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'Light on the Water'
Androscoggin River - Brunswick-Topsham, Maine
Saying:There is a 'place' where certainty thrives in the absence of all certainties. In the Silence, we are led to that 'place.'
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A disciple asked the Sage, "I always feel like I have weak faith. I try so hard to trust. What is lacking?" "Doubt," said the Sage. "But," rejoined the disciple, "I want to have a stronger faith." "Yes, I know," replied the Sage, "that is why I said doubt is what is lacking."
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In my religious upbringing, the ideal was the expected norm - have faith. This dictum meant the absence of doubt. Doubt was not a lack of faith; doubt meant not having faith - being faith-less, not faith-ful.
So, one was not to accept doubt as normal or faithful - either you had faith or not, and "not" meant having doubt. I would try to make myself have complete faith, for I was supposed to have such faith. It failed. I could not make myself trust like that, pushing away all reservations.
Yet, what if to have faith does not mean the absence of doubt? What if faith is not the opposite of doubt? What if having one means having the other? What if they are not separate in the first place - that is, to say "they" is a concession to our dualistic language, the "they" being, rather, one "is"?
If so, we have no language to encompass what would be faith-doubt, or doubt-faith. However, if we can live with this tension honestly, not seeking to resolve it, we may fall through it to the Unity prior, so underlying, this conceptual dichotomy.
Yet, this is not easy for persons in groups that demand an absolute faith, meaning not a hint of doubt. The future of faith may require us to do just this - go into the Silence and experience what makes faith and doubt possible, as well as their experiential reconciliation in the Source.
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Here, Buddhism can assist us. In Buddhism, Buddha Nature, Big Mind, the Dharmakaya, Buddhadharma, and Buddha represent the oneness where conceptual opposites are in prior, unmanifested unity. Consciousness divides itself into contrasts, knowing objects in opposition to other objects - objects all self-created -, as the ego-mind tries to compartmentalize Reality. Mind divides so to make sense of vast Reality, to feel some control over the apparent disorder among the objects.
Returning through the opposites, one experiences prajna. The Sanskrit prajna can be rendered "wisdom" or "unitive insight" - in Christianity, early Christian thinkers called this by the Greek theoria. This wisdom is unitive, for it is not a denial of the opposites; instead, one recognizes directly, unmediated, the accord within the opposites. Harmony is seen to enable the contrasts - diversity being the foil of the Source.
Hence, sometimes, Buddhists differentiate the "small" mind, which is dualistic, from the "big" mind - called Big Mind -, which is unitive. In theoria, or prajna, one sees into, so through the appearance of separation. One sees whole-parts where one once saw only parts - whole-parts, for the whole is in the parts, while the parts are in the whole.
So, this is why I say to fall through the opposites. We cannot deny the contrasts and, at the same time, act in integrity. We live with the tension of the opposites; this prepares us to fall through into the Unity. Contradiction becomes, in mind, paradox. Then, we fall through the paradox. There remains no paradox, not in the pre-language, unitive consciousness, while one does not deny the appearance of contrasts - for unitive consciousness embraces the apparent contradictions.
Then, the above reasoning applies to the faith-doubt dichotomy. One does not need to struggle for faith as opposed to doubt or feel unfaithful due to doubt. Yet, one is not fated to live in a struggle of this-or-that, either.
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Jean Paul-Sartre, of his grandmother -
She believed in nothing. Only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist.
*The Words.
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A church member had walked by the Pastor's Office and heard him crying, praying fervently, "O Lord, help me! Give me doubt so I can have faith." The church found this a sign of faithlessness to the faith and fired the pastor.
Better a faithful skepticism than a faithless certainty.
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When "faith" and "doubt" become concepts to us, we cannot be at peace with both. As concepts, these are contradictions, intolerable to each other. One has to go. The divided mind creates this conflict, turning paradox into contradiction. This divided mind is divided for it denies the paradox, so denying the very unity it seeks.
A ceaseless struggle, and hypocrisy, follows. People speak certainties they are not sure about but act as though they are certain.
In the name of being true to their faith, they deny their doubt, so they are untruthful. Then, one who admits her doubt is seen as a threat to the faith; she is seen as one who has lost her faith or backslidden. She becomes an enemy of "the" faith. Yet, her faithful doubt witnesses against their unreal presentation.
Yet, when "faith" and "doubt" are de-conceptualized - becoming pure, undivided -, their playing field shifts. Now, faith includes doubt, and doubt includes faith. One can truthfully, faithfully say, "I am certain of my uncertainty" or "I am uncertain about my certainty." So, the conflict is resolved, for one releases back into the faith before faith in contrast to doubt.
You become content with the play of faith and doubt, not as faith and doubt, but as faith-is-doubt, or doubt-is-faith. There is unity. One is no longer splitting off into either being a believer or non-believer. To be one, indeed, faithfully, is to be the other - so, to be both, but in a unity that transforms both the experience and meaning of both.
Hence, one cannot reconcile faith and doubt as concepts through re-conceptualizing. Reconciliation, or peace-with, arises when the two become friends, each being able to say, "I could not be without you." Then, you can celebrate the presence of both, being grateful to each for the integrity they together have led you to embrace.
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2021
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse. The book is a collection of poems based on mystical traditions, especially Christian and Sufi, with extensive notes on the teachings and imagery in the poetry.
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