Author Claude M. Bristol, The Magic of Believing (1948); audio and video via Inner Being (YouTube, 4/6/16); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ashley Wells (eds.) Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit
The Secret Knowledge of Believing
The best way to understand the subconscious mind is to look at the example of the person who wants to learn how to drive a car.
In the beginning one would be unable to hold a conversation with anyone while driving as one is focusing on the different moves involved. That's because one is still using the conscious mind to drive.
Programming our subconscious can be done through hypnosis. The subconscious mind learns by repetition and not by logic. This is why we can convince someone to believe in something by repeating our argument again and again rather than using logic.
For more information on this topic, see the guide to the psychology of convincing.
- In the Kalama Sutra (and the Bhaddhiya Sutra), the Buddha advises us not to "believe" things on mere faith
"Faith" in Buddhism
This confidence is placed in enlightened beings, such as buddhas, arhats, aryas ("noble ones," beings of the various grades of enlightenment), and bodhisattvas (those bent on becoming one of the three kinds of buddhas: supremely enlightened, silent, or personal).
Buddhists usually recognize multiple objects of faith, but many are especially devoted to one in particular, such as one particular Buddha.
In Theravada Buddhism, this is the historical Buddha Siddhartha Gautama also known as Shakyamuni (the Sage of the Scythians).
In Mahayana, this is just about anyone else, but most often the ahistorical Amitabha Buddha.
Faith may not manifest only as devotion to a person, but it exists as confidence in the truth of Buddhist concepts like the efficacy of karma or the possibility of gaining enlightenment in this very life.
Faith in early Buddhism focuses on the Three Treasures or "Triple Gem" of:
- The Buddha (enlightened Teacher of enlightenment)
- The Dharma (the Teaching leading to enlightenment)
- The Sangha (the enlightened Taught, the community of noble disciples, i.e., anyone who has attained to one of the stages beginning with stream entry up to arhatship)
Truth be told, most monastics today have not likely attained any of the stages of awakening or even the mundane "eight attainments," the eight jhanas (zens, dhyana, meditative absorptions).
So when faithful Buddhists make offerings (dana) to the Sangha, it is not really to benefit an individual monk or nun but the robe as representative of all the Monastic Community, in particular the Noble Sangha, comprised of many more lay practitioners than monastics.
- Most Buddhists seem to have no idea that this is the case, but a little reflection shows how the real treasure or gem in the world is not just someone donning a robe but actually following the Buddha's advice on how to practice, have practiced, and having realized directly for oneself the efficacy of this Teaching (Dharma) and the worth of the person who taught it, which is to the say the historical Buddha.
A faithful Buddhist devotee is called an upāsaka or upāsika, a status for which no formal initiation is required. Early Buddhism values personal verification of the Truth as the highest thing and the most important component of attaining such truth. It considers authentic sutras as sacred words of the historical Buddha. Therefore, faith or reason in a teacher is a less valuable source of authority.
As important as faith is in Buddhism, it is merely the first step on the path to wisdom and enlightenment. It allows one to take the leap, to commit, to undertake the practice before it makes intellectual sense. Faith is made obsolete at the final stage of the path; one is beyond teachers as one has come to know directly for oneself and there is no need to rely on faith anymore.
Early Buddhism did not morally condemn peaceful offerings to deities (while it does actively condemn animal sacrifice praised by Abrahamic faiths and some Hindu traditions).
Throughout the history of Buddhism, the worship of deities (devas), often from pre-Buddhist and animist origins, was appropriated and transformed into Buddhist practices and beliefs.
As part of this process, such deities were explained as subordinate to the Triple Gem, which kept a central role.
In the later stratum of Buddhist history, particularly in Mahāyāna Buddhism, faith is given a much more important role.
Mahāyāna introduced devotion to countless buddhas and bodhisattvas (the way Hinduism has countless gods) residing elsewhere in space and with the rise of devotion to Amithaba Buddha in Pure Land Buddhism. This is when faith gained a central role in popular Buddhism, faith over practice or practicing devotion (Hindu bhakti) as if it were in itself a path to liberation.
The Japanese form of Pure Land Buddhism, under the teachers Hōnen and Shinran, believed that only entrusting faith toward Amitābha Buddha was a fruitful form of practice, as it dismissed celibacy, meditation, and other actual practices as no longer effective, or as contradicting the virtue of faith.
Pure Land Buddhists redefined faith as a state similar to enlightenment, with a sense of self-negation and humility.
Mahayana sutras (which are apocryphal and the utterances of the historical Buddha), such as the Lotus Sutra, have become objects of worship, and their recitation and copying is believed to create great merit, whereas Theravada Buddhism teaches that great merit comes from sila, dana, bhavana or "virtue, letting go, and meditation." More
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