Faith, Doubt, and Zen Buddhism

Faith may be regarded as belief in something for which there is no conclusive proof. In faith, we span a void of doubt as extended trust.

 Within Zen Buddhism, faith is exercised but not often discussed. One reason for this is Zen’s non-attachment to Creator-oriented ideas that summon and demand concerns regarding faith. Within Zen and other Buddhist traditions, a First Cause as Creator is said to be non-apprehend-able with respect to a past that extends infinitely or indeterminately backwards in time. The infinite being unbounded, an identifiable First Cause is excluded by default. Thus, the notion of a determinable Originator is neither affirmed nor negated within Zen’s realization of non-beginning-ness. Another reason faith is not often discussed in Zen is its orientation towards practicality and not knowing. Here, not knowing may be regarded as detachment or non-clinging to ideas as absolutes. Thus, the common spiritual concerns of faith do not find a place of belonging in Zen.

If faith is to be broadly applied to Zen, it is faith in such things as not knowing, detachment, basic goodness, loving-kindness, and pure-mind-nature as instrumental vehicles pointing to the reduction of suffering, individually and universally. And it is precisely here that we witness an extension of trust within doubt and uncertainty.

In Zen, if we are to address faith, extensions of faith must subsume doubt. This orientation subtly departs from most conceptions of faith that regard faith as self-willed certainty within mystery. In other words, direct experience or intellectual validation being absent, mystery itself is pointed to as a type of invitation to unwavering certainty. One is invited to be certain as an affirmation of their faith. Zen on the other hand generally embraces doubt as a non-dual aspect of reality and illumination. Being laden with uncertainty, reality contains faith and doubt as one thing. The Zen practitioner is encouraged to doubt as an extension of faith in the Buddha-nature of all beings.

Buddha invited people to embrace their doubts. He never advocated blind faith. Thus, doubt is regarded as a potential vehicle to achieve enlightenment in the Zen tradition, not as an impediment to realization.

As light casts shadows, both light and shadow are inseparable. Being one thing, “they” mutually affirm and condition each other within mind, within subjective awareness. Ignorance and enlightenment also condition each other. They too are inseparable as one thing to the Zen consciousness. In turn, faith and doubt cannot be separated within the prism of analytical scrutiny beyond artifice.       

Zen lays no claim to objective proofs substantiating what it points to, nor does it demand faith as separate from doubt. Realizations of emptiness, detachment, non-self, non-duality, compassion, and such are never provided for within philosophical undertakings. They are, however, offered as potentialities within direct experience and practices that engender intuitive responses and realizations transcendent over intellectual enterprises.

Rich within the Semitic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) are thought provoking positive and negative apologetics regarding the existence of God, the nature of humankind, and the nature of faith. Rich within Hinduism is a cosmology of breathtaking expanse and ornate design – it too not without its God as Creator, Brahma. Zen, on the other hands, offers ordinary existence as mystery itself, and lays down sublime imagination and abstract propensities in favor of the practical and immediate. And although perhaps too often misconstrued as mundane on its surface to the uninitiated, Zen exists within the present moment as deep awareness and clarity of vision.

Being aware, we are conscious of self, and within our self-consciousness we are driven deeper to embrace our non-self nature – self being constructed of non-self parts. Within the synergistic leap from non-self parts to conscious awareness as a self, both self and non-self are non-dual within mystery. Not being able to apprehend or intellectually grasp the quantum leap from a-consciousness to consciousness, within this not knowing-ness, within this improbability rendering doubt and uncertainty, we are nevertheless faith-filled as direct experience. Not being able to deny we exist, we span a void as extended trust, grateful for our non-self nature.

We can approach the objects of faith with certainty or uncertainty, unwavering belief in our knowing or wavering doubt in our not knowing. However, faith in an objectified entity, such as God, generally mandates certainty and knowing within objective reasoning leading to mystery. Zen however is subjective mystery as concrete experience. Not looking for the supernatural, ordinary existence is illuminated. Embracing doubt, doubt and faith become one thing, each illuminating and conditioning the “other.”

A Zen archetype of ordinary existence as mystery is the last of the famous Ten Ox Herding Pictures that originated in China during the Sung Dynasty (1126 – 1279 AD). All ten of these pictures, as conveyed by many Zen artists over the centuries, depict our progressions along the spiritual path, the last being enlightenment. But this final tenth stage is not as typically conceived during the beginning of our spiritual journey. It is devoid of ego, mythical posturing, or displays of supernatural powers. It embraces the ordinary as non-dual being and unconditional positive regard. It is not unusual for the tenth picture to show a balding, overweight individual who has returned home, distributing gifts to small children with much happiness.

Returning, seeking not but the ordinary as ordinary personage, covered with dust and mud, smiling – you bring the withered tress to bloom!

Ironically, it is perhaps Zen’s faith in the ordinary, with all of its uncertainties within transience that proclaims it sibling to those religions exemplifying faith in the supernatural as mystical encounter – for what mystic has not appeared ordinary and humble? Church gatekeepers, Hindu housekeepers seeking their second innocence within primeval forests, Muslims bowing silently to the realizations of a mystical Mohammed, Jews confronting the Western Wall as historical memory – all bring the withered trees to bloom!

Whether on the mountaintops of theological inquiry or in the trenches of ordinary life, we are united in faith, not as a conglomeration of oftentimes conflicting ideas but as mystery itself. Where the mystic embraces humble ordinariness, the ordinary Zen student embraces mystery within an endless landscape of belonging. Certainty and doubt are but the light and shadow of faith. We are many in appearance but one in the mystery of faith.