Buddhism has been evolving for the past 2,600 years. It’s not a stagnant religion or Way. It has been shaping and reshaping itself over the centuries as its meets and integrates with countless cultures, peoples and environmental factors. Buddhism is not stuck with Iron Age knowledge or mentality like many other major modern religions.  One can say that the basis of this evolutionary process is Buddhism’s philosophic approach of non-attachment to views and its willingness to modify its teachings based on new knowledge and experimentation.

 

Buddhist practice is all about investigation, observation, experimentation and analysis of teachings as it relates to the self and phenomena. This is exactly the scientific model. I’m not saying that Buddhism is a science; clearly it is not. However, of all the religions, it alone is the most scientific and accepting of science. Dear to its core beliefs lays the value of empirical evidence. The historical Buddha said, “don’t believe because I told you so, or it is in a book or society or your parents say so but believe it only after you have experimented with it and found it to be true.” This is the scientific approach. The Dalai Lama and other prominent Buddhist teachers often say that if science shows that a certain Buddhist teaching to be false then we must throw out this teaching and accept the scientific evidence. What other religion would dare say such a thing?

 

So, what does Buddhism have faith in? It takes entrusts in the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma and Sangha) which is the process of the Way. All three components are like fruit in the basket, each is integrated with one another but Buddhism looks at the whole picture, the basket. What is the basket? It is the seeking mind and heart that is open and accepting of all phenomena in its quest to embody reality-as-it-is.  The Buddha is our head teacher or investigator, the Dharma is the teaching or instruments that awake us to reality-as-it-is, by embodying previously gathered knowledge, and the techniques of investigation, observation, experimentation and analysis of teachings as it relates to the self and phenomena. Equally, our faith includes the Sangha or the community of practitioners who are the current living investigators of reality-as-it-is. Finally, we, Buddhists, have faith that everyone and everything will awaken to its innermost potential. Indeed, this is a faith. There is no proof that this will be and even can be. However, it is like how the teacher enters the profession of teaching based on the rational assumption or faith that his/her students will be able to learn the subject material. Otherwise, what would be the point of teaching any thing? Where does the teacher gets his/her entrusting faith? It is by way of his/her own personal experience. After all, the teacher had a teacher and thus went through the process of investigation, observation etc and mastered the material. So, we too have our teachers and the master teacher, the Buddha, who said, “You too can wake up, just like me.”