The Pali word saddha (Sanskrit sraddha) implies faith, reliance, and trust — “to place the heart upon.” The root word is srath, meaning “to loosen, yield, disarm.”
“Sadhu!” is a traditional exclamation expressing appreciation and agreement: “It is well!“
“[G]oing for refuge… should be a conscious act, not the mere profession of a theoretical belief, still less the habitual rite of traditional piety. The protecting refuge exists, but we have to go to it by our own effort. It will not come to us by itself, while we stay put. The Buddha, as He repeatedly declared, is only the teacher, “pointing out the Way.” [G]oing for refuge… is a conscious act of will and determination, directed towards the goal of liberation. Hereby the conception of faith as a mere passive waiting for “saving grace” is rejected. … [G]oing for refuge is meant to convey… the idea of “knowing” and “understanding.” [It is] a conscious act of understanding. Hereby unthinking credulity and blind faith based on external authority are rejected. It is a threefold knowledge that is, or should be, implied in the act of going for refuge. It is a knowledge answering the following questions: Is this world of ours really such a place of danger and misery that there is a need for taking refuge? Does such a refuge actually exist? And what is its nature?” (Nyanaponika Thera, The Threefold Refuge, The Wheel No. 76)
Buddhist faith is conviction with several dimensions:
“Trust in the ability of wise people to know the ideal path of practice, belief in their teachings, and a willingness to put those teachings into practice.” (Thanissario Bhikkhu, The Wings of Awakening, p. 137).
Faith as conviction grows with personal experience, as opposed to blind faith or superstition that is not based on understanding or experience. Only when one’s understanding and knowledge is complete (when one becomes an arhant) does faith become unnecessary. See the Eastern Gatehouse (Pubbakotthaka) Sutta.
“Beliefs are ways of interpreting and understanding experience that conform to preestablished patterns of perception. As such, they are used to justify conditioned behavior. Faith, however, is the willingness to open to the mystery of being, to meet whatever arises in experience… to see and know things as they are, not as we would like them to be. Belief is the effort to eliminate the mystery by interpreting experience to accord with what is already conditioned within us.” (Ken McLeod, Wake Up To Your Life, p. 77, 132-133).
Three kinds of faith in the Theravada tradition
Bright faith: to draw near, to open up, to be inspired by someone’s qualities.
Trusting faith: the confidence born of personal knowledge and understanding.
Unshakeable faith: deep patience and openness; trust in one’s own experience.
Confidence in the Buddha that gives one the willingness to put his teachings into practice. Conviction becomes unshakeable upon the attainment of stream-entry.
Three kinds of faith in the Mahayana tradition
Trusting faith (Tibetan yiché pé dépa): rational confidence based on personal experience with the teachings. The confidence that arises from checking out the teachings and testing them against your own intelligence and your own experience, and accepting something as true, such as the truth of karma: that happiness arises from wholesome acts, while suffering arises from unwholesome acts. The teachings make sense and are worth practicing.
Longing faith (Tibetan döpé dépa): heartfelt longing to escape suffering and eagerness for freedom. Wishing to be liberated from suffering, one is willing to follow the path of awakening.
Clear faith (Tibetan dangwé dépa): clear open inspiration that develops into devotion and trust in the three jewels, and ultimately in one’s own experience. It doesn’t depend on things making sense or on being in a state of emotional inspiration. This “clear open appreciation” just arises when the teachings have been internalized. You’re not opening to the teacher or the teachings, but to your own experience.
“The practitioner who has the greatest yearning devotion receives the greatest blessing. Even though rain falls evenly over the land, it is only where perfect seeds are properly cultivated and ready to sprout that a plant grows.” (Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche)
Descriptions of how meditation practice works on the conceptual level may give us the confidence to proceed with the practice. Confidence is the first level of faith.
The second level of faith is more emotional than mental. There is a longing for stability, clarity, knowing, effective action, integration, happiness, peace — we just naturally want these, enough so that we are willing to exert some effort and endure discomfort in order to have a more genuine happiness and peace. The thinking mind can’t completely understand how kindness and compassion and joy and equanimity work, but we sense their power and value, and emotionally we are willing to cultivate them.
The third level of faith is beyond the mental and emotional — not beyond, but bigger. This deepest faith is a clarity, in the midst of experience, that allows us to open and respond without explanation, without debate, almost without personal or willful effort. Experience both pleasant and unpleasant just flows, and we just respond. Everyone has had this experience, but depending on the circumstances, we may not have much confidence in or access to it. We’re back to finding the confidence to start practicing, and the willingness to actually do it and experience what comes.
Every practice is challenging; even resting in the breathing body can be difficult and tricky. But faith is utterly mysterious. Faith goes well beyond our conscious mental and emotional understanding and control. Faith begins with mental confidence and emotional willingness, and blossoms from there.
May all beings have confidence in their knowing and abilities.
May they be willing to meet every challenge with an open heart.
May they live in open clarity without bounds.
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There are lots of teachings on faith in the Theravada, Tibetan, Zen, and Pure Land traditions, but the teachings are scattered, and difficult to make sense of outside the context of the particular tradition and culture. So I’ll resist my proclivity to go scholastic, and just suggest two books: Sharon Salzberg’s Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience, and Jean-Pierre de Caussade’s The Joy of Full Surrender. They are coming from very different traditions (de Caussade was a French Jesuit priest!) but both point out how mature faith doesn’t rely on an object, a thought, or an emotion.
Here’s an exercise you could try:
1. What do you have rational confidence in — you’ve examined it, tested it, and found it reliable? Name some things, activities, abilities, or knowings that you have confidence in.
2. What are you inspired by and long for? Maybe your faith is not rational in the sense that you’ve seen proof of it working, but you feel something deep that moves you, and you have some faith that it’s good and must in some sense be possible to cultivate and experience. Name what you’re inspired by and what you long for.
3. And what allows you to open to experience, no matter your mood or what your mind is telling you? You do keep opening to your experience, and responding in ways that tend, in the long run, toward balance and freedom. What allows that? It’s going to be difficult to name, because it’s not an it, but even when we don’t recognize it, it supports us and makes all things possible.
We might insist on a particular object of faith, make demands of it (or them), and then if (when) it (they) disappoint, turn away in bitterness, assuming that faith is foolish and nothing is worth relying on. I’d say at that point one still has faith — in bitterness and cynicism. Some objects of faith are clearly more reliable than others. But any “thing” we identify, solidify, and fixate on is ultimately a misperception and eventually a disappointment. Better to let confidence and faith change, evolve, deepen, and become more and more genuine and subtle, until there’s no object being grasped at all — just inherent, indestructible awareness and response.
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Faith in Zen: great faith, great doubt, great effort.
Faith as a spiritual power: Faith is the first of the five spiritual powers or faculties: faith gives rise to energy, which gives rise to mindfulness, which gives rise to samadhi, which gives rise to wisdom.
Faith as a condition of happiness: “Faith in the possibility of awakening is one of four virtues conducive to happiness: faith, ethical behavior, generosity, and wisdom.” (Vyagghapajja Sutta: Conditions of Welfare)
Faith in action: “What is faith if it is not translated into action?” (Mohandas Gandhi)
Faith & knowing reality: “It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lievs that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for acting.” (Simone de Beauvior)
“Faith is when you know something is true, whether you believe it or not.” (Flannery O’Conner)
Readings
de Caussade, Jean-Pierre. The Joy of Full Surrender.
Dhammapala, Gatare. 1984. Towards the Definition of Saddhā and Bhakti. Buddhist Studies in Honour of Hammalava Saddhatissa. Sri Lanka.
Hibbets, Maria. 2000. The Ethics of Esteem. The Journal of Buddhist Ethics, Volume 7.
Saddhatissa, H. 1978. The Saddhā Concept in Buddhism. The Eastern Buddhist. XI.2:137–142.
Salzberg, Sharon. Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience.