The Creating Faith to Achieve Buddhist Wisdom

Abstract

This article presents the faith principle found in the Buddhist scriptures as a guide to practice, training the mind for the wisdom development. Faith or belief has been with human beings since birth to remove the fear of natural phenomena. For having a mental bond and the safety of life. Faith in something arises according to the individual circumstances. Whether it is belief in the person, Holy thing, mysteries such as spirits, the existence of deities, devils, brahmas, naga deities as well as beliefs in occultism. It was true that the mind acts as the master, the body a servant, therefore mind-based belief is an important factor affecting a person’s behavior. Incorporating beliefs without right knowledge and understanding can lead to improper behavior or wrong practice, in contrast the belief associated with reasonable thought, can lead the behavior and conduct to the path of correctness as if a compass ever-leading to the right direction. Their life has qualified accordingly, developed and not easily lost out of the way. However existing beliefs are generally different from Buddhist beliefs by the reason that right faith of Buddhists must contain the wisdom as well as reasonable deeds based on principle of cause and consequence. Faith without wisdom is therefore a blind belief often leading the be credulity.

The faith cultivation to achieve the wisdom requires two main development’s factors: 1) Paratoghosa or hearing from others, 2) Yonisomanasikāra or clearly determining in the mind, developing into the reasonable thought based on Four Noble Truths and applying the principle of three-fold trainings to cultivate the mind for the right understanding in advance. The faith in Buddhism through the Four Faith teaching is a process enabling the rise of belief with reason respectively. It is an important guideline that leads to the metal training to gain higher wisdom. The force of right faith definitely generates the persistence to drive right action leading to the end of suffering.