Belief and Disbelief

A new insight. Well, it’s new to me. Like all my “insights,” it has probably been perfectly obvious for years to many other people, but it came to me yesterday with a certain clarity as I was reading a translation of The Heart Sutra by Red Pine, replete with mind-benders like this:

"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form; emptiness is not separate from form, form is not separate from emptiness; whatever is form is emptiness, whatever is emptiness is form."

Lovely. But go figure. Anyway, here's my own insight:

Belief and disbelief are not mutually exclusive opposites, they are rather two sides of the same coin. As readers of The Buddha Diaries will likely be aware, I myself have been much attached to disbelief. And what came to me with that certain clarity yesterday was that to be attached to disbelief is really no different than being attached to belief. Disbelief is in itself a form of belief—a belief that the belief of others is somehow wrong-headed or ignorant. The two seem to me, on reflection, to be in balance with each other. The one who desires to follow the Middle Way would steer a path between belief and disbelief, without allowing himself to be attached to either one.

Skepticism is a little different from disbelief. I hold to my skepticism (am I “attached” to it?) because it comes down on neither the side of belief nor, properly, on the side of disbelief. The mind that opens itself to disbelief can surely remain open to belief. If it questions belief, by the same token, it will as honestly question disbelief.

Am I counting the angels as they dance, here, on the head of a pin? Perhaps. But this, it seems to me, is the sense of the Middle Path in the matter of belief and disbelief. And this is my mighty insight for the day. I trust that I will be able to learn from it.

Blessings!