Buddhism and Belief

[Jundo]

It's very important to me, for whatever reason, to treat Buddhism as a non-religious secular practice. Our leaders are "teachers" and not "priests" (sorry). We have "sanghas" and not "congregations". There is "practice" and not "liturgy". I know it's all just semantics that don't really matter when you know what is truly being talked about, but these are terms that have very specific meanings in general society. Most of the people I have ever known, who would benefit the most from Buddhist practice, would never show a single sign of interest if they thought it was definitely, beyond any doubt, a religion.

As my father from the Bronx used to say, " Call me anything ya want, but don't call me later for dinner!" :-)

Nishijima used to waver between calling Buddhism a "philosophy" or "religion," and finally decided it did not matter much. He defined anything (even communism or atheism) as " religion," which he definded generally as any belief system that informs who you think we are in the universe, which belief system you then proceed to act from.

A religion has very specific characteristics: belief in supernatural beings, rules which must be followed unquestioningly, punishments for going against those rules, and rituals which must be performed to appease or communicate with supernatural beings. A more nuanced and open definition of religion is, frankly, not what anyone I've ever met would think of first. It is simply unhelpful to associate Buddhism with these things.

Basically this is me too. However, i do say that Zen practice does provide some not always obvious insights into our relationship to the rest of reality (spoiler alert: not two), and keeps an open mind that there may be aspects of reality that, as Hamlet said, we have not yet "dreamt of in our philosophy, Horatio" However, i am pretty skeptical of most wild claims that seem to defy the evidence and laws of physics. Now, i will note that even atheists have come to appreciate the value of some rituals, songs and ceremonies, and that everyone loves a wedding or graduation, although i do not do them to appease any spirits except those in my own heart.

Gassho, Jundo

SatTodayLAH

[Byrne]

No matter who you are you believe things that aren’t true. Maybe some will be revealed to you and others you’ll take to your grave.

Recently I’ve been listening to a series of lectures on the history of Christianity in the US by an evangelical scholar. One might assume that his faith would create a problematic bias, but in many ways it has been the opposite. Since he so fervently believes in the inherent value and truth in Christianity in a deeply personal way he is actually quite transparent about the information he presents. Including things that may call his own faith into question. Since he is sincere he is willing to personally confront his own bias and openly present information that others may interpret quite differently. I admire that even if I may not agree with some of his conclusions. One of my favorite things about Treeleaf is how Jundo presents the history of Buddhism in a similar way.

On the other side of “faith” there is doubt. When we sit zazen we won’t benefit very much unless our doubts concerning the practice are settled. Without honestly confronting our doubts in some shape or form we fall into the trap of blind faith. Without doubts to mill through I’m not certain anyone can truly have “faith” (or deep entrusting) in anything. We uncover our doubts within ourselves and with the help of teachers we can settle them. Without confronting doubts I don’t think any sort of “faith” can be helpful.

The incredible diversity that is Buddhism is equally accessible to the superstitious and the scientific mind. Whether we identify as a secularist or a spiritualist or even a Buddhist is unimportant IMHO. Our perceived identity is not what the Buddharma is meant to enhance. If anything Buddhism teaches us a way to liberate ourselves from the suffering that comes with those temporary identities.

People of the future will most likely look back at us and think we were pretty naive. Bless our first world scientific rational hearts. At least we can always return our focus to the breath when distracting thoughts become a problem.

Gassho

Sat Today

[Tai Do]

I’ve been trying not to get involved in this discussion, as I professionally studied Philosophy and many of this questions are the same that philosophers of religion (not to be confused with theologians), political philosophers and epistemologists have been debating for more than two and a half thousand years. But I decided to give a little contribution here.

So I can never be certain that my understanding of the world is really based on objective facts. In the end I have to chose what I take for facts and what I attribute to wishful thinking. That choice is what one might call "belief".

I think this is basically the consensus in the philosophical study of knowledge today. With the little observation that knowledge/understanding is not really opposed to belief. It is indeed a kind of belief, a belief that is founded and justified rationally (like Mathematics) or empirically (like Biology) or both (like Physics). Depending on how one defines belief, it really is impossible not to have them, unless one completely stops thinking in terms of true and false. It’s what the Greek skeptics did: to live only by appearances and giving up all pursue of knowledge and truth.

A religion has very specific characteristics: belief in supernatural beings, rules which must be followed unquestioningly, punishments for going against those rules, and rituals which must be performed to appease or communicate with supernatural beings. A more nuanced and open definition of religion is, frankly, not what anyone I've ever met would think of first. It is simply unhelpful to associate Buddhism with these things.

I understand your point here and I know it’s a predominant view in the West, for both “believers” and atheists, but I think this is a very western-centric definition of religion that many western philosophers themselves nowadays reject. It basically defines religion using Christianity as the paradigm of a religion and judging every other system of beliefs and practices in terms of proximity to Christianity.

Even hardcore western philosophers like Rousseau viewed patriotism as a religion, a civic religion in this case (not a supernatural one). Even some catholic theologians speak of natural religion as basic systems of belief and practice that are not dependent on supernatural revelation. And I know philosophers of law, like John Gardner, who view faith as a basic requirement for the very existence of a legal system.

I think it’s very reductionist to think of religion only in terms of supernatural. I prefer Nishijima Roshi’s definition of religion. At least for me, Soto Zen Buddhism is my religion, even if I don’t believe in supernatural beings: it is a system of beliefs (based on experience, reason and also faith) that serve as a basis for a practice (that in itself suports the belief system).

Indeed, even when I was a Christian, I understood God, Christ and Heaven as metaphors, not literal supernatural beings. Eternal life, for exemple, I used to saw (and continue to do so even now) as a metaphor for living in the present. My inspiration for this was this quote by Wittgenstein:

If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.
Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus)

I think Byrne is right:

On the other side of “faith” there is doubt.

The difference between knowledge and faith, both different kinds of beliefs, is that faith requires doubt while knowledge is incompatible with doubt. Faith is like a bet, if we know something is true, than there is no space for faith. It doesn’t require anything supernatural.

I hope the Sangha doesn’t take these remarks as pedantic arrogance. Believe me, it is not. I just am very timid in person and the online nature of our discussions here give me a space to express my views. Of course, they are only views and in no way I expect to be true in everything I believe and say.

Thank you all for this opportunity of debating really interesting and personally important matters.

Gassho,
Mateus
Sat today/LAH

[Getchi]

Im just reminded of a quote HH Gyatso DalaiLAma gave;

"Peace is not the abscence of War, but rather the functioning of Human Copassion".

The older I get, the more I realise that simply dropping these handfuls of dust is not peace, understanding dust is a fact of life has worked much better so far. As a side note, the RedQueen is the only one to tell the truth in Alice, Alice had all the answers and asked the wrong questions.

Also Jundo, love the spoiler alert!!

LaH
SatToday.


Jundo - I was told a story that Avalakotisvara sees with her hands and helps with her eyes, and that sages and boddhisatvas do too. Does it mean that the "acts"(hands) we see as a result of compassion are her manifestation (like reaching for our pillow in the dark) and that her "eyes" are actually the tug of our own heartstrings and the start of that manifestation? I have thought a lot about "appearance and non-appearance".

Im also sorry to anyone I dont engage with properly, frankly humans are the greatest jewels on Earth and the scariest thing ive ever met under heaven

[Byrne]

If we don’t believe that the Four Noble Truths are actually true we won’t get much out of Buddhism.

For myself when I came to the conclusion that the Buddha was correct on these the Dharma became truly precious to me.

Gassho

Sat Today

[Kyoshin]

If we don’t believe that the Four Noble Truths are actually true we won’t get much out of Buddhism.

For myself when I came to the conclusion that the Buddha was correct on these the Dharma became truly precious to me.

Gassho

Sat Today

When I first opened this can of worms, I wasn't so much thinking about things like the 4 Noble truths, the 8 fold path, zazen practice, etc. You're not wrong about that, if you reject those things and still try to call yourself a Buddhist you're probably on shaky ground. But those are things that are testable and verifiable; maybe not objectively measurable, but you can test out applying them to your life and determine for yourself if they are helpful, and in fact the Buddha encouraged his followers to do just that.

I was thinking more about the people who shouted me down saying that I'm not a real Buddhist because I don't think that the accounts of, say, the Buddha levitating and shooting fireballs out of his butt, or that the tales of the Hindu gods that he referenced in his teachings are literal historical truth. Which is not to say that those fantastical stories aren't valuable, or even that they aren't "true." I think that one of the counterintuitive effects of the western materialistic worldview is that it has produced some exceptionally wacky beliefs because people can't imagine other ways for a fantastic story being "true."

My personal experience of Christianity in the United States is that in general people seem to prioritize the enforcement of correct assent to absolutely literal belief in the historicity of the gospels and a checklist of metaphysical claims about who Jesus was. Perfectly following the actual teachings of Jesus was good and all, but if you let on that you have some doubt that a dude rose from the dead, you're still burning in eternal hellfire. That attitude was not something I had encountered in Buddhism before, and I found it jarring. How on Earth is belief in Levitating Buddha, or a laundry list of Hindu gods that, if real, I wouldn't encounter until my next incarnation at the earliest, more important than putting the precepts into action here and now?

Though I doubt the literal historicity of the fantastic mythological stories, I would imagine that I'm actually one of the more "woo-woo" minded people here, so I don't want to sound like I'm denigrating anyone's beliefs. I'm firmly commiting to accepting whatever people need to do or believe to make it through their day, provided they aren't harming themselves or others. Conversely I get a bit cranky when people try to enforce their own beliefs on others.

Gassho
Kyōshin
Satlah

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[Shinshou]

A religion has very specific characteristics: belief in supernatural beings, rules which must be followed unquestioningly, punishments for going against those rules, and rituals which must be performed to appease or communicate with supernatural beings. A more nuanced and open definition of religion is, frankly, not what anyone I've ever met would think of first. It is simply unhelpful to associate Buddhism with these things.

I also don't think "belief" and "faith" are very useful words in Buddhist practice. My definition of "dharma" has changed over time from being "wisdom" to the more literal translation of "law". It feels like gravity: something that's happening whether we believe in it or not, whether we understand it or not. It's not something I think you can have "faith" or "belief" in. Maybe I'm wrong here though, am I just being dogmatic?

Gassho,
Kenny
Sat Today

It may be unhelpful for you to associate Buddhism with these things, but for someone else, it may be essential. One never knows.

I also think your description of dharma as something that is true whether we believe it or not, is law, and therefore doesn't require belief or faith, is very close to my view, but lends itself to a destruction of the beginner's mind, and does border on dogmatism, which is what many of us were trying to escape bu coming to Zen in the first place.

Shinshou (Dan)
Sat Today

[Meian]

I actually worked with three people who fall into this category back when I lived in the States, each one practicing the respective faiths to varying degrees.
#sattoday

I'm a member of three synagogues that incorporate Buddhist practices (meditation, dharma teachings) into their services and davening. I have a few rabbi friends who do this also. I don't think this has reached mainstream Judaism yet, however (like Conservative, Reform), although it is gaining traction in Reconstructionist (my branch). The trend in unaffiliated Jews and post-denominationalism seems to be a growing movement including meditation.

gassho
kim
st lh

[Nanrin]

I’ve been trying not to get involved in this discussion, as I professionally studied Philosophy and many of this questions are the same that philosophers of religion (not to be confused with theologians), political philosophers and epistemologists have been debating for more than two and a half thousand years. But I decided to give a little contribution here.



I think this is basically the consensus in the philosophical study of knowledge today. With the little observation that knowledge/understanding is not really opposed to belief. It is indeed a kind of belief, a belief that is founded and justified rationally (like Mathematics) or empirically (like Biology) or both (like Physics). Depending on how one defines belief, it really is impossible not to have them, unless one completely stops thinking in terms of true and false. It’s what the Greek skeptics did: to live only by appearances and giving up all pursue of knowledge and truth.



I understand your point here and I know it’s a predominant view in the West, for both “believers” and atheists, but I think this is a very western-centric definition of religion that many western philosophers themselves nowadays reject. It basically defines religion using Christianity as the paradigm of a religion and judging every other system of beliefs and practices in terms of proximity to Christianity.

Even hardcore western philosophers like Rousseau viewed patriotism as a religion, a civic religion in this case (not a supernatural one). Even some catholic theologians speak of natural religion as basic systems of belief and practice that are not dependent on supernatural revelation. And I know philosophers of law, like John Gardner, who view faith as a basic requirement for the very existence of a legal system.

I think it’s very reductionist to think of religion only in terms of supernatural. I prefer Nishijima Roshi’s definition of religion. At least for me, Soto Zen Buddhism is my religion, even if I don’t believe in supernatural beings: it is a system of beliefs (based on experience, reason and also faith) that serve as a basis for a practice (that in itself suports the belief system).

Indeed, even when I was a Christian, I understood God, Christ and Heaven as metaphors, not literal supernatural beings. Eternal life, for exemple, I used to saw (and continue to do so even now) as a metaphor for living in the present. My inspiration for this was this quote by Wittgenstein:



I think Byrne is right:



The difference between knowledge and faith, both different kinds of beliefs, is that faith requires doubt while knowledge is incompatible with doubt. Faith is like a bet, if we know something is true, than there is no space for faith. It doesn’t require anything supernatural.

I hope the Sangha doesn’t take these remarks as pedantic arrogance. Believe me, it is not. I just am very timid in person and the online nature of our discussions here give me a space to express my views. Of course, they are only views and in no way I expect to be true in everything I believe and say.

Thank you all for this opportunity of debating really interesting and personally important matters.

Gassho,
Mateus
Sat today/LAH

I’ve been trying not to get involved in this discussion, as I professionally studied Philosophy and many of this questions are the same that philosophers of religion (not to be confused with theologians), political philosophers and epistemologists have been debating for more than two and a half thousand years. But I decided to give a little contribution here.



I think this is basically the consensus in the philosophical study of knowledge today. With the little observation that knowledge/understanding is not really opposed to belief. It is indeed a kind of belief, a belief that is founded and justified rationally (like Mathematics) or empirically (like Biology) or both (like Physics). Depending on how one defines belief, it really is impossible not to have them, unless one completely stops thinking in terms of true and false. It’s what the Greek skeptics did: to live only by appearances and giving up all pursue of knowledge and truth.



I understand your point here and I know it’s a predominant view in the West, for both “believers” and atheists, but I think this is a very western-centric definition of religion that many western philosophers themselves nowadays reject. It basically defines religion using Christianity as the paradigm of a religion and judging every other system of beliefs and practices in terms of proximity to Christianity.

Even hardcore western philosophers like Rousseau viewed patriotism as a religion, a civic religion in this case (not a supernatural one). Even some catholic theologians speak of natural religion as basic systems of belief and practice that are not dependent on supernatural revelation. And I know philosophers of law, like John Gardner, who view faith as a basic requirement for the very existence of a legal system.

I think it’s very reductionist to think of religion only in terms of supernatural. I prefer Nishijima Roshi’s definition of religion. At least for me, Soto Zen Buddhism is my religion, even if I don’t believe in supernatural beings: it is a system of beliefs (based on experience, reason and also faith) that serve as a basis for a practice (that in itself suports the belief system).

Indeed, even when I was a Christian, I understood God, Christ and Heaven as metaphors, not literal supernatural beings. Eternal life, for exemple, I used to saw (and continue to do so even now) as a metaphor for living in the present. My inspiration for this was this quote by Wittgenstein:



I think Byrne is right:



The difference between knowledge and faith, both different kinds of beliefs, is that faith requires doubt while knowledge is incompatible with doubt. Faith is like a bet, if we know something is true, than there is no space for faith. It doesn’t require anything supernatural.

I hope the Sangha doesn’t take these remarks as pedantic arrogance. Believe me, it is not. I just am very timid in person and the online nature of our discussions here give me a space to express my views. Of course, they are only views and in no way I expect to be true in everything I believe and say.

Thank you all for this opportunity of debating really interesting and personally important matters.

Gassho,
Mateus
Sat today/LAH

Well said! Thank you for taking the time to write out your thoughts. I agree that Buddhism, even without the more "superstitious" elements is a religion.

Gassho,

Nanrin

St

[Shinshou]

I'd also point out that a "religion" can simply be something that one gives importance ("environmentalism is the new religion"), and when we describe ourselves as doing something "religiously," we mean with regularity and dedication. No belief or supernatural aspects needed.

Shinshou (Dan)
Sat Today

[Kyoshin]

Joseph Campbell has pointed out that religions often start out not being "supernatural" at all. In fact for a religion and its mythology to be effective in people's minds, according to him, it must take into account and deal with the most up to date scientific understanding of the world. For example, at one time, astrology was cutting edge science, so religions that incorporated it were not necessarily doing so to embrace the supernatural, but rather deal with the mundane. Over time, as our understanding of the world changes, the beliefs of the religion either change more slowly or resist change altogether. Religions become more and more "supernatural" as the beliefs diverge with scientific understanding over time.

Disclaimer: I'm probably butchering poor Joe's theories. This came from an interview I saw years ago that I'm probably not remembering with 100% accuracy.

Gassho
Kyōshin
Satlah

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