Aspiration, Conviction, and Serene Joy: Faith and Reason in Indian Buddhist Literature on the Path (original) (raw)

2020, Asian Philosophies and the Idea of Religion: Beyond Faith and Reason. Edited by Sonia Sikka and Ashwani Peetush. Routledge, 2020

I this chapter I situate Walpola Rahula’s presentation of Buddhism as a rational tradition that eschews faith in the broader context of Buddhist modernizers who responded to European modernity and colonialism by articulating a Buddhism that conformed to modern European values. Their rejection of faith, I argue, is a rejection of a modern European notion of faith, a Kantian understanding of faith as a belief about that which is beyond the realm of experience, and therefore beyond the realm of knowledge. It is a faith defined against knowledge, which is understood as its opposite. While there are many different accounts of faith in Buddhist traditions, in this chapter I am focusing on several Indian Mahāyāna texts on the path, in which faith, while including belief, is not primarily defined in contrast to reason and knowledge and includes behavioral and affective elements. Asaṅga, for example, understands faith (Sanskrit śraddhā; Pāli saddhā) to have three aspects: (1) a conviction in the good qualities of the Buddha, the teachings of the Buddha, and the community of those who follow the Buddha’s teachings; (2) a serene joy or gladdening made possible by this conviction; and (3) a confidence in one’s ability to make progress on the Buddhist path. While the teachings of the Buddha are initially taken on faith, for Asaṅga, the more understanding one develops, the more one acts faithfully, the more one’s faith increases. Indeed, faith – providing the trust in evidence that reason requires – is the very condition of rational activity. Faith and reason, then, are not oriented toward different realms; they are mutually enhancing. I illustrate this by showing how faith and devotional practices operate in Śāntideva’s Introduction to the Way of Life of a Bodhisattva and Training Anthology. In these texts, Śāntideva presents faith as the origin and source of awakening, because it sets the practitioner on the path. But faith is not merely necessary to initiate the path; according to Śāntideva, and many other Indian Buddhist authors, faith is necessary to continue to motivate progress along the path and is necessary until the end. Still, while worship of the Buddha and other practices to generate faith may be essential elements of the path, the goal is to become a Buddha oneself, which requires, along with transforming affect and action, attaining wisdom through analytic meditation and rational arguments. Śraddhā, as understood by Asaṅga and Śāntideva, while very different from a Kantian conception, resonates with some other Western accounts of faith, both classical and contemporary, that emphasize the affective and behavioral elements, as well as the cognitive. While my main point here is that for Asaṅga and Śāntideva, śraddhā is not in tension with but complements reason, I conclude by arguing that its range of meaning in Indian Buddhist literature on the path is best captured by the English term faith.