How the Tibetan Buddhist view of faith and emphasis on teacher-student relationships can help us dissolve the differentiation between external and internal, and help us take refuge in our own primordial wisdom.
By Renée Ford
Everything was so normal. And then, in March 2020, it wasn’t. All of a sudden, everyone was dealing with the unknown. In the West, widespread vaccinations are now allowing life to return to something that looks normal, but we still live with uncertainty and the devastation of the hundreds of thousands who have fallen ill or died alone in hospitals. People remain out of work, and our home lives are drastically different after this year-and-a-half of what we thought would be a temporary situation. It can be difficult to rest in this space of uncertainty, where solid ground eludes so many of us.
This is not the first time I have felt lost, though unlike previous difficult periods of uncertainty, this time I had faith in the dharma to guide me. Things fell apart for me when I was 26, as the title of the Pema Chödrön book that helped me through that period put it. After I read it, I was intrigued by the dharma and wanted more. Coming back to my breath, my body, and my experience felt good, and also allowed me moments when I could relax and feel my heartbreak. It was an intuitive process. At the time, I had no way of knowing meditation would become a type of support that allowed me to trust in my emotions, experience, and myself. I just had some interest in it. In a way, I had faith.
FINDING FAITH
But I don’t mean that I had a baseless belief in the Buddha. In Buddhism, faith is not blind. Rather, one develops confidence in the dharma through knowledge of its truth, which may come by way of reasoning, analysis, first-hand experience, or all three.
This natural trajectory in Buddhism is different from many other faith traditions. In Catholicism, for example, the congregation is not expected to have direct communication with God. Instead, the word of God is spoken through a priest. In this example, faith is dependent upon believing something that cannot be known directly.
Tibetan Buddhist faith (depa) however, incorporates both evidence-based faith (like trusting in karma after observing cause and effect) and faith based on the testimony and works of other believers. The Tibetan tradition defines faith as a “vivid and eager mind towards that which is true,” (Rigpa Translations) and distinguishes three types of faith: vivid, eager, and confident.
Vivid, or clarifying, faith is cultivated through direct relationships. One may see a Buddhist shrine or hear a teaching that sparks an attraction and intrigue, which leads to a practitioner committing further on the Buddhist path. The wish to obtain, or eager faith, speaks to one’s actions on the path. It is the point when one turns away from causes of suffering and toward a path of liberation. I experienced this second stage of Buddhist faith after practicing for a few years. There was a distinct moment when I thought about the suffering in the world and realized I needed a change in my life. Wishing for this change eventually leads to confidence, the third type of faith. For example, one may have an interest in the Buddhist teaching that all things are impermanent. That person analyzes, contemplates, and observes whether or not this is true. With enough experience, one comes to know that all things are impermanent. Now, that person has confidence in that teaching. Likewise, based upon past actions and experiences, one can find certainty that the Buddhist path leads toward liberation.
Confidence may also be gained through direct experience of ultimate truth. In A Treasure Trove of Scriptural Transmission: A Commentary on the Precious Treasure of the Basic Space of Phenomena, twelfth-century Tibetan meditation master Longchenpa writes that “unique, unobstructed awareness is revealed in all its nakedness, which is perceived within the scope of one’s individual self-knowing awareness.” This direct experience is not perceived through ordinary mind but through primordial wisdom (ye shes). Additionally within this experience, one has “uncontrived faith, which is the expanse of unchanging space.”
THE TEACHER-STUDENT RELATIONSHIP
There is no end to what one might cultivate faith in or confidence for, and there can be real issues when a person cultivates faith in things without external support or navigation. Sometimes we have a significant experience or make progress on the path, while other times we doubt our ability to achieve buddhahood. For these reasons, it is important to have reliable guidance, which helps us overcome doubts and wrong views, and Buddhism explicitly calls for that very support so that we don’t travel alone…
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//tricycle.org/trikedaily/tibetan-buddhism-faith/
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