Does FAITH Play a Role in Buddhism?

Big Love was one of my favorite series not only because of the incredible writing and acting, but because of the underlying element of faith that seemed to hold all four members of this polygamist marriage together despite incredible adversity and a constant onslaught of obstacles.

As practitioners of the original, hardcore version of Mormonism, these four people sincerely believed that their unconventional marriage was not only one of love and companionship, but something that spoke to a higher principle that was rooted in their religion. Even though most of those beliefs seem kind of whacked to me, I find people with tremendous faith like this to be somehow very inspiring.

What I love about Buddhism is that we aren’t required to believe anything. In fact, the Buddha encouraged us to test things out for ourselves rather than blindly accept whatever he said. There was no “dude, just take my word for it” that would have prompted lifetimes of doubt and internal struggle. We were given a set of guidelines, observations, and a path to follow and if we do it diligently, there’s not much room for any doubt to occur.

As many have said before, Buddhism isn’t something we believe-- it’s something that we do. This practice stands is sharp contrast to all of the other faith-based spiritual systems (most of which are considered religions), since it’s an action-based and doesn’t revolve around a set of doctrines or commandments.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not just a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy—in fact, I have some major mystical tendencies. However, anything I engage in is based on personal, direct experience rather than belief alone. I don’t partake in anything that doesn’t offer at least the slightest hint or suggestion that it might work, that there might be something to it.

Having said all of that, it recently dawned on me that faith factors into my practice more than I ever realized.

“Faith” is a dirty word in most Buddhist circles since it conjures up images of oceans parting, an external creator God, promises of an afterlife (replete with your physical body), and people flailing about speaking in tongues.

But faith needn’t be so extreme that it requires us to discard reason.

I would have never sat through my first dharma talk at the Shambhala Center in 2006 if I didn’t have at least a little faith that this “basic goodness” thing I was hearing about might in fact really be there. I wouldn’t bother meditating every day if I didn’t know that something good and decent really does seem to come from it: some sanity, clarity, and dignity that wasn’t always there before I started practicing. And I would never do 108 bows if I didn’t know that once I’m done with those, my mind is clearer than crystal. Well, almost.

So interestingly I’m in this place of faith again. It’s not like the faith I tried to muster up when I was a Catholic, when I was encouraged to have a sense of faith rooted in belief rather than reason. Back then I was asked to have faith that Jesus Christ was the human version of God and that he had to be crucified to save us all from our inherently tarnished nature. Kind of hard to swallow but lord knows I tried.

My faith as a Buddhist now is more subtle but much more powerful.

I have faith that my very foundation is one of original goodness rather than original sin. I have faith that love and compassion are always good policy thanks to some very tangible examples I see of it around me all the time. I have faith that meditating and working with the mind are two of the most important things a person can do in life; not just because someone told me this once but because I experience glimpses of this goodness and sanity when I am practicing, and I feel kind of crazy when I’m not.

Faith can and does play a role in our practice. Without it, why would any of us even bother?

Elizabeth Taylor = Big Compassion

Elizabeth Taylor died yesterday.

During the 1980s, she was one of the first people to speak out publicly about the growing threat of AIDS and the need to treat AIDS patients with compassion and love.

It wasn't cool or trendy to do this just yet, and many people at the time believed it to be an airborne virus or one that could be spread through casual contact. It took President Ronald Reagan many years to even mention the word "AIDS" let alone do anything about it.

May we all learn from her example, and may we all extend compassion and kindness to all people everywhere, no matter how challenging or unpopular it might be.

What Would Buddha Bomb? The New War on Libya.

I don’t know how to reconcile Buddhist teachings with the realities of international politics and war. Given the current state of world affairs, I wonder if it’s truly possible to practice the precepts or the four immeasurables if you’re a world leader dealing with one foreign crisis after another.

I have no idea why certain situations warrant United States intervention while others don’t seem to matter enough for us to get involved in. For some reason it’s ok that government supporters in Yemen and Bahrain have opened fire on protestors but it’s not ok that Qaddafi was doing the same thing in Libya.

So we’re bombing the #%$@! out of them and ignoring the rest.

Pro-war types argue that military action is appropriate whenever “United States” interests are at stake. So much for interdependence.

Wars are always entered into under the guise of righteousness, noble causes, and necessity, that’s just the way they’re spun. (Remember Operation Iraqi Freedom?)

Perhaps we’ll eventually learn that the act of war is always sewing the seeds that eventually lead to future conditions that create other conflicts and more wars. Not to mention more shooting, more bombing, more death, more destruction, more suffering.

Most people in this world want peace just as they want happiness. But ultimately, peace can never be brought about by war. We’ve had wars that do seem to bring about a desired result, at least initially, but all we’ve done is kicked the can further down the road and eventually someone else ends up tripping over it.

It’s cause and effect, plain and simple.

Maybe one day some world leader will launch an Operation Freedom campaign, sort of a war on war that emphasizes non-violence and encourages everyone to practice, realize the true nature of things, and stop creating the conditions that lead to more discord and suffering.

Meditation as Weeding

Sitting on a regular basis is sort of like weeding a garden. It takes time and a high degree of patience and persistence.

As you're weeding, a rodent or worm might pop up and scare the bejeezus out of you but you just keep doing it anyway.

As you're meditating, a difficult, repulsive or appealing thought or emotion might spring up out of nowhere but you just sit through it all and keep doing it anyway.

Over time, once the weeds start to get cleared away, you begin to see what you're left with, which is pretty cool.

And you notice what can grow from there.

On iPads and Earthquakes, Desire and Impermanence

I confess to being somewhat swept up in the recent media frenzy over the new iPad 2. Sure, I already have the original version (which incidentally has more computing power than the Apollo 11 and does everything I want it to) but now there’s something better available, and I even have the choice to get it in white. If I want to.

On Friday, while many of us here in the United States were swept away by the promise of a new, shinier and more powerful iPad, in Japan hundreds of people were being swept away by waves that resulted from a powerful tsunami that was caused by a devastating earthquake.

You wouldn’t know that anything was awry anywhere in the world if you were at 10th Avenue and 18th Street where a huge line of people wrapped around 9 blocks-- and one full hour before the new tablet even went on sale.

Sometimes our view of life is so narrow that we really can’t see past the person right in front of us on the insanely long Apple store line. Sometimes the only way we can relate to our lives is to cram them with gadgets or people or distractions that we think will somehow alleviate the underlying sense of off-ness and unease that permeates a lot of our day to day experience. And sometimes we think that if we stick our heads in the sand and just accumulate lots of good stuff and good feelings, we’ll have some solid ground to stand on and everything will be just fine.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting nice things or having pleasant experiences. I’m still getting an iPad once the hysteria dies down and I won’t be expected to stand in line for more than a few minutes. But the events of this past weekend are a good reminder that all things have built within them the seeds of their own demise.

The instant that a new gadget is rolled off the assembly line, the process of deterioration is already at work. The moment we’re born, our bodies are already beginning the process of aging and death. This goes for houses and buildings and towns and cities and this whole planet. Realizing this doesn’t have to be discouraging or depressing--rather it can help us appreciate what we have when we have it and to see how precious and tenuous our lives are.

This world we live in is constantly offering us the opportunity to understand and witness the reality of impermanence, but somehow our natural inclination is to deny this and distract ourselves until we’re completely disengaged from our own lives and the true nature of things.

While many people in this country are waiting on long lines to get an iPad, thousands in Japan are waiting on line for the bare essentials like food and water. Let’s be mindful of that and not squander our lives.

Please continue to offer tonglen practice to everyone affected by this tragedy.

Releasing the Cows (as told by Thich Nhat Hanh)

One day the Buddha was sitting in the wood with thirty or forty monks. They had an excellent lunch and they were enjoying the company of each other. There was a farmer passing by and the farmer was very unhappy. He asked the Buddha and the monks whether they had seen his cows passing by. The Buddha said they had not seen any cows passing by.

The farmer said, "Monks, I'm so unhappy. I have twelve cows and I don't know why they all ran away. I have also a few acres of a sesame seed plantation and the insects have eaten up everything. I suffer so much I think I am going to kill myself.

The Buddha said, "My friend, we have not seen any cows passing by here. You might like to look for them in the other direction."

So the farmer thanked him and ran away, and the Buddha turned to his monks and said, "My dear friends, you are the happiest people in the world. You don't have any cows to lose. If you have too many cows to take care of, you will be very busy.

"That is why, in order to be happy, you have to learn the art of cow releasing (laughter). You release the cows one by one. In the beginning you thought that those cows were essential to your happiness, and you tried to get more and more cows. But now you realize that cows are not really conditions for your happiness; they constitute an obstacle for your happiness. That is why you are determined to release your cows."

The Fashion of Compassion: Why it's a Mistake to Rate Human Suffering

I often wonder if it’s possible that a wealthy housewife on the Upper East Side might be suffering just as much as the homeless man sleeping on the corner of her condo building. She may not be starving or forced to sleep in the cold, but if there was such a thing as a richter scale for human anguish, perhaps she’d rank pretty high even though outwardly it appears that she has everything she wants and needs. Someone like her could easily be overlooked because our pity buttons don’t get pushed easily enough when we look at her due to our own assumptions and biases. After all, how hard can her life be if she can afford that Chanel suit?

A huge part of our practice as Buddhists (I hope) is offering service to others in order to help alleviate their pain. So it’s very tempting to get caught up in what appears to be the most severe forms of suffering while the more subtle ones go by unnoticed and therefore ignored.

Some situations are clearly more pressing than others. People lacking the bare essentials like food, water, clothing and shelter trump all others in my book. But it’s a mistake to be fooled by external appearances and to limit ourselves to those causes or populations that everyone else seems to be flocking to at the moment, or to those forms of service that appeal to our glamorized version of what a good modern day Buddhist ought to be doing.

Compassion shouldn’t devolve into a fashion statement or trend.

It’s important to be candid with ourselves and to explore if we do what we do because we truly want to help others, or is it that we’re engaging in a form of self aggrandizement that masquerades as compassion?

I speak from experience. I’ve dabbled in what is now a very popular form of service in current Western Buddhist culture, and on more than one occasion I caught myself feeling very proud and pleased with myself when discussing the work with others. I’d even get off on the amazed and impressed look on people’s faces after they heard about what I was doing. It really pumped me up. But when I was honest with myself, I realized I wasn’t so great at that particular form of service, and knowing that had an impact on the quality of care I was able to provide. So I switched to something that was a lot less glamorous but much more appropriate for me and what I had to offer based on where I was at in my life at the time.

I’m not proposing that people engaged in the more popular forms of service are doing so for the wrong reasons, because in the end it all comes down to our own individual intentions. And no one else can accurately judge what motivates another person but that person alone. But I think it’s useful to consider how we can best serve others and do whatever it is that we’re uniquely equipped to do best without feeling pressured to be involved in a form of service that might be more popular or showy. There are many ways to be of service, no matter how great or small they might seem.

There are countless opportunities to help people whether we’re in a hospice or a subway, on a street retreat or at Saks Fifth Avenue. We can always help others regardless of how mild or dire their situation appears.

Four Splendors

There are, O monks, these four splendors. What four? The splendor of the moon, the splendor of the sun, the splendor of fire and the splendor of wisdom. Of these four splendors, this is the best: the splendor of wisdom.

There are, O monks, these four radiances...these four lights...these four lustres...these four sources of illumination. Of these four sources of illumination, this is the best: illumination by wisdom.

(IV, 141-145)

From the Anguttara Nikaya