..续本文上一页developed further, faith becomes more intense. This faith will motivate us to elevate ourselves and ground our lives in true morality. It will enable our lives, guided by the ideals to which we have responded with faith. Faith is not merely an appreciation of the ideal but a desire to move towards it.
Although some intellectuals possess a vast knowledge of Buddhism, and have strong reasoning ability, they commonly lack faith in Buddhism. Therefore, Dharma can not take firm root and grow in their hearts. Because of this, Dharma cannot really benefit them. Studying Buddhism in this barren manner contradicts the teaching of Buddhism because the Buddhist way of life necessarily contains the element of faith. When we have confidence, we will be able to purify our minds and free them from defilements i.e. greed (s. raga), hatred (s. pratigha) and ego-conceptualization (s. atmamana). Confidence is like an alum; it purifies muddy water. Similarly, a strong faith will purify your mind. The reality of life is full of distress and misery, but faith can transform a mental state of emptiness and anguish into joy, peace, calm and contentment. This is like an innocent child who wanders around the streets, lost, hungry, thirsty, cold, worried and not knowing what to do. While he is anxious and filled with despair, he suddenly finds his mother. He will immediately feel secure and happy because he deeply believes that he will obtain food, warm clothes and the consolation of his mother”s love. Similarly, a life of faith is filled with joy, peace, security and contentment.
If our faith is not developed through open thinking and reasoning, then we are just following what others lead us to believe. A blind religious faith becomes fanatical when it is carried away by wild enthusiasm and the deprecation of wisdom. Buddhist faith develops through the cultivation of wisdom. Since it espouses a faith wedded to wisdom, Buddhism avoids the viciousness of that religious fanaticism which espouses faith devoid of deeper understanding and porced from wisdom. The development of Buddhist faith involves several stages. The evolving faith displayed by some Buddhists does not therefore necessarily reveal the true, ultimate meaning of faith in the Buddha Dharma.
The most outstanding characteristic of wisdom is free thought and its operative functions include understanding and cognition. The wisdom of humanity extends through space to the farthest reaches of the Universe. Our knowledge is continuously changing, improving and progressing. Therefore traditions may not necessarily be reliable. This is due to the fact that when humans develop knowledge acquired through their own perceptions of the external world, much unreliable information is accumulated in the process. Such empirical knowledge is vitiated because the pieces of information from which it is derived are in turn derived from sensory perceptions of the external world, and both the ordinary mind and the external world are comprised of, and compromised by, a certain degree of illusion. For example, when we are perceiving the external world we cannot know our minds at the same moment. Therefore, we are tempted by the external world and our minds are controlled by the material world. Since we lose control of our minds, greed, hatred and ignorance arise. In Buddhism it is acknowledged that the knowledge gained by human beings is far superior to that gained by other beings. We humans almost try to know everything, yet we do not know ourselves. This is a cognitive bias of ours. When we try to understand the external world we lack the ability to have a complete overview of it. Everything in the phenomenal world is impermanent and constantly changing, but we are always subjectively inferring about the nature of obje…
《The Two Distinctive Characteristics of Buddhism》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…