Seeing a Fake Buddha Quote on Twitter is pretty much a daily occurrence, but this one retweeted by a Buddhist particularly struck me this morning:
He is able who thinks he is able. #Buddha
What interests me about this one is that it’s being passed on by people who have “Buddha” or “Buddhist” as part of their Twitter usernames, and yet it strikes me as being profoundly unBuddhist. I’m always open to correction, but the Buddha didn’t strike me as being an advocate of “positive thinking.” The Buddha’s actual position seemed to be more, it doesn’t matter what you think you are, what is important is what you do.
The Buddha of course encouraged the development of ethically positive thinking, which is thinking free from greed, hatred, and delusion, and imbued with wisdom and compassion. But the idea that you can do something just because you think you can is one he’d have seen as being itself delusional.
In fact when we look around at the world it seems self-evident that it’s full of people who over-estimate their abilities. And this has been well-studied by psychologists. Here’s an article on why we overestimate our competence, for example.
It’s curious that so many Buddhists promote views as being the words of the Buddha when actually they’re in an idiom that’s completely foreign to actual Buddhist teachings, and when the content is also alien to Buddhist thought and practice. I suspect a lot of Buddhists aren’t very familiar with actual scriptures, and rely on books about Buddhism. This would explain why so many non-Buddhist sayings are passed off as being the word of the Buddha.
Where does that quote–“He is able who thinks he is able”–actually come from? It’s not actually New Age at all. Originally, the earliest uses I was able to find were in books published in 1965 and 1972, where it’s described as “an ancient Roman saying.” It does have that muscular ring of empire about it! It’s also in a book from 1937 as well, “Guiding Your Life with Psychology as a Key,” by Josephine Agnes Jackson but no citation is given.
The Latin phrase being translated here is “Potest qui vult,” which is he who wills, is able. That is of course entirely different from “He is able who thinks he is able,” so the saying being ascribed to the Buddha is also being mistranslated from the Latin.
You Think but do not Know, That strikes me as the perfect position in which to remain silent.
Do not know what?
the statement is in the same degree of, as a man thinks so shall he be
Though I agree the quote here is not by Buddha, I feel you are too final in your understanding of Buddha’s teachings. It can be argued that Fifth of Five Hindrances taken along with “Chanda” would mean that one must believe that they can, and strive for it.
That’s a good point, Anshul. Doubt means either that we don’t believe in the Buddha’s enlightenment, or we don’t believe we can achieve it. And we have to have, or develop, our faith and confidence in order to make progress.
Still, merely believing you can do something doesn’t mean you can do it, which is the point I was trying to make. And not believing you can do something doesn’t necessarily prevent you from being able to do it. At university I went into many exams convinced I was going to fail, yet I passed because I’d done the work. I knew people who were convinced they were going to pass, and yet who failed dismally.
The Buddha said the following:
He’s talking about the idea of willpower here. We can’t “will” our way to enlightenment. I think this applies to faith/confidence as well. We need them, but we can’t “believe” our way to enlightenment. I guess I’d consider that faith is a kind of “gateway” spiritual faculty. With faith, we believe in the possibility of enlightenment, and so we do the things that move us in that direction. It’s the doing that creates progress, as they Buddha points out above. We need the faith to get us started and to keep us going, but it’s not enough in itself.
I hope this makes sense. Thank you for your interesting comment, and for prompting me to think about this more.
Thanks Bodhipaksa for your reply. I strongly resonate with you, that one cannot “will” their way into enlightenment. Yet, there are “exertions” to be made. Strangely paradoxical is this spiritual journey. Looking at faith as a “gateway” gave me a new perspective. I am grateful for that. I have often felt that rather than willpower, willingness is a better construct to use. Strictly speaking for myself, if I truly believed that I would fail the exam, I would not have appeared for it. There is a certain something within, that has faith, is willing to give it a try. That made me do all the work, all the study. I believed and I was willing. The gateway that opens up the possibilities.
Thanks for this. You’re absolutely right: There are indeed exertions to be made, hence “right effort” being part of the eightfold path. The Buddha’s point seems to be that we need to understand conditionality, and put effort into what actually works for decreasing unskillfulness and increasing skillfulness. The practices he mentions are what allow us to do that. Trying to change oneself just by wanting to very, very much, doesn’t in itself help. When we’re not making progress, putting more effort in doesn’t help unless we’re doing the right things.
I’ve certainly had experiences of believing I’m going to do well turning into success, because I’ve been enthusiastic and keen to learn. On the other hand, there’s plenty of evidence that a belief in success can be delusional — based on not understanding what’s involved or drastically overestimating one’s own abilities. There belief and confidence there, but no follow-through. For example we have the Dunning-Kruger effect, where the people who have least knowledge in a subject have more confidence that they know what they are talking about, while those who know most are more aware of their limits and admit to uncertainty. Here, confidence and actual skill are inversely related.
Anyway, your example about being willing to try something is a good one. It reinforces that it’s not just belief that matters — we have to follow through with appropriate action if we want to succeed at something.