Students in my undergraduate journalism class at Carleton College would never imagine, I’ll bet, that I sincerely regard each one of them as being ethically spotless, all-knowing, absolutely perfect human beings who at one point in the cosmic past was my dear mother.
Being a Buddhist carries along with it lots of interesting implications for classroom teaching. One of the more famous Zen adages says “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” That’s a handy reminder how to handle pet theories and received wisdom of all kinds. The Buddha’s prescription for ethical speech – that it be truthful, gentle, timely and tending to harmonize not divide – is another constant and helpful Buddhist teaching guide. But my favorite Buddhist maxim with virtually endless classroom applications is a Tibetan saying that resolves discordant situations in a flash: “Regard all sentient beings as equal to your dear mother.”
I’ve been meditating for 25 years. For the last ten or so, I’ve also studied a branch of Buddhism called Theravada, which is based in Southeast Asia and uses Buddhism’s primary text – the Pali Canon – as its main source. The Pali Canon comprises the closest existing record of the Buddha’s actual sermons, stories, discourses on psychology, and rules for monks. I run a weekly meditation group at my home and practice “vipassana” or “insight meditation” every day. The aim of insight meditation is to investigate reality as it is experienced in the body and mind in the present moment.
Aside from regarding students as my dear mother, Buddhism influences my teaching in three main ways. The first is that I consciously try to learn good teaching techniques from the Buddha, who is sometimes called “The Great Teacher.” He is certainly the best teacher I’ve ever had. Second, I apply in my classrooms an approach to truth-finding that I’ve learned in meditation and Buddhist scriptural study. Third, as a result of my Buddhist experience, I treat my classroom as a laboratory for an applied ethics of compassion. By compassion, I don’t refer to the “sorrow and sympathy” dictionary definition. Rather, the Buddhist tradition of compassion, or “karuna,” defines compassion as a virtuous mental state that is capable of nurture and cultivation, and which is the root of all morality and ethical action.
In seeing the Buddha as a model teacher, I join an ancient tradition. The Buddha often stressed that he was not a God or any kind of divine being, but rather was a human being who discovered a set of cosmic truths which he then taught to others. He saw himself as a teacher above all. Records and commentaries on the Buddha’s life are rich in descriptions of his ability to teach the dharma in many ways – by stories, parables, allegories, discourses, sermons, logic, argument and analysis – always choosing one or another form depending on the circumstance and the capacity of his student.
The Buddha’s having chosen the life of a teacher is itself an inspiration to me as an aspiring teacher. It speaks to teaching as a vital activity connecting many dimensions – personal, civic, spiritual, ethical, practical. Through the Buddha’s personal example I understand how skilful teaching facilitates harmony across all these spheres. Seen this way, teaching is not simply about the education of individuals in areas of expertise. More fundamentally, it’s about the making and healing of communities, the forging of trust and friendships, and the support of the poor, the weak, and all of those who suffer.
An often-quoted Buddhist scripture, the Kalama Sutta, forms the second main source of Buddhist inspiration for my teaching. Sometimes called the Buddha’s Charter of Free Inquiry, it tells the story of a group of villagers who belong to the Kalama tribe. The Kalamas are vexed by a constant procession of monks, priests, and yogis who traipse through their town, each espousing a universal doctrine while disparaging all the others.
“Venerable sir, there is doubt, there is uncertainty in us concerning them,” the Kalamas tell the Buddha. “Which of these reverend monks and Brahmins spoke the truth and which falsehood?”
To which the Buddha responds:
"It is proper for you, Kalamas, to doubt, to be uncertain; uncertainty has arisen in you about what is doubtful. Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, 'The monk is our teacher.' Kalamas, when you yourselves know: 'These things are bad; these things are blamable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill,' abandon them.”
Scholars love to cite the Kalama Sutta for its foreshadowing of the Enlightenment and scientific method – skeptical, empirical, rational inquiry.
As a teacher, I take a simpler lesson from the Kalama Sutta. To me it says that learning occurs only once students have verified the truth for themselves – within themselves and by themselves. It’s not really my job, in other words, to teach students what I know. Instead, it’s to create the conditions in which a very particular sort of magic – more an act of self-teaching than of teaching -- is given the very highest probability to occur.
Finally, a vigorous dispute in modern Buddhist circles gives me the fuel to teach my classes in a Buddhist-inspired way. The dispute is rooted in the interpretation of the basic Buddhist teaching of the Noble Eightfold Path – the path to enlightenment. Its name notwithstanding, the path actually divides into three main activities – meditation, morality, and wisdom. For some Buddhist teachers, Buddhism in Western countries focuses too much on meditation, as if enlightening wisdom is gained primarily by sitting on a meditation cushion for years on end. These critics of the “mainly-meditation” path to enlightenment – and I’m in this camp – insist that a full one-third of the Buddhist path to enlightenment consists of acting morally in the world through virtuous speech, virtuous action, and virtuous livelihood.
A famous scripture quoting the Buddha begins with the lines: “Virtue has non-remorse as its benefit and reward; Non-remorse has gladness as its benefit and reward.” The verse continues upwards, linking higher and higher states of being –gladness leading to joy, joy leading to serenity, serenity leading to happiness, happiness leading to concentration, concentration leading to insight, insight leading to non-attachment, and non-attachment leading to final liberation – nirvana, enlightenment.
The verse concludes: “In this way, virtue leads step by step to the highest.”
There you have it: virtue leads to enlightenment. I see the classroom as a place to practice virtue in this Buddhist sense – to try to speak, to act, and to practice livelihood ethically. I know that I can’t teach my way to enlightenment. But according to the Buddha, it’s a good place to start.
Regarding the Buddha's teaching to the Kalamas that it is proper to doubt, this is a teaching that is often misconstrued. Usually people think the Buddha is advocating doubt, but in truth he is teaching faith. The various teachings or views that the Kalamas doubt are teachings or views that do not accord with the dhamma. They are teachings or views that pertain to doubting rather than having faith there is such a thing as nibbana. Simply put, it is skillful to doubt somebody who doubts the reality of nibbana, but it is unskillful to doubt somebody who has faith in nibbana and has not yet realized the truth of nibbana. This is precisely what the Buddha says to the Kalamas:
"It is proper for you, Kalamas, to doubt, to be uncertain; uncertainty has arisen in you about what is doubtful.”
The Buddha says, "uncertainty has arisen in you about what is doubtful." Here, the Buddha is saying that doubt has arisen about what is doubtful. This means that it is good to doubt doubt. It is good to disbelieve disbelief. In other words, it is good to doubt somebody else's or your own doubt in nibbana. It is good to disbelieve somebody else's or your own disbelief in nibbana. On the other hand, it is not good to doubt faith or disbelieve belief. In other words, it is not good to doubt somebody else's or your own faith in nibbana. It is not good to disbelieve somebody else's or your own belief in nibbana. Therefore, it is good to have faith in somebody else's or your own faith in nibbana. It is good to believe somebody else's or your own belief in nibbana.
This might sound unusual, but when somebody doesn’t know the truth, he is divided between faith in the truth and doubt in the truth. This means that on those occasions when his doubt is dominant and his faith is recessive, it is as though he doubts his own faith or disbelieves his own belief. However, it is better to have faith in your faith, to believe your belief.
If you doubt something that is doubtful or untrue, just as the Kalamas did, your doubt is not really doubt at all. You really have faith in the truth, but your faith is disguised as doubt.
This is why the Buddha approved of the Kalamas doubting false or doubtful teachings.
If some teacher comes around who is teaching something doubtful, something untrue, something other than the path to nibbana, or who is teaching that there is no such thing as nibbana, then doubting such a teaching is equivalent to respecting and having faith in the truth.
Therefore, what the Buddha is praising here is not the doubt, but the faith of the Kalamas.
Conversely, if you have faith in something that is doubtful or untrue, your faith is not really faith at all. You really doubt the truth, but your doubt is disguised as faith.
This is the trap into which many Christians fall. Their faith is really doubt dressed up in the clothing of faith. This is a deception, and it is the reason that faith or belief is disliked by many Westerners.
In reality, faith is good, having to do with all that is good in the world, while doubt is evil, having to do with all that is evil in the world.
To clarify things further, there are two kinds of faith and two kinds of doubt. There is true faith and false faith, true doubt and false doubt.
True faith is when you have faith in what is true. False faith is when you have faith in what is false.
True doubt is when you doubt what is true. False doubt is when you doubt what is false.
True faith and true doubt are easy enough to understand, but false faith and false doubt are where things get tricky.
What does it mean to have false faith? The first reason it is called false faith is because you have faith in what is false. The second reason it is called false faith is because when you have faith in what is false, at the same time you doubt what is true. Therefore, such faith is not really faith at all. It is doubt. For those two reasons it is called false faith.
This is what many Christians do. They have faith that God will save them from suffering, but they doubt that they can save themselves from suffering. They doubt nibbana and the path to nibbana. They doubt the truth.
However, they fail to realize that you cannot save somebody who keeps choosing to do evil, who keeps choosing to do what is unskillful. That person can only save himself, by repenting from evil, unskillful intentions and cultivating good, skillful intentions.
What does it mean to have false doubt? The first reason it is called false doubt is because you doubt what is false. The second reason it is called false doubt is because when you doubt what is false, at the same time you have faith in what is true. Therefore, such doubt is not really doubt at all. It is faith. For those two reasons it is called false doubt.
This is what the Kalamas did. They doubted false or doubtful teachings, and so they listened to what the Buddha had to say with faith and interest.
Faith and doubt or belief and disbelief only arise in the absence of certain knowledge.
Once knowledge of nibbana is achieved, it is no longer necessary to believe or have faith that there is such a thing as nibbana.
That is when you know for yourself. “When you know for yourselves” is a phrase that appears over and over in the Pali Suttas.
In one Sutta, Ananda has a conversation with the Buddha, and they both admit that anybody who does not have experiential, confirmatory knowledge of nibbana can only have faith (saddha) that there is such a thing as nibbana to be realized.
This is why doubt or disbelief (vicikiccha) is one of the five hindrances while faith or belief (saddha) is an essential factor of the path to nibbana.
This is also the reason that while there is ordinary dependent origination, including twelve causal links, there is another teaching in the Pali Suttas sometimes referred to as transcendent dependent origination, which includes additional links, many more than twelve.
After the standard list of twelve, the thirteenth link is faith (saddha).
Other links include all the positive, skillful factors of the path - joy, rapture, serenity, pleasure, concentration, etc. – that, through development, lead to nibbana, which is the final link.
Therefore, before one attains confirmatory, experiential knowledge of nibbana, verifying or realizing nibbana for oneself, doubt or disbelief in nibbana is unskillful, a hindrance, while faith or belief in nibbana is skillful, an aid or helper along the path.
In other words, in light of what was explained above, true faith, which is the same as false doubt, is the helper, while true doubt, which is the same as false faith, is the hinderer.
It might appear that the pursuit of any knowledge is based in faith not doubt, which is the faith that, even though there is ignorance now, there is knowledge to be attained later, there are answers to be found later.
From this vantage point, it might seem that, even though science values doubt or skepticism, it is primarily faith rather than doubt that motivates the scientist, which is the faith that while there is ignorance now, there are answers to be discovered in the future through the use of the scientific method.
However, is the scientist motivated by true faith or false faith?
If a Christian or a scientist is on a path that leads to more suffering and ignorance rather than to more inner peace and knowledge, to nibbana, then both the Christian and the scientist have false faith, which is the same as true doubt, because they both have faith in the false path (false faith) and doubt the true path (true doubt).
This is where we can see how crafty Mara is, his various disguises and illusions, which can be quite tricky, complex.
The Christian claims to have true faith (false doubt), but in reality the Christian has false faith (true doubt).
On the other hand, the scientist claims to have false doubt (true faith), but in reality the scientist has true doubt (false faith).
Thus, even though the Christian and the scientist appear different, they are the same in that they both doubt the truth (true doubt), which is the same as having faith in the false (false faith).
Remembering how these terms were explained previously, this can be analyzed in a way that is clear by considering one piece at a time.
The Christian claims to have faith in the truth (true faith). The Christian really has faith in the false (false faith). The Christian claims to doubt the false (false doubt). The Christian really doubts the truth (true doubt).
And, why does the Christian doubt the truth? Because he doubts nibbana and the path to nibbana.
Therefore, while the Christian claims to have faith in the truth (true faith), which is the same as doubting the false (false doubt), in reality the Christian has faith in the false (false faith), which is the same as doubting the truth (true doubt), because he doubts the truth, because he doubts nibbana and the path to nibbana.
The above exercise is a little different considering the scientist.
The scientist does not claim to have faith in the truth (true faith). The scientist really has faith in the false (false faith). The scientist claims to doubt the doubtful, the false (false doubt). The scientist really doubts the truth (true doubt).
And, why does the scientist doubt the truth? Because he doubts nibbana and the path to nibbana.
The scientist erroneously believes or has the false faith that the scientific method is the means to end ignorance, and doubts that the path to nibbana is the sole means to end suffering and ignorance.
Therefore, while the scientist does not claim to have faith in the truth (true faith), which is the same as doubting the false (false doubt), the scientist does claim to doubt the doubtful, which is the same as having faith in the truth.
However, in reality the scientist has faith in the false (false faith), which is the same as doubting the truth (true doubt), because he doubts the truth, because he doubts nibbana and the path to nibbana.
This shows that even though in reality the scientist and the Christian both doubt the truth (true doubt) and have faith in the false (false faith), it is only in appearance that the scientist and the Christian are different, which is one of Mara’s illusions or lies. The Devil is a deceiver.
Unlike the Christian, the scientist does not claim to have faith in the truth.
However, similar to the Christian, the scientist believes or has faith that his path, rather than the Buddhist path, will take him where he wants to go, to the end of ignorance and the pinnacle of knowledge.
This is a false assumption, a false belief, a false faith, just as the Christian has false faith.
Even though the use of the scientific method requires faith, albeit false faith (true doubt), that it will lead to answers and knowledge in the future, the scientist denies the value of faith.
In addition, while the scientist claims to doubt the doubtful (false doubt), it has been shown that doubting the doubtful is the same as having faith that there are answers to be uncovered in the future.
Although the scientist might deny the value of faith, such a scientist unconsciously has faith or believes that the scientific method, rather than the Buddhist path, will eventually reveal the truth.
Thus, in general, both the scientist and the Christian might be surprised to find out that they only appear to be different than one another.
The Christian and the scientist are two different images, illusions projected on opposite sides of the same coin.
On the quarter, the scientist might be the image of Washington, while, on the flip side of the coin, the Christian might be the image of the eagle; however, at the root they share the same metallic constitution, solidified suffering and ignorance.
You do not have to be a scientist to be a Buddhist. Science is one discipline, while Buddhism is another discipline. They are two separate and different disciplines.
If you channel all your energy and effort into science, you won't get anywhere, but the same old suffering and ignorance.
On the other hand, if you channel all your energy and effort into cultivating the Buddha's teachings, you will get somewhere.
This is why the Buddha was not a scientist and why science is a waste of time.
Science might seem very interesting, but the pleasure associated with such interest is an adulterated pleasure.
It is adulterated pleasure because it is joined with displeasure, suffering.
Like the pursuit of sense pleasures, science is a practice that inadvertantly contributes to all the violence and suffering in the world.
It's not difficult to see the connection between consumerism and violence.
The urges associated with pursuing sense pleasures are exactly the same as the urges of anger, irritation, frustration and violence.
There is ample scripture, Buddhist and otherwise, that confirms this truth.
Sure, science provides nice metaphors for explaining the Buddha's teachings, but that's about it. Mara is very crafty, a deceiver.
There is another way of viewing faith versus doubt in the Buddha’s teachings.
Again, having faith, belief, conviction regarding nibbana and the path to nibbana is good and skillful.
On the other hand, having doubt, disbelief, and being unconvinced regarding nibbana and the path to nibbana is evil, unskillful.
Therefore, in the Buddha’s teachings, faith (saddha) versus doubt (vicikiccha) is another way of talking about good or skillful intention (samma-kamma) versus evil or unskillful intention (miccha-kamma).
This is one way to view doubt versus faith in the Buddha’s teachings.
Another way is that doubt represents uncertainty while faith represents certainty. Doubt represents uncertainty of attention, while faith represents certainty of attention. Doubt pertains to distraction, while faith pertains to concentration. Doubt represents an insecure attention, while faith represents a secure attention. Doubt represents a wavering attention, while faith represents an unwavering attention. Doubt represents an unsteady attention, while faith represents a steady attention.
Thus, in the Buddha’s teachings, doubt (vicikiccha) is one of the five hindrances or weaknesses, while faith (saddha) is one of the five powers or strengths.
According to the Buddha, in order to develop supernormal concentration resulting in the attainment of supernormal powers, such as mind-reading, walking on water, and the celestial eye and ear, the meditator must develop samma-samadhi, defined as the four jhanas.
Samma-samadhi is developed by overcoming the five weaknesses, including doubt (vicikiccha), and by cultivating the five strengths, including faith (saddha).
The following story about Jesus which comes out of Islam shows that another way of understanding the issue of doubt versus faith is that it can be understood as uncertainty of attention versus certainty of attention, a wavering attention versus an unwavering attention, distraction versus concentration. The story also shows that concentration, pertaining to faith and certainty, produces supernormal powers, while distraction, pertaining to doubt and uncertainty, does not:
Al Fodeil, son of `Iyâdh, said: Some people said to Jesus, son of Mary (Peace be upon him!), "By what thing do you walk upon the water?" He replied, "By faith and certainty." They said, "But we believe as you believe, and we are certain as you are certain." He said, "Then walk." When he said it they walked with him, and a wave came and raised p. 91 him up, and Jesus (Peace be upon him!) said to them, "What is the matter with you?" They replied, "We feared the wave." He said, "Did you not fear the Lord of the wave?"
In the expanded version of dependent origination, the thirteenth link of faith is followed by additional links representing the positive factors of the path that, through development, lead to nibbana, including rapture, pleasure, and concentration.
Rapture, pleasure and concentration are three factors included in the standard, recurrent explanation of the jhanas in the Pali Suttas.
The term Samadhi means to put or place together. “Sam” means together and “dhi” refers to putting or placing.
The “di” in distraction refers to division, placing two things apart. The “con” in concentration refers to unification, placing two things together.
Like the character “sam” in the term Samadhi, the character “con” in concentration means “with” or “together”.
Thus, doubt represents placing apart, while faith represents placing together. Doubt represents division of mind, while faith represents unification of mind. Doubt represents distraction, while faith represents concentration.
Unification of mind is a recurring factor in the jhanas, whereas doubt (vicikiccha), which is division or distraction of mind, is one of the five hindrances, which have to be let go in order to enter the first jhana.
According to the expanded version of dependent origination, suffering, which would include the hindrance of doubt (vicikiccha), is the cause of faith (saddha), and some of the links following faith are rapture, serenity, pleasure and concentration, which are the qualities or factors of the jhanas.
If the mind wavers, which is distraction, then it is divided because it goes back and forth between two things, between the object you are focusing on and all other objects.
Thus, doubt represents a scattered attention, while faith represents a gathered attention. Doubt represents a dispersed attention, while faith represents a collected attention. Doubt represents division of mind, while faith represents unification of mind.
Hope this helps everyone to better understand the subject of faith versus doubt and the importance of faith in the Buddha’s teachings.
Posted by: Jim | March 22, 2009 at 06:00 PM