saddhābhavana, ‘cultivating faith’

Importantly, choosing to believe does not resolve doubt, and as Rahula says, ‘To force oneself to believe and to accept a thing without understanding is political, and not spiritual or intellectual.’ Also, one may not believe but choose to accept on faith until one does know (one way or the other), at which point it is not belief but knowledge, and beyond that is understanding/experience. I suppose not believing but choosing to accept on faith is something like agnosticism, and in that position we can lean-in to Pascal’s Wager somewhat as well, to help with alleviating doubt.

Addressing the concerns of doubt are necessarily an individual path, with support from trusted teachers and peers, but I am trying here to cover some of the key causes of doubt a practitioner might encounter in their practice, and how to cultivate faith where it is lacking. This necessarily begins with an understanding of what Buddhism actually addresses, and what it doesn’t, the next chapter. Doubts can come from outside Buddhism - such as from our inherited worldview - and we cannot resolve such doubts with dhamma, but must look at where our worldview is keeping us snagged.

And the maintenance of faith requires remaining aware of these conditioned beliefs in case they surface again - and the ability to navigate new concerns as they arise. It’s like a doctor who has to stay updated with recent developments in medicine, except you are both the cause and the cure 🏹. To that end, I started tracking a few known beliefs to see how I actually feel about them, and found out my worldview is unsurprisingly a lot more Buddhist than I had thought.

While there are doubts that arise from outside Buddhism, there are others that arise from within, such as whether awakening in this lifetime is possible? Or has the sasana past its use-by date and we just need to make merit and wait for Matreya? These questions can only be resolved by the dhamma itself, and for that purpose we have the practice of contemplating the Triple Gem.

Contemplation of the Triple Gem

Contemplating the Triple Gem is a traditional practice for cultivating saddhā. The gems are the Buddha, the dhamma, and the sangha.

This

After doing lots of research into the nature of the Triple Gem as a source of faith, I hit a wall when I couldn’t find more than stock descriptions of these qualities that I still don’t have much context for. So at some places here I might break out into lists of empty subheadings so I have an outline to work with.

It may be that I’ll need to drag information over here as I fill it in, because doing it all in one go is a big task, there are lots of qualities!

Ways I find helpful in cultivating saddhā have, unsurprisingly, begun to come from avenues other than contemplating the Triple Gem, which, when I think about it now, feels a bit like cultivating faith in the Bible as the word of God by reading that claim in the Bible ~ it seems to be a circular argument.

I understand that reading the dhamma is a natural way of cultivating faith in the Buddha as the one who realised and taught that dhamma, and this is indeed part of my practice. It’s just that another part of my practice of cultivating¹ faith is reading contemporary dhamma-related authors and researching those areas of modern philosophy and science that are beginning to interact more and more with the insights of the Buddha. Nonetheless I want to understand more about contemplation of the Triple Gem - it may be that I’ll need to drag information over here as I fill it in, because doing it all in one go is a big task, there are lots of qualities!

To have faith in the Triple Gem, we need to know who the Buddha was, what he taught, and how to practice in pursuit of the spiritual development he described, from full-blown ignorant worldling through the four stages of awakening to fully awakened arahant. To that end, we’re going to need a map 🏹.

There are numerous other satīs for cultivating saddhā, recollection of various qualities and values for meditation and contemplation, such as recollection of virtuous ethics, sīlanussati.

Purpose

of contemplating the Triple Gem

• inspire faith, offsetting the hindrance of doubt
• brighten & uplift the mind, arousing the faculty of energy and potentially offsetting the the hindrance of drowsiness
• promoting the embodiment of the Buddha’s qualities, and his teachings through practice among a sangha
• promoting renunciation

Promoting Renunciation

The Caṅkī Sutta is a good source for contemplating the qualities of the Buddha, including the reflection that the Buddha went forth while young, in the prime of his life, and as such is an exemplary model of renunciation.

Considering how Buddha renounced the luxury of palace life and became an ascetic wanderer, which might have been easier to do in ancient India, is still inspiring today, especially when considered alongside the fact many Westerners today are renouncing equally luxurious conditions to ordain and even to practice as laypeople.

Buddhānusati

contemplation of the Buddha

By contemplating the Buddha we can renew our faith in our primary teacher, who for this purpose was said to have nine qualities.

Relevant Suttas

AN 10.21 Sīhanāda Sutta, ‘The Lion’s Roar’

Like a lion, a Realised One roars his preeminence based on his ten, special powers, which enable him to teach the Dhamma.

The Nine Qualities of the Buddha

There are nine classical virtues of the Buddha, each of which ‘expands upon and clarify’ the three main categories (Khantipālo): wisdom, purity, compassion.

• arahaṁ, ‘the accomplished destroyer of defilements’¹
• sammā sambuddho, ‘a Buddha perfected by himself’
• vijjā-caraṇa-sampanno, ‘complete in clear knowledge and compassionate conduct’
• sugato, ‘supremely good in presence and in destiny’
• lokavidu, ‘knower of the worlds’
• anuttaro purisadamma-sārathī, ‘incomparable master of those to be tamed’
• satthā deva-manussānaṁ, ‘teacher of devas and humanity’
• buddho, ‘awakener and awakened’
• bhagavā, ‘the lord of skilful means apportioning dhamma’

There may be nine classical virtues but there are overlaps and I am bound to parse each and all of them in variously shifting ways, so there is some value in making my own list to one day memorise in support of being able to call these to mind as required:

• self-awakened sammāsambuddho
• taught the dust-free out of compassion
• valued pragmatism and the empiricism of the human senses (the fathom-long body)
• valued social justice
• valued inquiry and the power of the human intellect
• understood that awakening was a latent potential in all (human²) beings, even if not each individual had the required disposition/capacity/kamma in this lifetime
• travelled widely, and for 45 years, to teach the Dhamma sugato
• in the context of Araham, it is worth contemplating that the Buddha had emotional granularity

Some of these, such as “valued inquiry and the power of the human intellect” are going to derive from the qualities of the dhamma recorded for the purpose of dhammānussati.

Arahaṁ, free from defilements

The Buddha was free from the Defilements of greed, anger, and delusion, and free from even the subtler forms of the Three Poisons, such as envy, jealousy, and hypocrisy.

purity arahant

Sammā Sambuddho, a Buddha perfected by himself

The Buddha was self-awakened, not by following another’s teaching, and truly a cosmological marvel³ because such a being appears only once the saddhamma, true dhamma has long vanished from the world. Khantipālo highlights that the Buddha was a regular human being who realised the truth by virtue of his own efforts: he was not bestowed special or arcane insight by a god, and ‘owes his enlightenment to none’. The Buddha was not descended from some supernatural realm⁴ or being, and yet has transcended human limitations. We might not have the potential to become a buddha because that would defy the laws of cosmology, but we can become enlightened disciples, arahants, by adhering to the Buddha’s instructions.

This is inspiring because we each have all the same six senses and five faculties as he had and therefore we have the same potential. It is from within this epithet that I can anchor myself to fuelling faith in the potential of the human mind when I am feeling drowsy/vague, or doubtful about my own capacity.

I suppose it would be in this category that we would consider the Buddha’s realisation of the Three Knowledges.

wisdom

the Three Knowledges

*tevijja* The Buddha famously refused to answer certain questions about metaphysics, and in discourses like MN 71 Tevijja Vacchagotta Sutta, ‘on the Three Knowledges’, explicitly denied that he was omniscient. omniscience In that sutta he clarifies what knowledge he did gain during the three watches of the night he awakened:

• recollection of past lives
• the passing away and rebirth of beings according to their karma
• unconditioned liberation of nibbana, by eradication of the defilements

Technically these are called:

• recollection of past abodes (pubbenivāsanussati-ñāṇa),
  • which apparently meant he could see past lives across countless cosmic cycles, including past worlds (bhājana-loka) and cosmic epochs
• the Divine Eye (dibbacakkhu / cutūpapāta-ñāṇa)**,
  • meaning knowledge of the passing away and rebirth of sentient beings across the 31 planes of existence according to their karma
• destruction of the effluents (āsavakkhaya-ñāṇa),
  • meaning penetrative, liberating insight that eradicates the defilements of craving (taṇhā), conceit (māna), and speculative views (diṭṭhi)

recollection of past lives

the passing away and rebirth of beings

nibbana

I am putting these headings here mostly so I have a quick reference in the content tree when I look at this note.

Vijjā-caraṇa-sampanno, complete in clear knowledge and compassionate conduct

Khantipālo’s 3.6 (p. 42) is from MN 91, a discourse about the young brahmin Uttarā going to spend time observing the Buddha so he can report back to his brahmin elder, Brahmāyu.

I’m doubtful about it though, because the Buddha is described as too perfect (“He does not extend his foot too far or put it down too near. He walks neither too quickly nor too slowly.”) like Goldilocks. And of course there are the mythical “thirty-two marks of a Great Man”, which include “the torso of a lion”, “legs like an antelope”, palms that rub against his knees “without stooping”, and a penis “enclosed in a sheath”, which may just mean it is uncircumcised, but otherwise these characteristics end up being uninspiring because they are so fantastical. Maybe each mark has a relationship with some social or personal value that was held dear at the time, and the symbolism just seems arbitrary to us because we don’t know the historical and cultural context.

There are also features that could not be perceived by others, and reporting these in the suttas just asks for them to be derided as folklore or mythology . For example, “His taste is supremely acute …”, and:

He turns the mouthful over two or three times in his mouth and then swallows it, and no rice kernel enters his body unchewed, and no rice kernel remains in his mouth; then he takes another mouthful. He takes his food experiencing the taste, though not experiencing greed for the taste.

Sugato, supremely good in presence and in destiny

Defined in the Canki Sutta as one ‘who has reached the destination’.

From Khantipālo (p. 51), ‘sugata’ suggests auspicious or fortunate and literally means ‘well gone’ or ‘one who is gone to goodness’, which might have some relationship with Tathāgatha, ‘thus gone’. So this epithet refers to the Buddha’s worldly journeys to teach and help, but also his realisation of the ultimate destination 🏹. Khantipālo quotes a commentary about the Buddha’s five duties to illustrate the Buddha’s considerable daily efforts to teach.

The Buddha’s five duties

what are these

Lokavidu, knower of the worlds

In SN 35.84, Subject to Disintegration, Ānanda asks, ‘What is the world?’ and the Buddha says, ‘Anything of the nature to be worn away’⁵, meaning the six senses, plus form, sense-consciousness, contact, feeling.

Khantipālo explains (72) we can’t escape this world (of suffering) ‘by going’ anywhere - the whole world is characterised by suffering and yet ‘one cannot make an end of suffering without having reached the end of the world’. A paradox? No, because the world is in ‘this fathom-long body/carcass’: it’s origin; its cessation; and the path leading to its sensation cessation.

Anuttaro Purisadamma-sārathī, tamer of those who wish to be trained

The Buddha tamed even murderers but elsewhere it is acknowledged that some he couldn’t tame, according to their kamma and disposition, their temperament. If someone wants to learn, they are easy to tame, but not one who doesn’t, no matter how brilliant the teacher.

If the student wasn’t ready to be tamed or trained, the Buddha would not insist. In AN 4.111, we have Buddha talking with Kesi the horse trainer, who destroys any horse that doesn’t respond to training. Kesi is a bit shocked when Buddha says he does the same: if a student doesn’t respond to training, he ends their training by withdrawing admonishment⁶ .

AN 4.128, about what happens along with the manifestation of a Buddha in the world, seems relevant here, because it is not so much about any marvellous things manifesting, but about how the arrival of a buddha means people want to hear the dhamma, in particular on four distinct subjects in this case:

• non-attachment
• the abandonment of conceit
• peace
• the removal of ignorance

So they were inspired to practice, and became tamed if that was in the cards for them.

In MN 51, Pessa the elephant trainer’s son praises the Buddha for the sangha when he is able to tame elephants but not me.

Even Murderers

The Buddha uses psychic powers to make a pun and trick a Aṅgulimāla into renouncing evil (MN 86).

Satthā deva-manussānaṁ, teacher of gods and humans

The Buddha was able to survey the audience (Khantipalo, pp. 83-84) and discern whether anyone was ready for the full teaching - whether they would see the dhamma upon hearing it, or sometime later -

• 👆🏼find sutta

This is described as ‘encompassing’ someone’s mind - the ability to see the mind’s general state, but not specific thoughts or content - the Buddha wasn’t exactly a mind reader as we think of one today.

The Buddha taught the Abhidhamma in the deva realm, and devas came to the human realm for teachings

• 👆🏼find sutta

Buddha taught (AN 5.131) the five qualities of a wheel-turning monarch*¹, still relevant today for heads of government, who ‘wields power only in a principled manner’, and he turned the wheel of dhamma using the same five qualities he advises to a monarch: (Sujato)

• He knows what is right,
• knows principle,
• knows moderation,
• knows the right time, and
• knows the assembly.

In Khantipalo (p. 92), these are expressed: knowledge of good; knowledge of dhamma; amount; occasion; assembly.

Assembly, perhaps is about knowing which dhamma to teach when, and to whom.

According to the Caṅkī Sutta, deities have gone for refuge with the Buddha - and the dhamma and sangha, presumably.

He gave many teachings to householders, who far outweigh monastics in the Buddhist demographic.

Buddho, the Buddha

Listening to the audio of the Caṅkī Sutta for some reason helped me to see that these final two classical qualities of the Buddha are more like epithets. They feature at the end of the classical list of qualities expounded by the brahmins at Opāsāda:

a good report of venerable Gotama has spread to this effect: ‘The Blessed One is an Arahant (araham), a perfectly Awakened One (sammā sambhuddo), accomplished in true knowledge and conduct (vijjā-carana-sampanno), who has reached the destination (sugato), knower of the world (lokavidu), an unsurpassed guide of trainable persons (anuttaro purisadamma-sārathī) , a teacher of gods and humans (satthā deva-manussānaṁ), Buddha (buddho), Fortunate One (bhagavā).

Bhagavā, the Fortunate One

or Blessed One

See Buddho👆🏼 about realising these final two classical qualities are essentially just epithets.

Dhammānusati

contemplation of the Dhamma

Researching these six qualities of the dhamma has helped me see why my default is to assume that I am stronger as a dhammanusari, which is precisely why I leant-in to all this research on faith. I find it much easier to relate to these qualities than the others without having to do much research to understand their meaning.

The Six Qualities of the Dhamma

There are six classic qualities of the dhamma considered for dhammānusati:

• *svakkhato bhagavata dhammo, ‘the dhamma is well expounded by the Buddha’
• sanditthiko, ‘directly visible’ or ‘visible here and now’
• akaliko, ‘timeless’
• ehipassiko, ‘inviting you to come and see’
• opanayiko, ‘leading onward’ or ‘to be brought near’
• paccattam veditabbo vinnuhi, ‘to be personally known by the wise’

Svakkhato Bhagavata Dhammo

The dhamma is well-expounded by the Buddha.

Sanditthiko

‘directly visible’

Its effects can be experienced, rather than merely believed.

Bhikkhu Bodhi writes that the dhamma is “directly visible and personally verifiable” because    > by direct inspection of our own experience we can see that sorrow, tension, fear and grief always arise from our greed, aversion and ignorance, and thus can be eliminated with the removal of those defilements.

Akaliko

‘timeless’

Ehipassiko

the teaching invites investigation.

Opanayiko

Translations differ; the emphasis is on bringing the teaching into practice and its direction toward liberation. I have seen this translated in chanting books as ‘leading inward’, which I much prefer, but apparently is not correct.

Paccattaṃ Veditabbo Viññūhī

individually discerned by the wise, ‘to be individually ascertained by the wise’, etc. An easy favourite. Understanding cannot simply be borrowed from another person. “By the wise” also matters: personal conviction alone is not the measure of truth.

Not Part of the Formal Six

For the Welfare and Happiness of Many, Gods and Humans

Not one of the six formal qualities in this formula, but the expression bahujanahitaya bahujanasukhaya from SN 4.5 has it that our practice is ‘for the welfare of many, for the happiness of many’. Sending his arahant disciples out to teach, he said (Sujato):

Wander forth, mendicants, for the welfare and happiness of the people, out of sympathy for the world, for the benefit, welfare, and happiness of gods and humans. Let not two go by one road.

I don’t know what the one-road bit means.

Ekāyano Maggo, The ‘Direct Path’

It can be helpful in cultivating saddhā to consider the idea of ekāyano maggo, which translates as “direct path; a path leading toward (only) one destination”, which is nibbāna, freedom from suffering. This does not mean there is only one path - every being walks a unique path - but just that the Path, the Eightfold Path, leads only in one direction - toward the cessation of suffering.

A Whole and Complete Path

There are some teachings and suttas that are considered to be internally sufficient as a practice leading to complete liberation. I first encountered this idea in Tibetan Buddhism, and later from my Zen teacher who referred to the Four Foundations of Mindfulness as a complete path.

Ajahn Sumedho says in his book The Four Noble Truths ⁷, “the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, the Buddha’s teaching on the Four Noble Truths, has been the main reference that I have used for my practice over the years”, and “this one sutta contains all that is necessary for understanding dhamma and for enlightenment”. Remember, the Four Noble Truths contain the Eightfold Noble Path as the Fourth Noble Truth, which is that there is a path out of suffering.

A good one to contemplate if the ol’ doubt has reared its head again.

So far I have found the following teachings considered complete paths:

• the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (on the Four Noble Truths ~ including the Eightfold Noble Path)
• the Ānāpānasati Sutta (Mindfulness of Breathing)
• the Satipatthana Sutta (the Four Foundations of Mindfulness)
• the Seven Factors of Awakening (described in various suttas, see below)
• TBC

In some suttas, the idea of a complete path is described using the phrase ekāyano maggo, meaning “direct path; a path leading toward (only) one destination”.

Individual Awakening

Buddha taught individual awakening as a legitimate means of serving the world and community.

Sanghānusati

contemplation of the Sangha

It has been helpful for me to learn that even becoming an arahant doesn’t operate on the level of the personality (Bodhi, p. 16), because meeting purported arahants whose behaviour was uninspiring to say the least, would sometimes leave me doubting the sangha and the dhamma: If these are the results, I’m not interested.

Although one may become more compassionate, gentle, etc. because of the training, it is the training that causes this not the awakening itself, and an arahant may not necessarily iron out all the habits we may see as character flaws, like gruffness or aloofness or low emotional intelligence/awareness. I also read somewhere that arahants’ defilements are not aroused even by fine foods, which might explain silver service, although my view still thinks he should model better austerity/renunciation.

Considering the potential for these doubts, I have found the Nine Qualities of the Sangha for contemplation alongside buddhānusati and dhammānusati.

There is also a nice bit of ebullient praise for the sangha from the Buddha in MN 118 Ānāpānassatisutta, ‘Mindfulness of Breathing’:

Monks, this assembly is free from idle chatter, devoid of idle chatter, and is established on pure heartwood: Such is this Saṅgha of monks, such is this assembly. The sort of assembly that is deserving of gifts, deserving of hospitality, deserving of offerings, deserving of respect, an incomparable field of merit for the world: Such is this Saṅgha of monks, such is this assembly. The sort of assembly to which a small gift, when given, becomes great, and a great gift greater: Such is this Saṅgha of monks, such is this assembly. The sort of assembly that is rare to see in the world: Such is this Saṅgha of monks, such is this assembly—the sort of assembly that it would be worth traveling for leagues, taking along provisions, in order to see.

So the sangha is free from idle chatter, established on pure heartwood. They are deserving of gifts, hospitality, offerings, respect, and are an incomparable field of merit for the world. A small gift given to such a sangha, becomes a great gift. It is rare to see such an assembly in the world - it would be worth travelling the globe with one’s own provisions just to see such a sangha.

The Nine Qualities of the Sangha

Supaṭipanno, pure conduct

Canonical Support for Saddhā

Heavenly Destiny

🗂️ unsupportive

In Soma Thera’s essay, ‘Faith In The Buddha’s Teaching’, there are so many rich ideas in just the first four pages, and then more all the way through, starting with a guarantee the faithful will go to heaven:

• one who has mere/‘but’ faith in and affection for the Buddha and his teachings, when they are correctly expounded, is destined for heaven (MI 142¹), …

Leading with this does not give much support to Canonical Support for *Saddhā* because our conduct is the only determinant of the future we might expect, and belief matters only to the extent it motivates wholesome conduct wholesome conduct. There is something questionable about saying one with mere faith is “as it were taken by the hand and placed in heaven”, considering a belief exists in some Christians that merely inviting Jesus into one’s heart ensures they have a place in heaven, freedom from sin, etc.

He does say elsewhere in the essay that genuine faith - or faith based on genuine understanding - necessarily motivates wholesome conduct because one of those ideas is kamma. Still though, the heaven guarantee troubles me because doesn’t Buddha say elsewhere that we cannot know where kamma will lead, beyond good=good? If someone does a lot of unwholesome stuff in their life and gains genuine faith right at the end of their life, are they still going to heaven? And apart from the actions in this life: what if past-life (bad) kamma is yet to find the conditions for ripening? Couldn’t even the faithful then still be reborn in hell? Or can it be assumed that if one has gained human rebirth then all their bad past-life kamma must have been burned?

These (kinds of) questions honestly do need some kind of resolution for me and as such the Heavenly Destiny teaching doesn’t sit well with me in terms of reasoned conviction.

Saddhā and Pema

Supporting faith with affection for the Buddha

Saddhā is often paired with pema (affection), which is generally more accessible for ‘native’ Buddhists but can be cultivated. There is so far no mention of a pemanussari so I guess this kind of affection is not a requirement for becoming a pre-noble one, and pema is not listed among 04. The Five Faculties. But like mettā, it sounds like a good feeling to have.

I do feel a kind of brotherlyness for the Buddha - for the mind-held image of the person I imagine he was, and for kalyana-mitta or respected teachers. Through connection with living dhamma brothers I get a sense of what it might be like to feel affection for Gotama, and when the time is right I will get around to reading again about Gotama’s life, perhaps starting with The Broken Gong. Perhaps I could re-visit Siddhartha.

Surfacing Doubt

I am aware there may be considerable doubt lurking beneath the surface in my unconscious, quietly sabotaging my faith: if I can surface these doubts I can do some reasoned consideration and have ideas to call up when doubt manifests. This way I am gradually reprogramming the mind - reconditioning.

Philosophy of Science

Looking into the assumptions at the heart of contemporary scientish conclusions has helped me to leaven unconscious attachment to an inherited worldview. Capriles argues that science cannot arrive at the truth due to some failure of reductionism I think - I found the paper hard to follow. Anyway, even if science could arrive at the truths we are interested in, we could only rely on the reports 👇🏼 from other scientists. Buddhism offers an empirical method for experiencing certain truths directly for ourselves. ✅

Faith in Science

Scientists rely on the accounts of other scientists all the time, and wouldn’t be able to do much at all if they didn’t, short of completing all the other experiments themselves.

The Empirical Nature of Dhamma

Practising the dhamma empowers us to have direct experience of certain truths through the six senses.

Dhamma Bridges

Finding intersections between dhamma and Western psychology always buoys my faith - these are disciplines I already have some understanding of, and often they express their insights in my language, from a shared cultural background. With an evolving understanding of how to discern dhamma from adhamma means I can look at these disciplines and modalities and consider myself whether their teachings are dhamma-aligned or not. The Buddha didn’t claim a monopoly on truth, and many practitioners of numerous different traditions altogether are coming at the same conclusions, along with contemporary scientists.

One example is how Buddha’s teachings about yoniso-manasikara intersect with Viktor Frankl’s idea of the space between stimulus and response. These are essential because they empower us to inhabit our direct experience 🏹 rather than perceive it through conditioning. This is also how we can escape from the cycle of transgenerational trauma, which might have meaningful parallels with escaping samsara generally. transgenerational-trauma

Viktor Frankl’s ‘Space Between’

Frankl’s idea of ‘the space between’ has long made sense to me conceptually, but I had no known way of accessing it directly. I had learnt some things about nervous-system regulation to understand how to widen ‘the space between’ and reduce reactivity, the window of tolerance, but understanding yoniso-manasikara as a practice helps me inhabit that window by gaining access to my experience before I cling or proliferate about it.

I have been wondering about this for sometime, and talked a lot with H- about how we could gain direct access to this realm of pure experience, assuming that this is where the ultimate equanimity arises as we let the hindrances fade. This might be how I can experience the space between stimulus and response, and perhaps even train myself to inhabit this realm of pure experience ongoing, to see reality as it is consistently, not momentarily as in some (conditioned) states of meditation.

The Causes and Conditions of Samadhi

Spoiler!

The absence of the the Five Hindrances, itself caused by application of the 04. The Five Faculties and a few other antidotes.

thefivefaculties thefivehindrances

Knowing the causes and conditions of samadhi raises confidence, of course! Especially, I find, as an antidote to doubt arising about one’s own practice. I know to stick with it, because it takes time for these trainings to make their way through our conditioning paths of entangled thickets. So persistence is required, which supports mindfulness and the other faculties less directly.

Many Methods

This one is an easy doubt to resolve with recourse to the simile of the cook (SN 47.8), where it is encouraged to know various meditation techniques to suitably nourish one’s happiness and spiritual progress, and to the famous MN 20 about how to work with distracting thoughts, and to AN 6.58 Āsavasutta, ’Defilements’, where the Buddha explains that ‘diverse methods should be used for overcoming diverse kinds of problems’ and that ’one who is skilled in this is “worthy of offerings”’. sanghānussati

he simile of the cook teaches the need to know various meditation techniques to suitably nourish one’s happiness and spiritual progress. In a similar vein, there were certain wholesome pleasures the Buddha encouraged us to allow because a long and successful holy life depends on being adequately nourished in meditation. jhana

As the cook pays attention to his master’s reactions, to know whether a practice is developing in the right fashion, a meditator must pay attention to the ‘sign of the mind’, and we do this by developing yoniso manasikara, ‘wise attention’ or attention placed at the origin of experience where we can see reactions arise.

I might have stated elsewhere how profoundly insightful this seems to me right now, this understanding of applying wise attention to pure experience - it seems that here we can get ahead of the eight ball, so to speak. If we can more consistently inhabit the space of pure experience, our suffering is bound to reduce.

It makes complete sense to me that I should have a range of techniques up my sleeve, so I guess I can stamp this with ✅ denoting a confident epistemic state. There is no good argument I know of that supports the teaching or application of a single sole technique or approach to meditation.

Of course we need to not flit around between objects or meditation styles because This one isn’t working, but after applying ourselves enough to one approach we need to check-in with whether it is working or not. Certainly the one-method end of the spectrum is generally unadvisable, it is safe to say.

A competent cook pays attention to whether his master is satisfied with the dishes being served. In the same way, a competent meditator is aware of whether his practice is improving concentration and reducing defilements, or not. If not, then a meditator needs to choose another approach or object. Because if you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail [or the other way round?]

the Counterdote

If we are attached to a particular single method, we can leaven that attachment by considering the above suttas and by cultivating yoniso manasikara to see whether our approach is working.

meditation asava defilements meditation-techniques meditation-methods psychological-technologies

Understanding the Buddha’s Teaching

It should go without saying that an important aspect of cultivating saddhā is understanding what the Buddha actually taught, and did not teach, but this is easier said than done. I have dedicated a whole ‘chapter’ of the essay to this, and there are some preliminary comments worth making here and/or there. There is a belief among some people that “all religions are the same”, or that all religious experience is aimed at the same goal, but even if there may be similarities between various experiences had by practitioners along the way, it was helpful for me to learn from Harris that the major religions’ “truth claims about reality are mutually incompatible”. So it is going to be important to understand, What are the ‘truth claims’ of Buddhism?

Although I have some understanding of this already, there are certain areas of metaphysics and psychology that are not addressed by Buddhism, and sometimes I get stuck on these, thinking that Buddhism is not sufficient for what I want to achieve or contribute to achieving as humans in this weird experience of existing. So I need to draw some boundaries around where Buddhism starts and stops, otherwise my faith in Buddhism is compromised by something that isn’t actually to do with Buddhism itself, but with my goals and aspirations.

I can say with some confidence that, for example, I don’t really need to know whether the universe has a beginning and an end or is actually an eternal multiverse, but I do need to give some thought to how I feel about rebirth. I am also becoming increasingly comfortable accepting that Buddhism may not be as holistic as I would like it to be - even the most-sincere dhamma practice may not do any work at the level of personality, but there are other complementary models of transpersonal psychotherapy that are sufficiently dhamma-aligned that I can incorporate them in my practice without betraying my allegiance to the Triple Gem or compromising the authenticity of my practice.

Contemporary Accounts

from Neuroscience and the New Physics

That’s not a very creative title, but the general idea is that …

Title

…developments in neuroscience and other disciplines of emerging-paradigm science are beginning to confirm ancient Eastern insights, and to correlate certain psychological experiences with neural activity - essentially mapping these states, and bringing support to the validity of claims about being able to achieve them.

Harris talks about this a lot, in his book Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality without Religion. And that’s probably just the tip of the iceberg.

Waking Up

Reading modern perspectives in support of Buddhism is an important aspect of cultivating saddhā for me, because it helps me cultivate reasoned confidence

from Groups Like Pragmatic Dharma

People have repeated these experiments in our generation, and would have some insight into it that would be more accessible coming from people of similar cultural background. For example, presumably effort would double-down after one gains ‘unshakable faith’ upon stream-entry, which is why I have added a section for that - experiencing stream-entry is said to dispel all doubt.

from other Spiritual Traditions

Harris mentions Meister Eckhart (Christian mystic) and Al-Hallaj (Sufi, Muslim mystic) as examples of individuals who transcended the ‘doctrinal assumptions’ of their religions and realised they were ‘one with God’. Alas, then they were excommunicated as heretics and/or murdered for challenging the orthodoxy. Nonetheless, their experiences inspire faith in me, and I would like to

It inspires faith for me to read about such case histories in an account of spiritual realisation by a modern Western neuroscience.

Developing the Mind

Sometimes I fancy that developing the mind to its greatest potential is a good-enough reason to pursue this path, regardless of how I feel about whether my efforts directly benefit others or how I feel about realms as literal cosmological realities or metaphors for psychological states.

This is a relatively easy foothold for faith, but still sometimes I get jagged on how my inherited worldview influences even the extent to which I believe I can develop the mind. Our perception of the world is (somewhat pre-)determined by our beliefs and expectations, which means that someone who is still half-unconsciously immersed in the worldview of metaphysical materialism is likely to disbelieve that certain psychic phenomena are possible, including awakening, whereas someone with a Buddhist (or shamanic, etc.) worldview would believe they are possible. I don’t know where I get jagged exactly.

I don’t necessarily want or need psychic powers, but even to experience the jhanas in meditation I need to believe: 1) it is possible to achieve jhana; and 2) I have the capacity to achieve them. The jhanas were described by buddha as superior-human states, and they are certainly states of non-ordinary consciousness, characterised by niramisa sukha, ‘pleasure from beyond the senses’. Being able to achieve these states are the beginning steps of the awakening process that Buddha described.

However, being able to experience these states at all, let alone at will with the right training, was never a part of what my inherited worldview offered. It is another good-enough reason for me to defect from materialism and adopt a worldview that does offer ways of experiencing these states, replete with instructions that are, granted, a bit coded - but they are experiments that any one can repeat.

Of course this got me thinking about what actually constitutes a well-developed mind, which surely begins with not holding to fixed views, which I have always appreciated.

Transcendent Happiness

The potential for experiencing transcendent happiness or niramisa sukha, ‘pleasure from beyond the senses’, is another good-enough reason for me to defect from materialism and adopt a worldview that does offer ways of experiencing these states, replete with instructions that are, granted, a bit coded - but they are experiments that any one can repeat.

Pursue Stream-entry

Achieving such an aspiration is said to dispel all doubt - this is going to be my main focus of study going forward, as the logical progression from essaying through doubt and saddhā here, and as such warrants its own essay.

Faith is a natural precursor for the path of stream-entry, as understood from the teachings about dhammanusari or saddhanusari (SN 48.24), a ‘wisdom follower’ and ‘faith follower’ respectively. One becomes a dhammanusari or saddhanusari by bringing the five faculties to an unspecified maturity, and by doing so is considered a sort of pre-noble noble one, or pre-*ariyasāvaka*.

Cultivate Ambiguity Tolerance

I appreciate this as a quality in its own right, but the best I can do right now is copy out a note saying Loevinger recognises ambiguity tolerance as a quality of a mind that is at E7-8 on the 9-point scale of mental development.

The Ripple Effect

One of the first and most-common arguments I hear in support of dedicating oneself to something that otherwise might be perceived as quite selfish is the ripple effect: we model an alternative to the neurotic and fevered pursuit of happiness through pleasure, and lead by example.

It is not that I don’t believe that such social impact is real - the ripple effect is undeniable, and gets a stamp ✅ - it’s just that I have stupidly high expectations of myself and for a long time I was immersed in the bodhisattva ideal, meaning it doesn’t feel sufficient, for me, that my impact on society comes through the minor and fleeting exchanges I have with fewer and fewer people as I get closer and closer to monasticism.

Nonetheless, it’s a reliable fallback because it’s hard to doubt the efficacy of practice on this level.

Footnotes

1. It may be worth noting briefly, perhaps as a placeholder, that typing ‘cultivating’ here has, for some reason, come along with an appreciation of how faith is something that grows. As with many aspects of dhamma practice, such as the arising of insight, there isn’t something we directly do that causes insight or the arising of faith in that moment ~ rather, we cultivate the mental, emotional, and intellectual conditions for such psychological phenomena to arise … not by magic, but by an application of what I can only vaguely describe as ‘indirect effort’. indirect-effort ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

2. And possibly all beings, including those not yet born in the human realm to be able to practise the dhamma. ↩

3. The term “cosmological marvel” might be excessive, because actually the arising of a buddha may be just a regularnatural expression of reality. It is not eve, really, a marvel that one finds themselves alive during the dispensation, because that too is just a natural consequence of certain actions and their results. ↩

4. It is said that the Buddha was born to Earth from the Tusita heaven, but this is not a supernatural realm, just a regularnatural realm of samsara. ↩

5. Sujato has “Whatever is subject to disintegration”. ↩

6. admonishment is a training method, as we know from the Vinaya ↩

7. available as a PDF here ↩