PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

Eckel: Defining a Usable Past 67world spheres who conceive the aspiration to attain unsurpassable,perfect, full awakening, hear my name, and remember me withserene trust, will not be met by me at the moment of death—if Ishould not stand before them then, surrounded and honored by aretinue of monks, so that they can meet death without anxiety. 32The key term in this passage is “serene trust” (prasanna-citta). A moreliteral translation of this term would be “serene” or “trusting mind.” 33 Inrecent works on Shinran, this term is often represented simply by itsJapanese equivalent, shinjin, without translation. Looking elsewhere in thetext of the two Sukhåvat∆vy¥ha S¥tras, it becomes clear that “trustingmind” is related to a number of other important Indian words that expresssome sense of confidence, trust, or faith. The most notable of these is theIndian word Ωraddhå or “faith.” Taken altogether, these words raise aseries of important interpretive questions. Do the words have distinctivemeanings? Is there anything distinctive about their use in the earlyMahåyåna? And how do these terms help us understand the continuingdilemmas of Shin Buddhist theology? The best way to answer thesequestions is to begin in the canonical tradition that preceded the appearanceof the Mahåyåna.In the early years of the Buddhist tradition, the concept of faith(Ωraddhå) played a clear but circumscribed role in the discipline that led tonirvana. It is understood best, perhaps, as an access virtue, a state of mindthat a person needs to cultivate in order to get started on the Buddhist path.Eventually, however, faith has to give way to something more permanentand more deeply transformative. This more permanent virtue is wisdom,a person’s own understanding and appreciation of the truths that constitutedthe Buddha’s awakening. According to this model, faith is notentirely dispensable—a person needs to trust the Buddha’s teaching andbelieve that it can be effective before practicing it with conviction—butfaith in the Buddha’s teaching is not enough. Faith eventually has to giveway to wisdom. Once you have followed the Buddha’s path and understoodthe Buddha’s teaching for yourself, there is no longer any need tohave faith in it. The old proverb may say that seeing is believing, but inclassical India seeing is more than believing. Once you see something foryourself, there is no longer any need to take it as a matter of faith.In the Abhidharma tradition, this understanding of faith is expressedin the list of five faculties (indriya): faith (Ωraddhå), vigor (v∆rya), mindfulness(sm®ti), concentration (samådhi), and wisdom (prajñå). According toVasubandhu’s commentary on the AbhidharmakoΩa, the five facultiesfunction as the foundation (åΩraya) of nirvana: faith is their source, and thepractice of the five faculties leads eventually to nirvana. 34 In this respect theearly Buddhist tradition is similar to the tradition that manifests itself in theseventeenth chapter of the Bhagavad G∆tå: