based on the fact that some part of the Buddha’s path has been found to be uplifting, thus inspiring confidence in the rest. Many people, though, simply have a calm and joyful faith (pasāda, Skt prasāda) inspired by the example of those who are well established on the Path."

So clearly, blind, dogmatic faith is out of the question. But it would be just as problematic to downplay the role of faith, because anyone who wants to benefit from the Buddha's teaching must be willing to set aside his initial doubts. With time, those doubts will hopefully evolve into a provisional sort of confidence and trust, which will ultimately be supported by direct knowledge. That, I think, is the real meaning of faith.