Published: June 27, 2009 12:00 am      

Religion column: No demands on faith in Zen, but faith needed

Zen Buddhism is often described as a teaching beyond words and letters, and, among other things, it places no unconditional demands on faith. This has made Zen attractive to Westerners in a world where advances in science and technology have seemingly explained everything, the media give us every last dirty detail in the lives of public figures and we can get a thousand answers to any question with the click of a mouse. In this climate, many find faith _ the belief in something unproven _ irrational and impractical. And it is in this environment that Zen, with no explicit requirements of our faith, seems appealing.

However, the aim of Zen practice is to attain a condition where all beings are free from suffering. Like the Buddha himself, no one can give us this; we must awaken to it through our own devices, and we can only understand this awakening through direct experience. So, the aim of Zen is to achieve a truth for which we have no direct proof. This is going to take great faith! Great faith is actually one of the three essential elements of traditional Zen practice.

Zen has this in common with other world religions: faith is necessary to achieve its ends, despite the absence of demands on faith. In fact, there are no demands for anything on the Zen path. With its stress on direct experience as the ultimate teacher, every practitioner of Zen is pointed on the right direction on the path, but learns they're proceeding correctly through a direct experience of it. Direct experience can also teach us when we've strayed! Therefore, demands become unnecessary on this path.

To make room for faith in Zen Buddhism, or any spiritual path, it is helpful to look at truth. As was mentioned earlier, thanks to science and technology, there are many truths for which we have plenty of objective proof _ we know the Earth revolves around the sun, that matter is composed of atoms, etc. We can establish these truths, or any other objective truth, by gathering evidence, making a case. But there are also truths that we cannot prove. For example, if you want to be a concert pianist, you first need to believe that it is true that you can become a concert pianist. Then you will need a teacher, a piano, discipline and perseverance _ you will need to make it a truth. But first there's this belief, or faith. History is full of stories of people with faith overcoming racism, poverty, disabilities and so on to establish great truths. Spiritual endeavors are like this, as well. They start with a belief in something that cannot be proven without direct experience. Zen starts with faith in Buddha's awakening.

The Buddha was a man who, through his own efforts and discipline, using skills we all have the potential to develop, awakened to the truth of suffering, its cause, and the path to end it. He also realized we all have the potential to awaken to these truths; we just don't recognize it through the layer upon layer of conditioning we've developed. The Buddha shared the path to this awakening so that everyone could attain it as well. So this faith in the Buddha's awakening is also faith in our own capacity to awaken.

Engaging Zen with this great faith in awakening inevitably leads to the second essential element of traditional Zen practice _ great doubt. As we look at this world of suffering, pain, war and greed, we begin to doubt why we and the world should appear so imperfect, when our faith tells us the opposite is true. This leads us to question, "What exactly is this world we see?" "What is real?" and eventually, "What am I before name and form _ what is it that is awakened?" The question grows and will give rise to the third essential element of traditional Zen practice _ great courage or determination.

With great courage, we engage our practice of clearing the mind of attachments to desires, emotions and our ego, while we cultivate love and compassion for all beings. With great faith, great doubt and great courage, we burn away all of our notions of what we perceive as real until there is nothing left of our ego or its attachment, and our mind is clear. We can act without attachment from our compassion for the good of all beings. This is the aim of Zen, but all three essential elements must be present to achieve this aim, including faith. And this faith is ultimately in ourselves.

James Neer is a member of the Three Treasures Zen Center in Oneonta.