This was originally written in advance for the 800 Years of Faith project.
Faith and Discernment
In November of last year, a group of people gathered in Dallas to witness the return of John F. Kennedy Jr., whom they believed would re-install Donald Trump as president. JFK Jr. died in a plane crash in 1999, and he didn’t return on Nov. 2 or Nov. 22 or any other day. But that didn’t discourage those who believed Michael Brian Protzman was a prophet.
According to a Nov. 8 story in the online news website Vice:
“When one of Protzman’s followers asked: ‘Are we putting too much faith in this man?’, she was immediately shut down for her ‘lack of faith.’ Those defending Protzman spoke with a religious zeal about their belief and faith in him.”
This is an excellent example of what Nikkyō Niwano warns about in Buddhism for Today:
“Faith (shin) is the working of one’s emotions, and discernment (ge) that of one’s reason. Though people often say that a religion or faith ought to be believed in instead of argued about, it is very dangerous to believe blindly in a religion without having any knowledge of it.” [p63]
What true faith requires, Nikkyō Niwano explains, is discernment. Unless a religion combines both, it does not have true power.
“A religion cannot be said to be true unless it combines faith and discernment. The Buddha’s teachings can be understood by reason. They do not demand blind, unreasoning faith. We must understand the Buddha’s teachings by listening to preaching and by reading the sutras. As we advance in our discernment of these teachings, faith is generated spontaneously.” [p64]
This plays an important part in Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith. As Nikkyō Niwano says:
“In [Chapter 4], we were taught that we must not have the servile idea that we have the capacity to understand the Buddha’s teachings only to a certain limited extent. We should abandon such trifling discriminations and devote ourselves to hearing and receiving the Law. …
“Even if we have only a shallow understanding of the Buddha’s teachings or can practice only a part of them, this is never useless. Every effort will be surely rewarded with the merits of the Law. But we should not be satisfied with this reward. We must always desire and endeavor to deepen our understanding and to elevate ourselves further. Thus, we can use shallow faith and discernment as the first step in advancing ourselves to a higher level of faith and discernment.” [p75]
This topic will return in Chapter 16, but for now it is important to remember that each of us, as believers in the Lotus Sutra, are tasked with helping all of the world’s poor sons. Nikkyō Niwano puts it this way:
“We cannot be said to have actually practiced the spirit of the Lotus Sutra unless we save as many of these poor sons as possible. The only thing we can do to save them and lead them is to understand the spirit of the Buddha’s tactful means as illustrated in [Chapter 4].” [p71]