Belief and Truth.

Many years ago, having completed our usual two month series of ten day Vipassana retreats in Budh Gaya, I was staying in McCloud Gange, the small hill station in India where the Dalai Lama now resides,

I had travelled with a young woman who wanted to receive Tibetan teachings at the Tushita monastery and found myself walking down the steep hill to the old Tibetan library with her one day when she asked me a question.

"Do you believe that the Dalai Lama is enlightened?"

We had both individually spent some time with him the day before, and so the question did not seem to be strange. However, according to Buddhist teaching, it is not possible for someone who is not enlightened to recognize enlightenment in another, and so I answered in accordance with this.

"I don't know," I replied.

There was a pause and suddenly this young woman stopped in the middle of the road with her hands on her hips and fury in her eyes and exclaimed, "I don't believe you don't believe the Dalai Lama is enlightened!"

Wanting something to be true does not make it true, and cultivating a belief around an idea only becomes divisive and ultimately destructive as all belief systems by their very nature end up by being in competition with each other.

Who's god is the greatest, the most powerful, the most loving? Which spiritual system is quickest, the most efficient, the best? The answer is always the same - mine!

We build a life around belief, simply accepting what we have been told or what has been socially or culturally conditioned into us without ever investigating the possibility that it is mistaken. To simply accept as reality stories, fables and our pre-determined place in the universe helps us feel a part of a greater whole, and answers the need to feel secure in life at all times.

Whenever we don't understand something, feel confused or disagree with another philosophy, we fall back on our belief system to feel secure again. We are right, you are wrong.

'The Dalai Lama is enlightened' makes me feel secure in my pursuit of Buddhist teaching. If you don't agree with me, suddenly I'm afraid and alone again. So I need that you not only agree with me, but that my belief is never challenged.

Life is always uncertain, but that uncertainty is not threatening once the fear based controlling aspect of mind (ego) has fallen away. Then we will be at peace with the reality of the moment. It is not possible to know everything about everything and so sometimes it is simply honest to say, 'I don't know,' and to be at peace with that.

To be empty of belief means to be free. It is the mind that holds us prisoner, and our views, opinions and beliefs that make that prison comfortable. True Dhamma training is a very mature approach to life and living and tells you always not to accept things at face value and never believe anything. Not books, not stories, not even the words of the teacher.

Belief is not the truth, belief is what we cultivate when we don't know the truth!

So as disciples of Dhamma we turn away from belief and blind faith and take our attention to the constant ebb and flow, to the apparent reality of this being we call 'self' and surrender into truth.

There is nothing that you really are and no way that you have to be, and however you can point to books, teachings and traditions, you are responsible for you and your speech and actions in every moment, so take care with your life, because every delusion or misunderstood truth you empower has a consequence.

Live with love for yourself and all beings, in this place you will not feel the need of any kind of belief.

So, in the end there is no need to believe something, just be open to all possibilities. Don't reject, but don't grasp either.

This is the way of love, this is the way of Dhamma, this is the way of liberation.

May all beings be happy.