Thich Nhat Hanh does not like doubt. In his view, one goal of the practice of religion is to dispense with what he terms "the abyss of doubt" (page 169). He observes that genuine religious practice leads one to eventually "abandon all ideas and images in order to obtain a truly deep realization." When that realization is achieved, it cannot be taken away from the practitioner because faith in God or nirvana is no longer based on doctrines or notions but on experience (pages 162-163).
Read from a Buddhist perspective, his observations about faith, experience, ideas, and transcending doubt undoubtedly make a good deal of sense so long as we remember that "faith" here means faith in one's practice. It is an empirical "faith," which proves itself trustworthy through repeated testing. Almost like a scientific principle that has been proven through repeated experimentation, the practice of mindfulness through meditation proves itself to such an extent that doubt is no longer possible.
From a Christian perspective, there is a slight problem, which is in the use of the term "faith." If religious practice dispels doubt then it also dispenses with faith. We don't trust in the truth of things that are sure and certain, such as the basic facts of arithmetic. One plus one is two. Period. Full stop. Or, again, that dropped objects fall is not a matter of faith. Let go of an object over thin air, and it will fall. Period. Full stop. If Thich Nhat Hanh is correct that right practice dispels doubt then it does whether we trust it to or not. Or, rather, faith is involved only so long as we are still learning the practice and its trustworthiness in all cases. That is to say that it is not correct to say that mindfulness (or insight) "is the very substance of faith," because it replaces faith with certainty. Where one is sure, one need not trust, and where one does not trust there is no faith.
This is not, I would urge, mere semantics nor is it a criticism of Thich Nhat Hanh. His use of the term "faith" reflects one approach to religion and one description of the goal of religious practice, which is to quench desire and achieve a true, deep, gentle and yet unshakeable peace. Notions of belief, gods, and spiritual forces have nothing to do with the matter—indeed, they must be dispensed with as a part of the process. For Christian, however, we find that we cannot pursue these worthy goals of quenching desire and finding a gut-deep peace apart from our trust, in God in Christ and in God's gift of the Spirit to us. In Buddhism, the self and its desires are quenched. In Christianity, they are offered to God whom we know in the three "masks" of Father, Son, & Holy Spirit. There's not right or wrong here. We're all headed in the same direction. But, we follow differing paths each with their own stunning vistas and dark, muddy swamps.
One key difference between Thich Nhat Hanh's path and one that we can legitimately take as Christians is that for him doubt is an abyss while for us it can be a friend. Amen.
