I've really been overthinking this and it's really very simple. The difference between having faith in a practice or ritual and living with faith as I understand it is that having faith in a practice is a safety net, a way to alleviate the inherent uncertainty of any course of action. Whereas living with faith means taking actions, the results of which are uncertain, no net, no guarantee of reward.
At least no reward that any authority is guaranteeing.
There's only a few things I can say that I know and most of those things are negatives. I know that I cannot know that any particular way is the only way. I know that I cannot know what the results of any particular action I take will be.
So here's the deal. I am not certain of anything. I don't know anything. But there's certain things I've decided to do anyway and certain ways of living I've decided to do anyway. Mainly because in a universe that makes any sense to me, these are things that I'd like to be true, and because these are things that make me feel good about my life and the way that I interact with others. That's it.
I've actually been chanting alot lately. Pretty much all the time. I wake up and start chanting around the house. I drive to work and chant all the way. I chant in my office. I chant in my head. I chant in business meetings -not out loud, I'm not insane and not all the time because I sometimes I need to focus on numbers, timelines, strategy and shit like that. But when I can I chant. And my only goal in doing so is that somehow, in this moment, I can draw out the enlightened aspect of everything I'm experiencing and pass it on. That's it. I don't want to hold on to anything. Not my thoughts, not my emotions, not those clouds, that sunset, that panic, this anxiety, this desire to win or this fear of losing . I just believe (but don't know) that I'm connected to everything. I just believe (but don't know) that as this series of nows passes through me, I can decide how big or small my life is and how much of what's contained in each of these nows I embrace.
I believe (but don't know) that the gigantic treasure rising from the earth is a symbol of the how much of the universe I can embrace if I have faith in the scope of my life and the power of the idea of non-self. I choose to chant as though, from this tiny body, I am energizing golden daimoku above me rising into space, and below me penetrating the earth. I choose to believe that these golden spinning daimoku draw the 9 worlds to them, freeing the enlightened aspect of everything-light and dark- that passes through them and that I, with my tiny body, simply allow it all to pass through me into the future.
I choose to believe (but don't really have a clue) that my way is good for me. I choose to beleive that there are lot's of my ways and lot's of highways and that my way is nourished and strengthened by embracing them all, and they are all nourished and strengthened by my way. Freely recieving and freely giving and just going about my life not worrying too much about whether any particular thing that I do, think or say was a good cause or a bad cause.
I'm just trying to be a better employee, a better husband a better father and a better bodhisattva if such a thing exists. I choose to believe it does and it makes me feel good.
This is how I want to live. I don't care about faith in doctrines or mantras or any of that stuff. I just want to have the balls to live moment to moment with the determination to take action which is healing and which nourishes the enlightened (if such a thing exists) aspect of everything I'm connected to. If doctrines and mantras help me to live that way, great. But that is not where I need to put my faith.
I need to have faith that putting that next foot in front of the other will not lead to a deadend. Personally I'd rather deal with cliffs. I've never gotten to a cliff I couldn't find a way down from. And cliffs are pretty frickin' obvious. In my experience you can spend alot of time just circling around a deadend before you ever realize that you're going in circles.
It feels a bit like gambling with your whole life. Willingly stepping into the unknown. I know that I may not meet the buddha at Eagle Peak, I have no idea if I'm going in that direction. My arrogance may be what's driving me, my inability to submit to authority. It may be that the SGI is the only true way, it may be that Nam Myoho Renge Kyo is the only true practice for this age, the only perfect teaching. But, I in my delusions, cannot accept these ideas. That probably makes me an icchantika, one of incorrigible disbelief. I can't help it though. That's part of what I am and I'm no longer going to reject parts of me.
So far so good but tomorrow is another day.