AEN, your posting is too...long. It is good if people can finish
it.
I tried the "how do you know" method and the "both side arguing"
method.
But there are some questions that has very clear right and wrong
answer.
ok, let me give an example.
"I know absolutely for sure that practicing dharma and liberate
from samsara is what we should do"
Let's see if anyone can refute it. :)
Even that is an assumption, a belief! Because how do you know,
unless it is an intuitive-insight-awareness? What is Nirvana
anyway? For beginners who are not yet liberated, they only take it
on assumption and belief. They merely hear the words from others,
it is not their experience.
But it is nevertheless a good assumption to make. A good belief.
Because for practical purposes in life, we have to have beliefs.
Even science is included, we invest a lot of faith in science,
because there is no certainty. But Buddhism and Science are
examples of reasonable faith, because it can be tested in
experience. Nevertheless, before you SEE it, it is still a belief.
But when practicing, it is good to question all beliefs, because to
hold onto a belief and be satisfied with the belief and think that
it is knowledge, is to miss the Truth. We simply cannot approach
Reality (in the ultimate sense) through a belief system, a thought
system, or a rational logical system of analysis.
Also, once there is an awakening, a quantum shift in perception,
such spiritual beliefs are deemed irrelevant.
But prior to awakening, we can have beliefs as long as they do
not become a hindrance to knowing truth. To say 'I Believe' is
still ok, but to confuse 'I Believe' with 'I Know' is a form of
arrogance. And we must also differentiate beliefs from knowledge,
and as I wrote in another forum,
Buddhism is an experiential journey to the
final end of suffering, the supreme bliss of liberation and the
ultimate wisdom of reality.
Belief, thought, and all the things we learnt from others and then
vomit out as 'intellectual understanding' cannot help us approach
Reality. The worst thing is to think 'I Know'. Because belief and
thought cannot truly 'Know' reality.
Reality must be approach by an intuitive awareness, a form of
'touch'. Reality is in the pure rawness of this moment of
manifestation. That is why we practice mindfulness, being naked in
awareness. Drop the 'I Know' and just let reality Manifest.
True Dharma and its nature is exhibited every moment in every
experience. Penetrate This, break the solidity until there is no
holding, simply Thus. Then let this insight sink deep into our
consciousness and burn away our bonds. That's all.
Buddhism is beyond religion, beyond belief. It's What's
Real.
As Thusness said before, in http://buddhism.sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/273281
Interesting topic and I think I will skew a little to talk
about science and faith since AEN was discussing a related thread
yesterday.
Faith is necessary because there is no certainty in knowledge. Even
in exact science, no certainty is to be found. Of course certainty
versus probable knowledge is a topic relating to Epistemology (the
theory on Knowledge) but still, it is pivotal towards understanding
why the need for faith at all. How science has led to the common
misunderstanding that faith is not necessary is amazing but it is
mostly due to the predictive nature of these scientific theories
derived from thorough experimentation. This is, however, mainly due
to the fact that the pool of data made available for the derivation
of these theories does not go beyond our man-size world. As we
know, Newtonian physics or classical science works well for a
man-size world but not quite well in the macro and micro universe.
Our ordinary experiences do not permit us to experience something
having the mass of a star or traveling at half-speed of light, we
presume that the entire universe must obey the laws of the man-size
world. But when we are exposed to things not so ordinary, like
traveling at a speed much faster then our ordinary experience of
speed, we are lost because phenomena just dont behave the way we
expected it to be. The idea that time travel slower when they are
approaching the speed of light and halt at speed of light is mind
boggling. Similarly when scientists begin to deal with the universe
of the outer space the macro universe, they are dealing with much
more massive objects than the man-size world, a billion times more.
The idea that space curves and time halt at the speed of light came
as a shocked to the classical scientists. This applies true when we
deal with the micro universe of the quantum world. The world of the
electrons does not comply with Newtonian nor Einstein theory. This
includes the spooky non-local behavior of particles that AEN
brought up in another thread. When Heisenberg introduced
the uncertainty principle, it is so weird that even Einstein
rejected it and thus, Einstein famous remark -- God does not play
dice. But God does not play dice is a belief system! I
cant remember where I read it but I could clearly recalled that
even Stephen Hawking used phrases like official dogma, deep
emotional attachment to determinism to describe scientists like
Einstein. Stephen Hawking even went further to say that Einstein
was doubly wrong when he said God does not play dice.
I will not dwell too deeply into it but the purpose is simply to
illustrate that our knowledge is nothing certain nor absolute.
Science is itself a belief system for us to better understand the
phenomenon existence. It is its certainty in predictability within
a prescribed environment that convinces us that faith is not
necessary. It creates the impression of certainty and made a
probable knowledge appears absolute but in actual case, science
itself is a belief system and a great deal of faith (maybe good and
rational faith in this case) is vested in science
unknowingly.
My 2 cents.
and
Sort of off-topic but just to point out that faith plays a
vital role in our life and we are always investing faith in people,
theories, concepts and belief systems unknowingly. Human is not
just a rational being; to understand ourselves, we must also
examine our emotional, mythical and psychological makeup.
To touch on what is true and right free of our belief systems
is a philosophical question that I do not wish to get into. Coming
into contact with Buddhism is more of coincidental. My deepening of
faith in Buddhas words came only as a result of practice. It is
experiential and subjective. It is sort of I know because I
experience it. 
BUT.....
There is one thing right now, one thing that you cannot
doubt.
It is your Buddha-Nature. It is your own consciousness.
It is not a theory, if you don't believe, check it out
yourself.
(p.s. the author of the book above, is at the 'I AM' or
'Witness' level as Ken Wilber puts it. But it's still half the
story. But to contact the Witness is an initial awakening of our
Buddha-Nature, but its non-dual and empty [an insight further than
nondual] nature is not comprehended.)
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/05/some-writings-on-non-duality-by-ken.html
There are many things that I can doubt, but I cannot doubt my own
consciousness in this moment. My consciousness IS, and even if I
tried to doubt it, it would be my consciousness doubting. I can
imagine that my senses are being presented with a fake reality –
say, a completely virtual reality or digital reality, which looks
real but is merely a series of extremely realist images. But even
then, I cannot doubt the consciousness that is doing the
watching…
The very undeniability of my present awareness, the undeniability
of my consciousness, immediately delivers to me a certainty of
existence in this moment, a certainty of Being in the now-ness of
this moment. I cannot doubt consciousness and Being in this moment,
for it is the ground of all knowing, all seeing, all
existing…
Who am I? Ask that question over and over again, deeply. Who am I?
What is it in me that is conscious of everything?
If you think that you know Spirit, or if you think you don’t,
Spirit is actually that which is thinking both of those thoughts.
So you can doubt the objects of consciousness, but you can never
believably doubt the doubter, never really doubt the Witness of the
entire display. Therefore, rest in the Witness, whether it is
thinking that it knows God or not, and that witnessing, that
undeniable immediacy of now-consciousness, is itself God, Spirit,
Buddha-mind. The certainty lies in the pure self-felt Consciousness
to which objects appear, not in the objects themselves. You will
never, never, never see God, because God is the Seer, not any
finite, mortal, bounded object that can be seen…
This pure I AM state is not hard to achieve but impossible to
escape, because it is ever present and can never really be doubted.
You can never run from Spirit, because Spirit is the Runner. To put
it very bluntly, Spirit is not hard to find but impossible to
avoid: it is that which is looking at this page right now. Can’t
you feel That One? Why on earth do you keep looking for God when
God is actually the Looker?
Simply ask, Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?
I am aware of my feelings, so I am not my feelings – Who am I? I am
aware of my thoughts, so I am not my thoughts – Who am I? Clouds
float by in the sky, thoughts float by in the mind, feelings float
by in the body – and I am none of those because I can Witness them
all.
Moreover, I can doubt that clouds exist, I can doubt that feelings
exist, I can doubt that objects of thought exist – but I cannot
doubt that the Witness exists in this moment, because the Witness
would still be there to witness the doubt.
I am not objects in nature, not feelings in the body, not thoughts
in the mind, for I can Witness them all. I am that Witness – a
vast, spacious, empty, clear, pure, transparent Openness that
impartially notices all that arises, as a mirror spontaneously
reflects all its objects…
You can already feel some of this Great Liberation in that, as you
rest in the ease of witnessing this moment, you already feel that
you are free from the suffocating constriction of mere objects,
mere feelings, mere thoughts – they all come and go, but you are
that vast, free, empty, open Witness of them all, untouched by
their torments and tortures.
This is actually the profound discovery of… the pure divine Self,
the formless Witness, causal nothingness, the vast Emptiness in
which the entire world arises, stays a bit, and passes. And you are
That. You are not the body, not the ego, not nature, not thoughts,
not this, not that – you are a vast Emptiness, Freedom, Release,
and Liberation.
With this discovery… you are halfway home. You have disidentified
from any and all finite objects; you rest as infinite
Consciousness. You are free, open, empty, clear, radiant, released,
liberated, exalted, drenched in a blissful emptiness that exists
prior to space, prior to time, prior to tears and terror, prior to
pain and mortality and suffering and death. You have found the
great Unborn, the vast Abyss, the unqualifiable Ground of all that
is, and all that was, and all that ever shall be.
But why is that only halfway
home? Because as you rest in the infinite ease of
consciousness, spontaneously aware of all that is arising, there
will soon enough come the great catastrophe of Freedom and
Fullness: the Witness itself will disappear entirely, and instead
of witnessing the sky, you are the sky; instead of touching the
earth, you are the earth; instead of hearing the thunder, you are
the thunder. You and the entire Kosmos because One Taste – you can
drink the Pacific Ocean in a single gulp, hold Mt. Everest in the
palm of your hand; supernovas swirl in your heart and the solar
system replaces your head…
You are One Taste, the empty mirror that is one with any and all
objects that arise in its embrace, a mindlessly vast translucent
expanse: infinite, eternal, radiant beyond release. And you… are…
That…
So the primary Cartesian dualism – which is simply the dualism
between… in here and out there, subject and object, the empty
Witness and all things witnessed – is finally undone and overcome
in nondual One Taste. Once you actually and fully contact the
Witness, then – and only then – can it be transcended into radical
Nonduality, and halfway home becomes fully home, here in the
ever-present wonder of what is…
And so how do you know that you have finally and really overcome
the Cartesian dualism? Very simple: if you really overcome the
Cartesian dualism, then you no longer feel that you are on this
side of your face looking at the world out there. There is only the
world, and you are all of that; you actually feel that you are one
with everything that is arising moment to moment. You are not
merely on this side of your face looking out there. “In here” and
“out there” have become One Taste with a shuddering obviousness and
certainty so profound it feels like a five-ton rock just dropped on
your head. It is, shall we say, a feeling hard to miss.
At that point, which is actually your ever-present condition, there
is no exclusive identity with this particular organism, no
constriction of consciousness to the head, a constriction that
makes it seem that “you” are in the head looking at the rest of the
world out there; there is no binding of attention to the personal
bodymind: instead, consciousness is one with all that is arising –
a vast, open, transparent, radiant, infinitely Free and infinitely
Full expanse that embraces the entire Kosmos, so that every single
subject and every single object are erotically united in the Great
Embrace of One Taste. You disappear from merely being behind your
eyes, and you become the All, you directly and actually feel that
your basic identity is everything that is arising moment to moment
(just as previously you felt that your identity was with this
finite, partial, separate, mortal coil of flesh you call a body).
Inside and outside have become One Taste. I tell you, it can happen
just like that!
(Source: Boomeritis, Sidebar E: “The Genius Descartes Gets a
Postmodern Drubbing: Integral Historiography in a Postmodern Age”.
More to be found in The Simple Feeling of Being, a collection of
Ken Wilber’s inspirational, mystical and instructional passages
drawn from his publications, based on his experiences.)