[58] The faculty of belief is a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with it] we do not [blindly] follow the words of others. 信根是法明門、不隨他語故。 We continue this time with the section of the text that’s describing the constituent factors of bodhi, or awakening. In early teachings, these were linear steps on an extended path of deepening practice toward reaching nirvana. Now we’re starting on the five faculties that lead to liberation. Each of these faculties isn’t really new—we’ve talked about them before—but one thing that’s important here is how they fit together with each other and with other teachings. The early teachings say that if a bodhisattva acquires these five faculties, he or she will be able to believe in the true nature of dharmas. Each of these five leads to the next: belief or faith leads to energy => mindfulness => concentration => wisdom. This should seem familiar; it’s the samadhi section of the eightfold path: right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. We’re starting here with the faculty of belief, also translated as faith or conviction. The theme that runs through teachings about faith or belief from the Buddha right through Uchiyama Roshi is that it’s difficult for deluded human beings to see what Buddha saw, and in some ways it’s difficult to understand the true nature of zazen. It’s difficult to put aside our own filters and preconceptions and be in touch with the dharma in a really deep way, so we need faith that what Buddha awakened to is real, that we can experience that for ourselves in our practice, and that zazen is a complete expression of that awakening. Faith or conviction is more than just accepting a set of beliefs. There are said to be four elements of conviction, but there are two different sets of the four elements of conviction within the tradition. One has to do with how we cultivate faith; another has to do with what we have faith in. Both of these are helpful. The first set of factors includes intellectual, volitional, emotional and social elements. The intellectual factor has to do with what we believe. We’re going along with teachings that might not immediately appear to have a basis in fact or evidence. Our usual thinking and experience leads us to conclude that reality is not the same as what Buddha says it is. Our thinking minds might be unaware of the teachings or we might be aware but have some doubts, so this only works initially if we have some trust in scriptures, teachers or some other element. Then once we have some actual experience of practice and some insight, we verify for ourselves that these teachings are true. With the volitional factor we have the will and the courage to step forward and actually practice. There’s an element of steadfastness and resolution, and also some self-confidence that we can do it. We put aside our fears, waverings, skepticism, and the need to get some immediate payback, and we settle down in the practice. The emotional factor allows us to let go of worries and anxieties and have some sense of peace and clarity. Someone who has faith is said to lose the five terrors: loss of the necessities of life, loss of reputation, death, unhappy rebirth, and making a poor impression on an audience. That all makes sense when we come to understand no-self and emptiness. We have less to do to manage our egos. The social factor is related to who we trust. There’s a turn from reliance on public opinion or what Sawaki Roshi called group stupidity to faith in the three treasures. Monks in early Buddhism really did leave society; we don’t, but we make a shift away from social influences that may not be wholesome. There’s some measure of renunciation. We choose to spend time in the sangha with others who practice and are making an effort to live in Buddha’s way. That doesn’t mean we give up other relationships, but we try to see them clearly and make our own choices about what we go along with. There’s an image of our place in Buddha’s family that says that Buddha is the father, Prajnaparamita is the mother, and the sangha is the brothers and sisters. That brings us to the question: what is the thing in which we have faith? It’s said that there are four such things:
Buddha says that believing in and following in any other path would be like trying to squeeze sesame oil out of gravel. or to churn butter out of water. Belief is what provides inspiration and aspiration, and helps resolve doubt. Taking refuge in the Three Treasures is one of the most basic things we do in this tradition. Without making some commitment based on faith, it’s not really possible to practice. When we start to practice, that’s sometimes called entering the stream in the Buddhist tradition. Early texts say that it’s exactly stream-entry where we see the faculty of belief that this gate statement talks about. There are four factors of stream entry:
Once we enter the stream, our faith in the three treasures is awakened and also supported. The Abhisanda Sutta says the person is endowed with verified confidence in the Awakened One: ‘Indeed, the Blessed One is worthy and rightly self-awakened, consummate in knowledge & conduct, well-gone, an expert with regard to the world, unexcelled as a trainer for those people fit to be tamed, the Teacher of divine & human beings, awakened, blessed.’ He is endowed with verified confidence in the Dhamma: ‘The Dhamma is well-expounded by the Blessed One, to be seen here & now, timeless, inviting verification, pertinent, to be realized by the wise for themselves.’ He is endowed with verified confidence in the Saṅgha: ‘The Saṅgha of the Blessed One’s disciples who have practiced well... who have practiced straight-forwardly... who have practiced methodically... who have practiced masterfully — in other words . . . the Saṅgha of the Blessed One’s disciples [is] worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of respect, the incomparable field of merit for the world.’ We can see how some of these elements are starting to come together: trust in wise people that they know what practice is about and how to do it; belief in what the Buddha, ancestors and teachers are teaching; and willingness to make the leap and actually put those teachings into practice with body and mind. If we believe in Buddha’s awakening, we eventually come to see how delusion and suffering arise, how cause and effect work, how central they are, and that we can take real steps to deal with our suffering. It can be difficult to accept that we can use our karmic conditions to transcend our karmic conditions. Sometimes we feel pretty limited and ignorant, and we fall prey to the hindrances that go with this human form, but we also know that our karmic conditions are the ground of our practice and there’s nowhere else to go. The second half of the gate statement says we do not [blindly] follow the words of others. Faith and the actual activity of our practice can’t be separated. We need some level of trust to begin practicing, and we need personal experience of practice in order to strengthen our conviction and stay on the path. At that point we can stop blindly wandering around looking for this spiritual technique and that practice and some other teaching. One important element of faith is the belief that everything we need to liberate ourselves and others from suffering is right here in Buddha’s teaching. We don’t need to go trying to supplement practice with other stuff. It’s another aspect of “nothing extra.” There are only four things we do in our zazen: take the posture, keep our eyes open, breathe through the nose, and open the hand of thought. Anything else is extra, and somehow we need to have faith in that. The other side of that is that there’s also nothing in the teachings and practice that we can ignore. We can’t really separate the three categories in the eightfold path. For instance, if we’re trying to sit zazen without the ethical element, we’re going to have trouble letting go of suffering. The teachings and practice are both complete in themselves with nothing extra and nothing lacking, but accepting that takes a certain amount of faith. Thus this is really not about just intellectually accepting ideas. If the spiritual activity is only in our minds, it’s hard to stick with it because we’re not really living it moment by moment. Sometimes teachings and practice are a challenge to our ego, our self-image, and our stories about the world and ourselves. It’s a real test of faith to practice according to the dharma and put aside our likes and dislikes and not pick and choose the parts of the practice or the teachings that match our own ideas. Buddha’s teachings are an elegant system and all elements are interconnected. They support and reinforce each other and support us in moving toward liberation from suffering. Now let’s see how our more immediate ancestors talk about conviction, faith or belief. Dogen Zenji wrote about this quite a bit. Among other things, he wrote an entire fascicle of the Shobogenzo on having faith in the three treasures (Kie Bupposo-ho). Clearly he saw it as an important element of practice, and even included it when he wrote his personal vow about practice: Along with all living beings, I wish, from this lifetime through many lifetimes, to hear the true dharma. When I hear it, I will not doubt the true Dharma; I will not lack faith. When I encounter the true Dharma, I will discard numdane principles and accept and maintain the Buddha-dharma. Finally, I will complete the Way, together with the great earth and all living beings. (1) Also he wrote in the Gakudo Yojinshu: Practitioners of the Way must first of all have faith in the Way. Those who have faith in the buddha way must believe that one is within the Way from the beginning, that one is free from delusive desires, upside-down ways of seeing things, excesses or deficiencies, and mistakes. Okumura Roshi’s comment about this is: This is the basis of our practice. Although we are already in the Way, we are deluded and miss the Way. It is strange, but that is reality. We are in the Way from the beginningless beginning, and yet we are deluded human beings to the endless end. So our practice, our vow, is endless. And if we practice in that way, then each activity , each practice moment by moment, is the perfect manifestation of the buddha way. (2) Again we see that faith or belief is really central to our practice. In fact, Okumura Roshi calls it the basis of our practice. It’s difficult to accept that in spite of our delusions and misunderstandings, awakening is already here and we’re already not outside of the Buddha Way. Dogen says in the Bendowa: On the whole, the buddha realm is incomprehensible, unreachable through discrimination, much less can it be known with no faith and inferior insight. Only people of great capacity and true faith are able to enter. People without faith have difficulty accepting, even when taught. . . . Generally, if true faith arises in your heart, you should practice and study. If it does not, you should give it up for a while and regret not having the blessing of dharma from long ago. (3) People without faith have difficulty accepting, even when taught. It’s interesting that Dogen says if we don’t have faith we should just stop—we’ll have such a hard time trying to practice if we’re skeptical about awakening, the three treasures and the nature of self. Uchiyama Roshi defines faith as the process of clarifying and becoming lucid about the structure and workings of the life force. (4) That’s an interesting contrast to definitions we might be more used to in a spiritual context, like belief in a God or religious doctrine. Uchiyama Roshi says that if we get clear about how the universe and reality really work, that’s faith or belief because we let go of our clinging to the stories we create from our ideas and that become reality for us. We shift from our reliance on or faith in our delusion to reliance on how Buddhas and ancestors see reality, even if we can’t yet see it for ourselves. That’s a big shift! Why would we not believe in our notions of the world that we’ve been developing, curating and acting on for our whole lives? Of course we assume that as good, smart people we can base our decisions and actions on what we think. It takes some real courage to look carefully at those assumptions and verify whether they’re real or not. Uchiyama Roshi continues: Having faith means believing that things seen through one’s own eyes are not real, but things seen by buddha’s eye are real. However, if you think that believing this is also nothing but a kind of thought, you overturn the idea. This is doubting. But the idea is overturned yet again when you let go of the doubt, because such a doubt itself is nothing ither than a thought. It is an interesting world. You can let go of such doubts, too. This is determined faith. No matter what kind of thought it is, it will fall away when we let go. This is where the whole world of zazen opens. (5) Now we get to the relationship between faith and zazen. Our thoughts about the world are just our thoughts. Our ideas about faith or belief are also just thoughts. Our doubts are also just thoughts. We can let go of the whole thing when we sit down. Elsewhere, Uchiyama Roshi explains: It can be said that in zazen we “believe and sit,” but then we have to look at the meaning of “believe” in its Buddhist sense. Ordinarily, we use the word “believe” to mean thinking what someone has said is true. In religion when an agent of a god or God has said that there exists an invisible, metaphysical realm, the God has such ans such powers. or that man has a soul, people have assumed it to be true and have acted accordingly. This has been called belief or faith. However, in Buddhism the fundamental definition of “belief” is totally different. It is clarity and purity. In Buddhism, “belief” does not mean to believe something in one’s mind, such as that every person has an individual soul or that God exists outside us. Belief, in Buddhism, is to become clear and pure in actualizing the reality of universal life. . . . In zazen we let go of thoughts, lower our level of excitement, and live the universal self just truly being self. This is the basic meaning of belief, to the very act of doing zazen is an expression of our belief. (6) There are a couple of ways to look at the relationship between faith and zazen. One is that we have faith that when we sit down and drop off body and mind, awakening is already there, and that zazen is a complete manifestation of that awakening. Another is that we have faith that zazen brings wholesomeness to the world beyond ourselves as individuals. We’ve heard before that zazen is not an individual activity; we do it with all beings because of interconnectedness. Our practice is supported by all beings and it supports all beings. It can be frustrating, when we’re looking around at all the suffering in the world, to hear from our ancestors that one of the best things we can do is sit zazen. We just think: how does that help? If we were praying for intercession, that at least feels like action. It’s tough to believe that zazen itself is a form of beneficial action. However, Uchiyama Roshi reminds us: At the time, one person’s zazen influences other people and causes a chain reaction; their zazen is transmitted to more people and finally it will circulate to the entire society. Under these circumstnaces, for the first time, we can say that human beings will open the first page of a history that is truly humane. I have been practicing zazen with such a deep vow and faith, like a prayer. (7) It’s another example of our need for some humility in this practice. We don’t know it all yet; Okumura Roshi has called us as practitioners “baby bodhisattvas.” Until we can figure out how to experience the world in ways other than through relying completely on what we do with the information that comes in through the sense gates, deciding whether we like those sensations or not and then basing our lives on chasing and avoiding, we need to rely on the three treasures and not get led astray by unwholesome influences, or blindly follow the words of others, as the gate statement says. When I teach introductory classes on Zen, there’s a point where the content shifts from things that are relatively easy to understand intellectually to things that are really new. The four noble truths seem relatively straightforward. Zazen posture is pretty tangible. Buddha’s life story is no problem. Then we get to no-self and emptiness and dependent origination, and I watch people become puzzled. In fact, I warn them that the shift is coming so they don’t get discouraged. If you don’t get this intellectually, it’s fine. Just let it percolate. It’s another way of saying: have faith. Forms, small self and the relative aspect of reality seem easier to accept and deal with. Emptiness, the universal self and the absolute seem more difficult to accept. We can’t see, measure and describe them. It might even be tough to accept that there are two sides to this one reality, and yet that’s the major theme of the Mahayana, as Okumura Roshi says, seeing one reality from two sides and expressing two sides with one action. Because it is difficult to fathom and grasp both sides of reality at once using concepts and intellect, as the Lotus Sutra says, we need the power of faith. Through our practice based on faith, we can experience the true reality even though we cannot see and measure it as an object. (8) Now we need to talk about the potential pitfalls of faith. Like everything else in practice, faith can be medicine or poison. Vasubandhu back in the 5th century recognized that faith can go off the rails. He wrote a famous commentary on the Abidharma, which is a detailed, academic presentation of what Buddha taught in the sutras. He pointed out that faith is not necessarily pure and uncontaminated by its nature. Faith applied in the wrong way towards an unskillful object can lead to blind guru-worship, and things go downhill from there toward breaking precepts and various kinds of unskillfulness. Thus it’s interesting that while the gate statement says The faculty of belief is a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with it] we do not [blindly] follow the words of others, that can all go the other way if we’re not careful. As the Russians say, doveryai, no proveryai: trust but verify. We also need to say a word here about tolerance. Buddhism is not a mainstream tradition here in the US we frequently encounter people whose faith is different from ours. We may believe so much in our practice that we think everyone should sit zazen and read Living by Vow and Opening the Hand of Thought. If people want know what we’re doing, that great; we can tell them. If not, we leave them alone. Because we’re not a mainstream tradition, we’re probably more likely to be the objects of someone else’s evangelism than the ones carrying that out, but it does happen the other way. When I worked for the government and people started to learn about my Buddhist practice, I heard that a supervisor who had since left was also a practitioner. She put a certain amount of pressure on staff to practice too. Staff meetings sometimes opened with an account of the latest sesshin she’d attended. It left a bad taste in people’s mouths, and on that basis, people were wary of me until they got to know me a bit. One said he was glad he got to know me because he thought all Buddhists were like this supervisor. Let’s be careful out there! Another side of tolerance is that we can feel the need to downplay the differences between our tradition and other faith traditions in order to get along, and that can sometimes make it difficult to maintain our own conviction that we’ve worked so hard to cultivate. As we’ve seen, there are various teachings in our tradition that say that once we enter the stream and start to practice, we become convinced that what Buddha is teaching is true, and we see that other approaches to dealing with our suffering are not so effective. Certainly spiritual and non-spiritual practice that leads to compassion, wisdom, generosity, joy, morality, etc. are great. and we can decide that oh well, all roads lead to the same place. Yet what the Buddha taught was really pretty radical. The key here is that there’s a difference between tolerance and endorsement. We can completely respect the faith and belief of others without watering down our own convictions about zazen, work, study and ritual, and without being dismissive of the real differences in belief between religious traditions. In a strange way, that’s a form of INtolerance: I can tolerate your religion as long as I dilute the differences and particular elements that are unique and central to your tradition. Tolerance as middle way isn’t about making all religions the same. In Buddhism, tolerance is about recognizing that people are different, they have different needs and personalities and experiences, and one approach doesn’t work for everyone. It’s the same situation we encounter in teachings about skillful means. Buddha taught differently to different people for the same reasons. We may be firmly convinced that the Buddha’s dharma is the one complete teaching about reality, but it doesn’t work for everyone. There are real differences in religious beliefs and they may be profound and not reconcilable. What they’re trying to achieve is not necessarily liberation from suffering as we understand it, but because as bodhisattvas we try to cultivate good will toward beings, not resent them or try to hinder their practice. We might not agree with the belief structure, but we can certainly respect movement toward peace and harmony. We may think our practice is the one true way, and that as bodhisattvas we need to convince everyone to practice like we do for their own good, but is that really skillful means? Can we tolerate and respect the faith and conviction of others without necessarily endorsing those beliefs, or feeling the need to paper over the differences or dilute the teachings of our own practice? Notes: (1) Boundless Vows, Endless Practice, p 4. (2) The Wholehearted Way: A Translation of Eihei Dogen's Bendowa, With Commentary by Kosho Uchiyama Roshi. (2011). United States: Tuttle Publishing, p.14. (3) The Wholehearted Way, p. 25. (4) The Wholehearted Way, p. 190. (5) The Wholehearted Way, p. 90. (6) Uchiyama, K. (2005). Opening the Hand of Thought: Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice. Ukraine: Wisdom Publications, p. 84. (7) Boundless Vows, Endless Practice, p 37. (8) Okumura, S. (2012). Living by Vow: A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Zen Chants and Texts. United Kingdom: Wisdom Publications, p. 255. Questions for reflection and discussion:
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About the text The Ippyakuhachi Homyomon, or 108 Gates of Dharma Illumination, appears as the 11th fascicle of the 12 fascicle version of Dogen Zenji’s Shobogenzo. Dogen didn't compile the list himself; it's mostly a long quote from another text called the Sutra of Collected Past Deeds of the Buddha. Dogen wrote a final paragraph recommending that we investigate these gates thoroughly. Hoko has been talking about the gates one by one since 2016. She provides material here that can be used by weekly dharma discussion groups as well as for individual study. The 108 Gates of Dharma Illumination
[1] Right belief [2] Pure mind [3] Delight [4] Love and cheerfulness The three forms of behavior [5] Right conduct of the actions of the body [6] Pure conduct of the actions of the mouth [7] Pure conduct of the actions of the mind The six kinds of mindfulness [8] Mindfulness of Buddha [9] Mindfulness of Dharma [10] Mindfulness of Sangha [11] Mindfulness of generosity [12] Mindfulness of precepts [13] Mindfulness of the heavens The four Brahmaviharas [14] Benevolence [15] Compassion [16] Joy [17] Abandonment The four dharma seals [18] Reflection on inconstancy [19] Reflection on suffering [20] Reflection on there being no self [21] Reflection on stillness [22] Repentance [23] Humility [24] Veracity [25] Truth [26] Dharma conduct [27] The Three Devotions [28] Recognition of kindness [29] Repayment of kindness [30] No self-deception [31] To work for living beings [32] To work for the Dharma [33] Awareness of time [34] Inhibition of self-conceit [35] The nonarising of ill-will [36] Being without hindrances [37] Belief and understanding [38] Reflection on impurity [39] Not to quarrel [40] Not being foolish [41] Enjoyment of the meaning of the Dharma [42] Love of Dharma illumination [43] Pursuit of abundant knowledge [44] Right means [45] Knowledge of names and forms [46] The view to expiate causes [47] The mind without enmity and intimacy [48] Hidden expedient means [49] Equality of all elements [50] The sense organs [51] Realization of nonappearance The elements of bodhi: The four abodes of mindfulness [52] The body as an abode of mindfulness [53] Feeling as an abode of mindfulness [54] Mind as an abode of mindfulness [55] The Dharma as an abode of mindfulness [56] The four right exertions [57] The four bases of mystical power The five faculties [58] The faculty of belief [59] The faculty of effort [60] The faculty of mindfulness [61] The faculty of balance [62] The faculty of wisdom The five powers [63] The power of belief [64] The power of effort [65] The power of mindfulness [66] The power of balance [67] The power of wisdom [68] Mindfulness, as a part of the state of truth [69] Examination of Dharma, as a part of the state of truth [70] Effort, as a part of the state of truth [71] Enjoyment, as a part of the state of truth [72] Entrustment as a part of the state of truth [73] The balanced state, as a part of the state of truth [74] Abandonment, as a part of the state of truth The Eightfold Path [75] Right view [76] Right discrimination [77] Right speech [78] Right action [79] Right livelihood [80] Right practice [81] Right mindfulness [82] Right balanced state [83] The bodhi-mind [84] Reliance [85] Right belief [86] Development The six paramitas [87] The dāna pāramitā [88] The precepts pāramitā [89] The forbearance pāramitā. [90] The diligence pāramitā [91] The dhyāna pāramitā [92] The wisdom pāramitā [93] Expedient means [94] The four elements of sociability [95] To teach and guide living beings [96] Acceptance of the right Dharma [97] Accretion of happiness [98] The practice of the balanced state of dhyāna [99] Stillness [100] The wisdom view [101] Entry into the state of unrestricted speech [102] Entry into all conduct [103] Accomplishment of the state of dhāraṇī [104] Attainment of the state of unrestricted speech [105] Endurance of obedient following [106] Attainment of realization of the Dharma of nonappearance [107] The state beyond regressing and straying [108] The wisdom that leads us from one state to another state and, somehow, one more: [109] The state in which water is sprinkled on the head Archives
February 2025
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