The Awakening of Faith: The Classic Exposition of Mahayana Buddhism

by Aśvaghoṣa, D.T. Suzuki (Translator)

Comprehensive and coherent, this guide to a complex system of Buddhism is so authoritative that it has been employed in the instruction of Buddhist priests. Readers will find that it offers the keys to the essentials of Mahayana Buddhism, a liberal and theistic branch of the faith practiced chiefly in China and Japan.
Translated by the distinguished scholar Teitaro Suzuki, the text discusses how humans can transcend their finite state to partake in the life of the infinite. Practices and techniques to assist believers in the awakening and growth of faith appear here, in addition to the most developed form of tathagata-garbha, or Buddha-matrix teachings.
This accessible work was written specifically for those who prefer a brief and pithy presentation to extensive discourse.

Genres: Buddhism, Religion, Philosophy, Spirituality, Theology, Eastern Philosophy

192 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1964

About the author

Aśvaghoṣa (Devanagari: अश्वघोष) [əɕʋəgʰoːʂə] (c. 80 – c. 150 CE) was an Indian philosopher-poet, born in Saketa in northern India to a Brahmin family. He is believed to have been the first Sanskrit dramatist, and is considered the greatest Indian poet prior to Kālidāsa. He was the most famous in a group of Buddhist court writers, whose epics rivalled the contemporary Ramayana. Whereas much of Buddhist literature prior to the time of Aśvaghoṣa had been composed in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, Aśvaghoṣa wrote in Classical Sanskrit.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Isaac Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Take my review of the book with a grain of salt since my understanding of important matters like the nature of enlightenment, which the text deals with, is small.

The Awakening of Faith is a Mahayana text, attributed to the Indian Asvaghosha, that survives only in Chinese. It is a terse summary of the essential points of Mahayana Buddhism, namely the nature of the absolute reality or enlightenment and of the relative reality or nonenlightenment, their relationship to one another, and how one goes about integrating the absolute and the relative, thus achieving enlightenment.

The translator (Hakeda) wrote a very good introduction to the text that is clear and succinct. He discusses the possible origins of the text (i.e., whether it is an Indian original, a Chinese original, or a blend of an Indian and Chinese work) and who might have written it since it is clear that it was not written by the same Ashvaghosha who wrote other Buddhist works such as Buddhacarita (The Life of the Buddha). He also goes over important concepts integral to the text such as One Mind, Suchness, and tathagata-garbha, and places the work within East Asian Buddhism as a whole. A student of Hakeda's wrote an "Introduction to the Reprint Edition" which, among other things, tells stories of Chinese and Korean masters. I found these stories very helpful because they show how the material in the text is not a mere intellectual curiosity, but how it can (and is meant to) be integrated into the fabric of life to relief the suffering of beings.

The text is difficult for a number of reasons. One reason is the author's terseness. The translator remediates this somewhat by giving many helpful comments, embedded into the text itself, to elucidate the meaning and by giving a very helpful introduction, but still, the author assumes the reader has a great deal of prior knowledge. The second reason is the nature of the material itself. A reader of Buddhist texts that deal with the nature of reality (such as this text) inevitably comes across paradoxical statements like the following:

"... to be completely free from erroneous views, one should know that both the unenlightened and the enlightened states are relative and have no particular qualities of their own-being that can be discussed. Thus, all things from the beginning are neither matter nor mind, neither wisdom nor ignorance, neither being nor nonbeing; they are ultimately inexplicable." (p. 78)

To interpret this passage correctly, it is important to be aware of the context in which it is meant to be read. Otherwise, it is likely to leave a feeling of frustration, tantamount to "Well if the unenlightened and englightened states have no qualities, why am I reading this and why did the author write it?!", or, perhaps, "It is utter nonsense to speak of something as neither being nor nonbeing. It must be one of them!" But the author goes on to to write something very useful in understanding this text and other texts like it:

"And yet they [the enlightened and unenlightened states:] are still spoken of. It should be understood that the Buddhas, applying their skillful means, make use of relative speech in a provisional manner in order to guide people ... to the truth; for if anyone thinks of anything as real and absolute in its own right, he causes his mind to be trapped in the unenlightened state and consequently he cannot enter the state of enlightenment." (p. 78)

So saying things like "the unenlightened and enlightened states are neither being nor nonbeing" is not done with the purpose of being paradoxical. It is the attempt to use language to explain something that cannot be described by language. It is like describing to someone what it is like to eat chocolate; language can only go so far. Ultimately to know chocolate one must experience it first hand by eating it (thanks to Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche for the chocolate analogy). Statements such as "the unenlightened and enlightened states are neither being nor nonbeing" are meant to show that the mind that divides things up in a dualistic way (that is into either being or nonbeing, either good or bad, etc.) needs to be left behind in order to enter the state of enlightenment.

Some things I learned by and some of my experience of reading this:
* There is a lot I don't understand!
* In the language of the text, "thoughts" (which I take to mean dualistic distinctions) are what keep you from realizing your Buddha-nature. Trying to not make dualistic distinctions has been very liberating for me.
* Since I have almost exclusively read Buddhist texts from the Tibetan tradition, it was interesting to me to read this text, which is unknown in Tibetan. Reading it was kind of like eating a very common vegetable prepared in a way I had never imagined possible. The vegetable itself is familiar but the preparation is foreign.
* There are two Buddhist masters named Nagarjuna.
* I find Hakeda's (the translator) writing extremely eloquent. I plan on checking out other books of his.
* A favorite quote from the book:

"It is indeed as though the author had written in the spirit of the ancient Sanskrit grammarians, who were said to have rejoiced, as over the birth of a son, when they were able to save even a syllable in the formulation of their grammatical rules." (p. 2)

The image of grammarians being gleeful over cutting syllables is very funny to me.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

A timely read and much thanks to my son for continuing the tradition of my first book each year being a gift from him. I’ll leave the subject matter to more enlightened minds, but I always find it fascinating to read things written at at different points in time and the language/words which were then commonplace. This translation was done at the start of the 20th century and is itself a translation of translations of a 1,500 + year old text. Looking through the references and reading the preface, I can only imagine the undertaking to create this first English translation with no catalog, no computer, no database and no true source text.

[Drew Tschirki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Have a dictionary ready. This book is one of the most authoritative Mahayana philosophical works, and for good reason. The teachings, or perhaps the forms of the teachings, aren’t terribly difficult to understand conceptually, but the exposition is sometimes difficult to work through. I think it should take at least a few times of reading to fully internalize the teachings presented.

Also, in my version there were plentiful footnotes (very good! I love footnotes!) but sometimes the amount of what was written (taking up two full half pages with minuscule print, for one footnote, for example) would break up the flow of what I was reading and make it harder to concentrate on what was being presented. Definitely a re-read!

[Dean Paradiso · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a bad discourse, considering the age of the discourse, and that it had been translated at least twice, supposedly from Sanskrit into Chinese into English. There are some good points about the nature of reality, mind, how the world and individual arises within the mind, and how both Nirvana and samsara apparently co-exist. The last chapter contains some information about apparent practices and view points that may be helpful in the removal of delusion, which chiefly centre around the use of faith, devotion in the Mahayana Buddhist ideals, and steady contemplation on the former relative truths outlines (which dispelling false views from the point of view of the Mahayana). While it is a good read, it is quite technical and one would need to have some knowledge of Buddhist and Mahayana concepts (esp their Pali equivalent). The work can be found free on the Internet due to it being public domain.

[mahesh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is too Technical And requires a fundamental understanding of Mahayana tradition to grasp everything. If you are a practitioner, it is quite easy to understand this book otherwise it's a hard nut to crack not because it has concepts that don't exist in other Hindhu schools of thought, it's because of the writing style. My mind could not connect the dots at all, the Writing style is too difficult to grasp.

This book's main author is Asvaghosa, He has highlighted the fundamentals of Mahayana Buddhism through this work. I started reading this book to have some philosophical understanding of Mahayana buddhism, Due to the incoherent writing style in translated work I was getting confused in keeping track of things.

It's a must re-read for myself. I will probably re-read it in the future if I need it.

[Quan]

Mấy cuốn này khi nào có tâm trí kiên nhẫn đọc đi đọc lại cuốn này đồng thời đối chiếu với bản tiếng Việt trong thời gian chừng 6 tháng đảm bảo không bổ bề ngang cũng bổ bề dọc. Nghe người ta khuyên mình thế.

[George Cole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can be read in one sitting. Restores my faith in the immortality of the soul.

[John Spiri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tough at times but inspiring! Should reread someday.

[Murray · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the excellent Shrine of Wisdom Series, that made key books on religion, philosophy and spirituality available to a wider audience before every bookshop had a mind, body and spirit section.

Asvaghosha was one of the earliest exponents of the Mahayana school of Buddhism that flourished in northern India and Tibet. His work is in many ways psychological and of great interest for that reason. The ideas are presented in a philosophical style that is well reasoned and thought provoking. As always with this publisher, the Editors provide an interesting commentary of the main ideas.

[Phil Calandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The Awakening of Faith" is primarily a summary of the essential points in Mahayana Buddhism that outlines the nature of absolute reality and the relative reality of non-enlightenment. This is a quite technical and difficult that is directed more to the Buddhist scholar and longtime practitioner.

[Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those already exposed to Mahayana thought, a good summary work, and the notes from the translator are useful, but I expect the text will be difficult for those beginning their Buddhist studies.