Faith
By Dhammacaro
To have faith is to hold a strong belief in someone or something. Faith has two sides: good and bad. The good side is that faith can bring unity and harmony to society and encourage people to make the effort to study further and investigate the faith that they have. The bad side is that faith can divide people into two, as believers give approval to people of their own faith and disapprove of others of a different belief. Faith also causes a lot of problems that start from small issues like selfishness, at one end of the spectrum, which, at the other, can eventually end in war. There is a Zen story which we may find helpful when checking out whether our own faith is based on the good side or the bad side. Here is the story:
There once was a Buddhist nun, who had a deep faith in Buddhism. She had a gold Buddha statue made. It was so beautiful, and brought more faith to her. Wherever she went, she had to carry it with her. Since she had got it, she never shared it with anyone nor bowed to any other statue. The Buddha statue was regarded as her life, hope, and faith.
Many years passed. Because of attachment and selfishness, the nun was not able to make any progress in her practice. Her Buddha statue had also changed and had become old and covered in smoke marks. Then she saw the obstacle in her faith: she had become so selfish that she did not share her faith with anyone and thus could not progress in her practice. She had even forgotten the Buddha’s teaching about generosity and sharing. At this point she put the Buddha statue in the temple hall and changed her beliefs to include learning and practising the teaching, especially concerning generosity and sharing. Only then could she broaden her mind and share her faith with others.
The moral of this story: we need to check out whether our faith affects ourselves, or others negatively or not. If it does, we must change it as in the story of the Buddhist nun. So bear in mind that faith has two sides. On which side of faith do your beliefs fall?
