Changsha had a monk ask Master Hui, “What about before you saw Nanquan?” Hui sat still for a little while. “What about after seeing him?” “Nothing special.” The monk returned and told Changsha this. Changsha said: “The enlightened person sits on the top of a hundred-foot pole; She has entered the way but is not yet genuine. She must take a step from the top of the pole, And worlds in the ten directions will be her complete body.” The monk asked, “How shall I step from the top of a hundred-foot pole?” “Mountains of Lang; waters of Li.” “I don’t understand.” “Four seas and five lakes are all under the reign of the monarch.”
The Book of Serenity, Case 79
(translated by Joan Sutherland & John Tarrant)
Faith.
I’ve mentioned some of the listservs to which I belong on occasion. One I’ve belonged to since its inception is the Unitarian Universalist Buddhist Fellowship list. It has gone through various incarnations over the years. Never heavy traffic, more episodic, lying fallow for considerable time, then bursts of energy. It has had its share of trolls and other fantastic creatures for various periods of time, but on balance has tended to self-regulate rather well, and for the most part I’ve been glad to be part of the “community,” if mostly as a lurker.
I’m particularly impressed with the current roster of contributers which now numbers a couple of scholars who contribute regularly enough to help keep it on track, as well as enthusiasts standing in various disciplines or none. Each, I feel, has something to offer, and frequently does…
A recent thread has addressed the issue of faith, and particularly faith within Buddhism.
Faith.
That thread immediately fired off a memory of my asking Jiyu Kennett Roshi, oh, maybe a hundred years ago, just exactly how much faith did I have to have to become a Zen student? As I had already been sitting for a year or two, I’m not sure what my motive was. Maybe I was asking how much faith I needed to continue? I’m sure the three or so times Jesus rebuked his followers with the words “oh ye of little faith,” couldn’t have been far from my mind…
She suggested to practice Zen one probably needed to believe there was a reasonable chance it would be better than not practicing Zen.
I was relieved as that level of faith only stretched my credulity a bit…
As the contributors to the UUBF list are either Unitarian Universalists or people who like to hang out with Unitarian Universalists, first everyone had to argue over how to define the word faith. For at least one contributor the word has been so contaminated by the way it seems most Christians use the word, that is to stand for belief in something in spite of a lack of convincing evidence, that it should have no place in Buddhist thought, conservative or liberal.
I personally would demure here. It was at a Christian seminary that I was schooled to use the word “belief” for that “ability to believe what you know ain’t so.” (Thank you Dayamati, for reminding me of that line…) and that faith should be seen as confidence or trust and also that this faith was dynamic, a verb, as it were: so, faith really is faithing… Engage, reflect, re-engage. For me Christian faith at its best is that, not the mental gymnastic that always leads me to wonder how orthodox Christians often think we religious liberals are the ones who believe anything we want…
And it probably is something like that same dynamic sense that led many translators to use “faith” for the Buddhist term shraddha, which is usually understood to mean confidence or trust.
Faith.
Then Jeff Wilson, a very, very interesting scholar of Buddhism and Unitarian Universalism and their contemporary encounters, added his own point.
“Virtually all Buddhists throughout history and the vast majority of those Buddhists living today undertook Buddhism as a system of faith, believing in multiple supernatural helping beings, invisible forces such as karma, the efficacy of prayer, life after death (and before birth!), magical powers, the sacredness of scripture, and putting their trust for their own salvation from suffering in the truth statements and attendant practices of Buddhism as a ecclesiastical and religious institution. This is true for Buddhists in all sects throughout every culture and time period in Asia. Clearly, faith is an integral part of ‘Buddhism.'”
Which would suggest Buddhists have both kinds of faith as do Christians. (And how many others? I suggest the list is long…)
Then Jeff adds, “But if your question is whether this particular tiny minority of post-Enlightenment, Western, English-speaking Unitarian-Universalist convert Buddhists value faith in their approach to Buddhism, that is still an open question, whose answers I’d be interested to learn from.”
My people! Me, too…
And, oh my, faith.
Which brings me back ’round to the koan I cited at the top of this reflection. Chosha was one of that herd of rare creatures nurtured by Nanquan, a dragon with a poisoned bite, it there ever were one. A hero as well as an ancestor…
Here he led the inquirer down a rosy path, pushing him to speak of his state before and after awakening.
And if anything pivots on that magic word faith, it has to be such a moment in our lives when we step away from our preconceived notions into the boundless realm.
Here belief must be cast away as the crutch it is, perhaps useful for a time, but not at that moment. The things we were taught as children may well have gotten us here. We can assume so.
But, then, now, what?
Faith?
No, I don’t think so. (Even though ancestors call our way one of great doubt, great faith and great energy…) The next crutch is our critical function. More than a crutch, really. A great gift, really.
But, to find our heart’s longing, after we’ve made our way up that pole, painfully, slowly, then what? After we’ve studied the sacred texts down to the bottom, after we’ve mastered the disciplines of inquiry, and presence, then what?
He tells us “nothing special.”
This is faith.
So wonderful.
But, it turns out, that too, is a crutch. A most refined and lovely place. But if we decide we want to live there, heaven becomes hell. It becomes a crutch sustaining a most refined ego.
So, here Zen pushes us one more step: after our taste of awakening, then what? After we’ve come to let self and other fall away, then what?
After belief falls away?
After faith falls away?
What does it mean to step away from the hundred foot pole?
Isn’t that one more instance of faith? Isn’t that the call of my seminary professors, to engage, then assess, then engage again?
Or, are we going one step farther, out into unexplored space? A place where our whole body is revealed.
Robert Frost had something to say on the subject, it seems.
The tree the tempest with a crash of wood
Throws down in front of us is not bar
Our passage to our journey’s end for good,
But just to ask us who we think we are
Insisting always on our own way so.
She likes to halt us in our runner tracks,
And make us get down in a foot of snow
Debating what to do without an ax.
And yet she knows obstruction is in vain:
We will not be put off the final goal
We have it hidden in us to attain,
Not though we have to seize earth by the pole
And, tired of aimless circling in one place,
Steer straight off after something into space.
Here, perhaps faith, but not mine, not yours.
Just faithing…
Just this…
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