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Faith, Superstition and Perception
NamelessRiver
Veteran
Faith is belief in something without proof, I would assume. But what is the difference from faith to superstition?
Also, wouldn't perception always have an element of faith? Think about it, what proves my perception is right? In the actual practice I don't even mind questioning my perception, I trust it blindly, and even if I did question it, how could I prove it to be right without relying on another perception (and thus lead the problem into infinity)?
Would perception prove itself? If I look at a table and see a jar, I would assume the jar to be right there, just because I perceive it. If a schizophrenic looks at a table and sees a wolverine (that is not there) would his perception be less valid than mine? He sees it the same way as I do, so perception can't be proven by itself, it needs an external element. Can this external element be reached? Nope. So faith is the basis of perception.
So my questions are: What is the difference between faith, superstition and perception? Can there be perception without faith?
Also, wouldn't perception always have an element of faith? Think about it, what proves my perception is right? In the actual practice I don't even mind questioning my perception, I trust it blindly, and even if I did question it, how could I prove it to be right without relying on another perception (and thus lead the problem into infinity)?
Would perception prove itself? If I look at a table and see a jar, I would assume the jar to be right there, just because I perceive it. If a schizophrenic looks at a table and sees a wolverine (that is not there) would his perception be less valid than mine? He sees it the same way as I do, so perception can't be proven by itself, it needs an external element. Can this external element be reached? Nope. So faith is the basis of perception.
So my questions are: What is the difference between faith, superstition and perception? Can there be perception without faith?
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Comments
This is what led to my comment earlier:
"The Buddha explains nirvana as "the unconditioned" (asankhata) mind, a mind that has come to a point of perfect lucidity and clarity due to the cessation of the production of volitional formations (Sankhara)."
In other words, yes, I agree. These words aren't normally used in the sense you're using them here, but I understand what you're getting at.
There is just the one who is watching, one doesn’t become
the one who gets caught up in things.
Before, we got carried away with the various conditions.
We would lose ourselves with pains and aches, with the heat
and the cold, with hunger etc. But now, we know how to
separate:
the body is one thing and the feelings of pain, the aches, the
heat, the cold, hunger etc. are another thing.
The stealthy thoughts about them, is yet another thing.
The kind of thoughts that we don’t intend to think. We see this
now.
Don’t believe all of those stealthy thoughts! Don’t go and follow
all those sneakily arising thoughts. Don’t let them fool you!
Mistakes will arise from it.
There are two kinds of thought: one is thought that we intend
to think, another is thought that stealthily arises by itself.
When we determine to watch the body, thoughts about this and
that will arise. Don’t be fooled by them. Don’t let there be
a ‘self’ in thought. Look at the body that is moving, here and now.
Deliberately make movements. Depend on the body as a sign,
as a foundation, as a refuge. Just as when we stick to a post
in the middle of flowing water.
When we let go, we get swept away.
Then we struggle to get hold of the post again.
This is just the same: when unintentional thoughts arise,
don’t get deluded by those thoughts but come back
to watch the body, as it is moving, right here.
This is the magic eye. To watch like this. Be skilled in it and
familiar. First stay with the body; you shouldn’t go and mess wit
thought. It is just like reading a book: the more we read, the mo
we get involved in it, because we remember and we understan
Unintentional thoughts are one thing,
deliberate thoughts another.
Whenever ‘sneak-thoughts’ come up, we are aware.
It is as if we oppose the stealthy thoughts.
Whenever thoughts arise: know it in time! It means that we are
teaching them. We can laugh at and ridicule the thoughts.
As soon as we see the ‘sneak-thoughts’, they stop.
Those thoughts have no intelligence, they don’t have power.
and they pull us along with them.
Sometimes there are various manifestations that arise together
with thought and they become a mind state. For example,
restlessness or sleepiness. Or an uncomfortable, irritating mood
arises. The mind gets concocted in various ways.
Don’t surrender to these things. Watch them.
We now have the magic eye.
Whatever happens to the body or our mind, we watch the whole
lot. It is fun to watch, fun to see.
There isn’t much to it. Really look, more and more,
and the conclusion will be that there is only just body, feelings,
mind and mind-objects that arise with the body and the mind.
Pains, aches, heat, cold, hunger etc. are a pair with the body,
they are conditions of the body. The mind that thinks of this
and that is a pair with restlessness, doubt, sleepiness etc.
These things are conditions of mind. Watch them, see them.
We have the magic eye now. The more we look, the more we see
clearly. Watching and seeing is experience, it is a good lesson.
The state of watching leads to skill: whatever we see, we realize.
Before, we never discovered these things, we never saw. But
when we discover and see these things often, we see clearly,
just like seeing a person: we remember his or her face and we
know his or her character: that is a good person or a bad person,
we know how to associate or not associate with him or her. We
see what is what.
The body, feelings, the mind and mind-objects are just RUPA
and NAMA (materiality and mentality).
That which sits here and walks, is RUPA. Thinking this and that,
is NAMA. These two things live together, one cannot separate
them: when they get separated, there is immediate death.
The magic eye really discovers and sees this, so one realizes
and truly sees things as they are. Materiality is a lump, but it is
affected by heat and cold. Know heat, cold, hunger etc.
Feelings and thoughts that make us get up, walk and move,
that know, are mentality. These two things are together: sitting
here is RUPA, thinking about something is NAMA.
The magic eye truly meets with and sees this, one realizes it.
The magic eye sees clearly that those things are conditions of
the mind, they are not the nature of the mind,
they are just conditions only.
When we don’t realize it, they are a big deal. They have
destroyed many, many people already. People who assume that
there is a self in conditions, that it is ‘I’ who is angry, I am the
one who is angry and so one follows anger until people come to
ruin and a problem arises for society.
The magic eye clearly sees into this matter and can really
distinguish between those conditions and the mind.
Originally, the mind abides in normality and is pure but the
various manifestations that arise in the mind make the mind
defiled and dirty.
With Metta
Faith (in Buddhism) = Confidence.
Superstition = Questionable hocus-pocus passed down from generation to generation, added to, honed, refined until it plays on people's minds sufficiently for them to attest that they are not superstitious but they still touch wood.
Perception = personal view open to question.
The superstitions that Fed refers to are a way of dealing with anxiety. They are more common among people, such as gamblers and sports players, who earn their living doing things with very risky outcomes.
Skepticism about perception takes a minor and a major form. The minor form was expressed by the Stanford psychology professor (can't remember his name) who used to tell his students that if our perceptual facilities aren't distorting reality, then they're not working properly. The idea was that evolution favors perceptions that maximize survival, not perceptions that are accurate.
The major form of perceptual skepticism is what grad students in philosophy sometimes call the "brains in vats" problem. Imagine that some evil mad scientist has taken your brain out of your body and put it into a vat of nutrients in order to keep it alive. He has hooked electrodes to your brain, and all your perceptions are actually your brain's response to electrical currents in the electrodes. You have no way of proving that this isn't happening.
From a Buddhist point of view, it doesn't matter. Brains in vats and brains in bodies are both subject to duhkha, and the path to liberation is the same in either case.
Perception, however, is not a view. Perception is simply seeing, without trying to grasp or get a hold on what we see, and thus we can act accordingly to what we see, without getting caught up in superstition.
And Faith is believing in something that is not seen. So, you could say that Faith is the farthest removed from reality. It is a belief that has no basis in reality, while superstition at least has a frozen basis. But still, seeing is where it is at.
However, I would like to throw in my 2 cents, anyway. :-)
First, as an actress I find that I engage in many superstitious activities although I do not consider myself superstitious. However, I don't think I do them out of the fears normally associated with superstition. Instead, they are done because they are part of the culture of that profession and some of them (like saying "break a leg") are part of the routine of getting ready for performance, which takes a lot of emotional prep. I don't know if that's relevant to your questions about superstition, but I do think it's a different view than has been expressed yet.
Second, on perception: a friend told me that the biggest leap of faith for any human is that we believe that when we turn our back on something it is still there and will be there when we turn around again, relatively unchanged. It is a huge leap of faith, he said, to think our personal (or shared, or universal - but the only one we can "prove" is personal) perception is reliably static.... I probably didn't explain that very well, but I hope you get the idea. No answers here, but I think it's an interesting thought to chew on.
I also think all this discussion is lovely for philosophy and art, but pointless when it comes to both day to day living and buddhist thought. What matters is how you interact with whatever reality you've got.
For a crazy person's invalid perception, they are not at all consistent. For a sophisticated special effect or illusion there is greater consistency, but still lacks the basic ability to withstand scrutiny.
Then you might argue that relying on scrutiny or seeing whether things function accordingly happens after the perception and so they are themselves still dependent on perceptions. Which is true, but a skilled person would eventually dispense with these grosser methods of inquiry and dependent solely on the function of the mind at the time of the perception to understand whether the perception was valid or not.
I've never been able to figure out the difference. I think it boils down to what I believe without evidence is faith and what you believe without evidence is superstition.
I read once that there are 25 meanings for the English word "jack."
There are at least 2 meanings of the word "faith." One is "belief without evidence" the other is "confidence supported by evidence." The former is religion, the latter is science.
that is almost the entire body of Buddhism in two questions. Seeing into the true nature of things is pretty much the entire project. Of course, that implies that you CAN see into the true nature of things.
if the jar is really there, there will be supporting evidence not available to the schizophrenic and his wolverine. And that's the best you can get in this weary world--without enlightenment.
What you said is not exactly right. The philosophy of science employs a kind of faith that the world is UNDERSTANDABLE and that there is logic to reality that the mind can explore and its worth the trouble because knowledge is always preferred to ignorance.
Besides that in the last century with the emergence of quantum physics, M theory (for multiverse), string theory, "dark" matter and "dark" energy, Kant's position that our senses only reveal reality as it appears to us is very much vindicated. With the deeper level probing of atom, scientist come up with quarks, leptons, mesons and what have you, which no one has seen but only inferred from experiments. This realm of "Reality" is quite different from our everyday reality and it's only accessible through mathematical descriptions. How can one show the evidence for mathematics.
Just like religion might infer from all sources that "God" exists or some section of buddhism infer that "reality" is empty, so does science.
I think we should be intellectually humble enough to acknowledge that we may never know and that we are all just playing at the periphery of "reality".
And that's why Im here because I believe I will learn from buddhism. And indeed I'm learning.
Pranaams
How did you answer these. (types)
science employs a certain amount of confidence that that there is logic to reality, etc., because there is evidence that there is.
You confirm the existence of mathematics by typing something on your computer screen and sending it over the internet so I can see it. Mathematics is something that is so self-evident, we don't need evidence for it. Logic is the same way. In order to refute logic or mathematics you'd have to use either logic or mathematics to do it which immediately puts you in an unresovlable paradox.
if scientists thought they knew everything, they'd stop. The more you know, the more you know you don't know. Scientists love that. It gets them out of bed in the morning. Scientists spend their whole lives attempting to dispel ignorance and to see through illusion to get a glimpse of reality.
"God" is concocted out of a tissue of illusion and wishful thinking. Quantum mechanics and string theory are supported by evidence (a great deal in the former, not so much in the latter). Scientists must practice non-attachment (though, like Buddhists, they don't always) because their ideas are always open to refutation. God isn't like that. God can't be confirmed or refuted. It's an idea that must be believed--or not.
Amen, Sister.
For those who think it exists: what would it mean for it not to exist?
For those who think it doesn't exist: what would it mean for it to exist?
How can you have a sensible discussion of this issue without a clarification of these basic questions?
Superstition simply put is the attribution of certain events to false causes. Being aware of something as 'superstitious' is always an external or retrospective judgement. No-one seriously involved in 'superstition' thinks they are being superstitious. They believe their account of causality is right. Can there be perception without faith? Certainly we can observe all sorts of things without having any feelings about them one way or the other. Seeing the sky is blue does not require faith, but believing that the sky 'actually' as it appears does require faith; trust that our senses are not deceiving us. There are some logical truths of course that don't require faith. It is undeniably true that 2+2=4 or that there is one universe or many, the universe cannot be one and many at the same time.
You need to have some sort of aim in life and then make sure your activities support that aim. We can use philosophy to think about these various aims and clarify them.
Practice, if we pursue it long enough, shows that ego is illusory. Thus any sort of aim based on benefiting the ego is a complete waste of time. So practice will have a big effect on how you live your life. But since most of society is based on ego gratification, your attitude will very much go against the grain.