[Buddha-l] It is about belief

[Jim Peavler]

On Jan 2, 2006, at 2:19 PM, Richard P. Hayes wrote:
>
>> I am looking over this book at amazon right now, as well as  
>> checking out
>> Harris' very interesting website at http://www.samharris.org/. It  
>> looks
>> to me like Harris makes the mistake of failing to distinguish  
>> adequately
>> between Christianity in particular and Religion in general.
>>
>
> This is not the impression I get from reading The End of Faith. The
> religions that Harris finds especially onerous are those that put  
> trust
> in beliefs for which there is no evidence outside of texts believed
> (without any evidence at all) to be divinely inspired. Judaism,
> Christianity and Islam all come in for pretty strong condemnation,  
> as do
> Hinduism and Sikhism, but Buddhism does rather well. (It could be  
> argued
> that Buddhism comes out a little TOO well in Harris's treatment.)

I find the search for things I believe in without evidence is one of  
the most demanding and rewarding activities that I have taken up  
since becoming interested in Buddhism many years ago. While learning  
the precepts and other basic features of Buddhism, one of the  
strongest attractions for me was the Buddha's admonition for people  
to doubt and to seek "truth" in their own experience. One of my first  
zen gurus (heavy teacher) recommended, as an adjunct to simply  
meditating on my breath, to sometimes, for variety, meditate on what  
I believed without evidence or on someone else's. Since that time I  
have struck many major aspects of my life that I was living as though  
something were true when, in fact, I had no evidence at all that it  
was true. It is not too hard to pull out things that I believe on  
someone else's authority. It was fun to meditate on things I had  
already rejected, such as heaven and hell, or the divinity of Jesus  
or of anybody else. Where it gets tough is rooting out things I act  
upon for which I have no evidence. How can I find what I believe if I  
truly believe them -- if they are basic assumptions I make about  
reality without thinking about them?

Many of my actions and emotions and opinions come to me almost  
automatically -- they seem to be just of my makeup -- my unexamined  
view of reality. I don't know I believe them because I believe them.  
I have no evidence, for example, that when I die I simply cease to  
exist. But, since I can find no evidence at all that after death I  
will go to a swell place and meet all my friends and ancestors who  
have made it to the same place, I doubt that it is true. Since I can  
find no evidence that after I die some attributes of myself will  
reappear in another body or another soul or another form, I doubt  
that it is true. All of my meditations on death lead me to doubt that  
I will exist in any form whatever, rather than some stinky bones and  
flesh or ashes, after my death. This is an example of beliefs that I  
once tried  to accept on some one else's authority.

So what do I believe happens after death? I don't believe anything at  
all I guess.

It would be an interesting exercise to sit down and make a list of  
things I have believed without evidence, and the outcome of  
meditations on those beliefs. Perhaps I will make that my New Year's  
resolution. I continue to try to root out things that I currently  
believe without evidence, but this is very difficult for me because,  
as I mentioned, if I truly believe them I am probably unaware of them  
and I have to really dig to find the question to ask of myself.

I would be interested in a discussion on "belief" and "evidence", as  
was the original notion of the "belief" thread. How, for example,  
does one examine one's own life to root wrestle with those things  
that one believes without evidence?