I returned from the lake today (Sunday, but I'm actually writing this on Tuesday), a day earlier than I had anticipated. Rita, Jeff's wife's Karina's friend, had some sort of crisis arise and needed to go back to Atlanta. She had rode up there with Jeff and Karina, but they had to stay to get ready for the closing on the lakehouse, so I gave her and her son a ride back to Atlanta, a day earlier than I had planned. No problem.

The previous posts here about faith got me to thinking about Roshi Yasutani's introductory lectures included in Philip Kapleau's The Three Pillars of Zen. Describing what the three pillars are, Yasutani said:

"The first of the three essentials of Zen practice is strong faith (daishinkon). This is more than mere faith. The ideogram for kon means "root," and that for shin, "faith." Hence the phrase implies a faith that is firmly and deeply rooted, immovable, like an immense tree or a huge boulder. It is a faith, moreover, untainted by belief in the supernatural or the superstitious. Buddhism has often been described as both a rational religion and a religion of wisdom. But a religion it is, and what makes it one is this element of faith, without which it is merely philosophy. Buddhism starts with the Buddha's supreme enlightenment,which he attained after strenuous effort. Our deep faith, therefore, is in his enlightenment, the substance of which he proclaimed to be that human nature, all existence, is intrinsically whole, flawless, omnipotent - in a word, perfect. Without unwavering faith in this the heart of the Buddha's teaching, it is impossible to progress far in one's practice."

When I first read the book, I skimmed over this paragraph, merely thinking, "First pillar - faith. Got it. Check. What are the other two pillars?," without allowing the teaching included to sink in (or maybe I did allow it to sink in; after all, I felt compelled to go back and re-read the passage Sunday night). I can see how this deep-rooted faith in the Buddha's experience and in his teaching of the perfection in the myriad dharmas is what makes Buddhism more than a philosophy ("mere philosophy!" as Yasutani put it). The Great Doubt that arises is not skepticism, as in insidious doubt, but a state of perplexity, of probing inquiry, of intense self--questioning. Thus, the Great Doubt (the second pillar of Zen) does not diminish the faith but only reinforces it, resulting in the third pillar of Zen, Great Determination.

As Yasutani explains:

"The second indispensable quality is a feeling of strong doubt (daigidan). Not a simple doubt, mind you, but a 'doubt-mass' - and this inevitably stems from strong faith. It is a doubt as to why we and the world should appear so imperfect, so full of anxiety, strife, and suffering, when in fact our deep faith tells us exactly the opposite is true. It is a doubt that leaves us no rest. It is as though we knew perfectly well we were millionaires and yet inexplicably found ourselves in dire need without a penny in our pockets. Strong doubt, therefore, exists in proportion to strong faith.

"I can illustrate this state of mind with a simple example. Take a man who has been sitting smoking and suddenly finds that the pipe which was in his hand a moment before has disappeared. He begins a search for it in the complete certainty of finding it. It was there a moment ago, no one has been near, it cannot have disappeared. The longer he fails to find it, the greater the energy and determination with which he hunts for it.

"From this feeling of doubt the third essential, strong determination (dai-funshi), naturally arises. It is an overwhelming determination to dispel this doubt with the whole force of our energy and will. Believing with every pore of our being in the truth of the Buddha's searching that we are all endowed with the immaculate Bodhi-mind, we resolve to discover and experience the reality of this Mind for ourselves.

"The other day someone who quite misunderstood the state of mind required by these three essentials asked me: 'Is there more to believing we are Buddhas than accepting the fact that the world as it is is perfect, that the willow is green and the carnation red?' The fallacy of this is self-evident. If we do not question why greed and conflict exist, why the ordinary man or woman acts like anything but a Buddha, no determination arises in us to resolve the obvious contradiction between what we believe as a matter of faith and what our senses tell us is just the contrary, and our zazen is thus deprived of its prime source of power."

I try to avoid long quotes of other people's words in this blog (if for no other reason than it's a drag re-typing them), but it's hard to state things more clearly than that.