[buddha-l] it's not about belief

[Richard Nance]

Hi all --

I'd just like to chime in for a moment to observe the way that the
conversation has shifted, and to ask to return for a moment to the
subject that granted this (now very long, and rather diffuse) thread
its title. Curt started things out by trying to draw a distinction
between Christian beliefs (or perhaps "properly Christian attitudes
toward belief") and non-Christian beliefs (or, say, "properly
non-Christian attitude toward belief").

>"doctrinal" disputes in Buddhism are a different kind of animal from
>what they are in Christianity - and that is because Buddhism, like
>almost all other religions, accepts unquestioningly (and unconsciously)
>what the emperor Julian pointed out so long ago: it's not about belief.

To keep things on track, I want to ignore Curt's comment that the
sentiment "it's not about belief" is something encountered beyond
Buddhism; it may be, but resolving that issue is irrelevant to my
concerns. What is noteworthy, it seems to me, is that the sentiment
(or, if you prefer, belief) is regularly held up as something that
Buddhists embrace -- or would embrace if they were interested in being
good Buddhists. It crops up rather often in works on Buddhism these
days, whether or not these works are intended for a scholarly audience
-- e.g., Batchelor's *Buddhism without Beliefs*, discussion of the
importance of orthopraxy over orthodoxy in vinaya, etc.

I confess to finding this somewhat puzzling, particularly in light of
the fusillade of beliefs (and obvious attachments to those beliefs)
that have been flying around during this thread. I take it as obvious
-- i.e., not worth arguing -- that Buddhists throughout history have
believed all sorts of things, and that it's reasonable to assume that
their actions as Buddhists have been informed by such beliefs. So what
is meant by the insistence that "it's not about belief"? What is the
idea at issue here? Three options occur to me (although I'm sure that
there are many others). Each is a far cry from saying that Buddhism
"isn't about belief."

1. The idea is that it doesn't matter whether, or what, Buddhists
believe, so long as they commit themselves to an appropriate program
of actions. But what exempts that idea from being discarded as an
instance of the very sort of "belief" that it sets out to dismiss?

2. The idea is that to be a good Buddhist, one need not assent to
beliefs that are not supported by what we (all of us? Non-Buddhists
too?) today would admit as compelling evidence. This seems to be one
way that the discussion here has gone, and it may be true; personally,
I don't count myself as qualified to speak for the tradition. But if
it's true, and if we can't help but form beliefs, we're back in a
familiar epistemological problem: what is to count as a justified
belief? (So, for example, should a good Buddhist take the fact that a
Buddhist tradition reports that a Buddha said p as sufficient evidence
to believe (note that I haven't said "be certain") that p?)

3. Since we've introduced the notion of certainty, perhaps the idea is
that to be a good Buddhist, one need not -- and, indeed, should not --
assent to any belief as certain (where "certain" means something like
"utterly immune to future revision"). If this belief -- i.e., the
belief that certainty is something to be avoided -- were itself to be
revised, one would thereby cease to be a good Buddhist. But if this is
the idea on the table, I'd like to hear more about how one might
reconcile it with the emphasis on -- and pursuit of -- ni"scaya (a
Sanskrit term that is typically translated into English as
"certainty") by Indian pramaa.na theorists, many of whom were
Buddhists.

Best wishes and thanks in advance for any clarification that anyone
might want to provide,

R. Nance