This is a copy of an anwer I gave to someone asking about what one should believe and in what one can have faith.
I hope you may find it useful.

Your question began with, "What is there to believe… to trust in, to have faith in?" I replied that countries, individuals, and deities can all let down those who believe in them. This last idea, that of a god disappointing people, makes many religiously devout people very angry. They believe that God is unknowable, and that the unfulfilment of our requests is all part of a heavenly plan. Other very religious, such as many Jews, have a relationship with G_d (they do not spell out the name of their creator) which is a two-way street; either can disappoint the other, make promises, break them, do favors for each other. Still others, like me, have found the distinction between the "human" and "divine" to be a bit blurrier. If you, and everyone around you, and every thought ever imagined, and every god, were all elements of the same stuff, all those who might potentially disappoint you, and cause you to lose faith, would really be a part of YOU.

I am not saying that there is no difference between you and the man sitting next to you on the bus; obviously, you do not know his thoughts, beliefs, history, family… but on a deeper level, you are identical. You are both made of a lot of carbon and hydrogen, some oxygen and nitrogen and sulfur and calcium, and bits of lots of other elements. The molecules that make you up are the ultimate example of universal recycling; you and your bus-riding neighbor could have both come from the same ocean depths, same field of flowers, same volcanic ash. Through many cycles of life, parts of all that make up this world were organized into living, thinking, breathing YOU. But on that level, the very tiniest aspect of you, there is no difference except perhaps in where a few molecules lined up differently and what they happen to be doing right now.

So, in a philosophical light, how are you and your neighbor both the same and not the same, and neither the same nor different? This seems to be a confusing sentence, but is absolutely at the core of Buddhist thought. Buddhism strives to break down the mental constructs that we’ve created to differentiate self from non-self. It focuses on the emptying of mind, of unlearning knowledge, and being still and just breathing. It poses unanswerable questions – you’ve undoubtedly heard, most likely in jest, someone musing on the sound of one hand clapping. Or perhaps you’ve been asked what your face was before your mother was born. These are Koans, or seemingly absurd puzzles that help a Buddhist break down the walls inside the mind. The first koan given to a student is "mu." In Japanese, it means "nothing" or "nothingness." The goal is to become one with the nothingness. Everything you do, it is nothing. Everything you think, it means nothing. You are nothing. There is nothing around you. No one, no place, absolute nothingness. It is up to the student to personally come to understand what it is to be nothing. Once the student understands this on a gut level, more koans are given.

What does this mean for you, as someone not studying Buddhism in a temple with a monk to give you koans? To a lay person (that’s all of us), there are two big points to grasp. The first is that it is possible to reshape the world around you by wrestling with it in your head. The second is that, really and truly, you can have a personal understanding of how you are no different from the beer bottle in your hand. That may sound absolutely ridiculous. Of course there is a bottle in your hand, it is smooth brown glass with a peeling label. You didn’t make it, it’s not a part of your body. But the Buddhists would like you to see that there is nothing special about you in this universe, there is nothing you are made of which is unique. Your motions are not truly individual, and your thoughts… aha. There’s the rub. You have thoughts, the beer bottle doesn’t. What happens when you still your mind, so that it is peaceful like a calm lake, and no thoughts enter into that tranquil state? Perhaps, at that moment, you are truly like that beer bottle, and everything else in the universe. (My, that still sounds terribly grand!)

Ok, this far, even if you don’t completely understand or agree with the above, it helps set the stage for the rest of my explanation. If you are not different from anything else, you might think of yourself as a part of everything else. You may feel that ownership is a construct, and not real (if everything is part of everything else, and derives from the same root, or non-root, it would be impossible to "own" anything truly). When I say root and non-root, I allude to the Buddhist idea that the differences we see, the origins we imagine, all of this is simply the product of our minds. We’ve come to interact with the things in our world because of how we think about them. If we do not have a mental construct for something, does it exist? Perhaps, but in order to believe in it, we must form the concept. If we break down all our concepts, does anything exist? Again, back to the beer bottle. I hold it in my hand, but I have experienced Mu. I do not exist. This beer bottle does not exist. We are the same, and not the same, for if we do not exist as individuals, then there is nothing about us to be similar. This may strike you as pure semantics. In a way, it is, unless you come to feel an inkling that it may be true, and study it, and come to know it for yourself.

Back to ownership and ideas of self. Why do Buddhists believe all this? The Buddha (which simply means "the enlightened one," his real name was Gautama) came to realize that the true root of suffering in the world was attachment. I would recommend that you find a brief summary of the life of the Buddha – it’s really fascinating, and much of it flies in the face of most contemporary religion. Attachment is like ownership. To be attached is to cling to your mental constructs. To believe that the beer bottle is exactly as it seems. To believe that you are unique. To believe in all the differences that exist. To give up attachments is to attain happiness. The Buddha, and many after him, found this personally to be true. I remain firmly attached to many, many things. But as I give up some attachments, I find liberation. Whether it be how I think about people, or relationships, or how I interpret events in my life or the world around me, I find that as I loose myself of my biases and structures of mind that make me "comprehend" events in context I achieve greater understanding. When one realizes that one’s unhappiness may well stem from a sticking point from within, the correction of the sticking point can lift a great burden.

So, like I said in my bid to answer your question, it is quite possible that nothingness, or mu, is that which is most worthy of belief. And since you are mu, you are all you’ve got to rely on and have faith in. To become mindful of your every action, to be able to still yourself and experience the oneness that is so often thrown about in modern conversation without understanding what it really means… these are true gems.

If you are everything, and nothing, death is nothing more than a blip on the natural history of the planet. It is a change of biochemical state, a liberation of your body’s atoms to proceed on to other noble tasks – perhaps nourishing grass and critters, perhaps enriching soil or water with your ashes, perhaps becoming flowers or rain or the air we breathe. You continue to be everything. Death is not something to fear. Heroics to maintain your being as alive, if you believe this, is sort of a waste… why persist in a costly state, when that state is simply a construct of mind, a way we relate to the world around us and how it changes? You asked if life was something to be preserved at all costs. Yours? Perhaps not. Others? Actually, yes, quite possibly, but not preserving the life simply to extend its time "living." A better goal is, for me and many medical ethicists, patients, and their families, alleviation of pain and suffering that comes with death and illness. Maybe a better way to phrase the idea is not preservation of life, but preservation of happiness, preservation of a non-suffering state. Escape of suffering for all beings is the ultimate goal of Buddhism. There are some individuals, Bottisatvas, who have given up the quest of achieving enlightenment, until all beings have been released from suffering, and may attain enlightenment. Protecting another from needless suffering is noble. Helping others free themselves from attachment in turn helps relieve suffering, and is good, though pushing your beliefs may cause more pain than otherwise. From this stems the non-evangelism aspect of many Buddhist sects, as well as the vegetarian aspect of many sects as well. Neither of these are strict rules, though. They bend as needed; few absolutes. When Alan Watts, a relatively well known American Buddhist, was asked why he ate meat at a dinner party, he replied that the cow was dead, but the hostess wasn’t. Two beings suffering is NOT better than one.

The opinion that I give you rests firmly in Zen Buddhism, which has been called alternately a religion and a philosophy. Either way, I describe myself as a Zen Buddhist. I’m nowhere near enlightenment. I haven’t even fully understood mu yet on the spiritual and gut level, though I have a pretty good intellectual grasp. I have found a path that appeals to me, helps me slow down in a hectic world, and leads me to peace. I have not felt this within Catholicism, the religion in which I was raised. I do not feel this kind of happy support towards my country. And, as the Buddha is not god, or a god, no loyalty or faith is required there. However, Buddhism is not incompatible with other religions. Christians, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists, Hindus… many of these have incorporated Buddhist thought which enriches their beliefs and paths.

You asked for literature which supports this. I gladly will give you some. First, let me say that the sacred texts of Buddhism are beautiful but pretty daunting as a primary source. The Dammapada is wonderful in parts, tedious in parts, and not very helpful right away for most folks who want to become Buddhists or just study it. For a primer, I’d direct you towards just about any large bookstore with an Eastern philosophy/religion section. There are countless good books about where Buddhism came from, who Gautama (Siddarth) was, and why it matters. Specifically, I would also recommend:

• Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind by Maura O’Halloran. She was a young woman who decided to travel to various parts of the world, and ended up staying at a Buddhist monastery. It is her diary, that of a young woman who knew nothing at all about Buddhism or the Japanese language, and her experiences. She comes to learn what this Buddhism thing is all about, and ends up staying there and becoming ordained. It is a wonderful read; you learn as she learns. Quick and captivating.
  
• Stumbling Towards Enlightenment by Geri Larkin. An American woman who took meditation classes because of her stress level was introduced to the world of Buddhism. It is a book that reaches out and grabs you. The chapters are very short and cannot fail to hit close to home. Her goal is to reach out to other folks who are considering Buddhism as a viable belief system, and to help them along in a practical, day-to-day sense. This book is in no way preachy. It’s funny, realistic, and very helpful. I love it.
  
• Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Bachelor. If you are approaching the topic from an agnostic or atheistic viewpoint, this author makes Buddhist thought palatable and approachable without some of the heavier, "religious" aspects. While I approach the subject very differently from him, I know others have liked his works very much.

Also, Tricycle is also an excellent online resource for information on Buddhism and exactly the stuff I’ve been talking about.

So, this has been a wee bit on the long side. I hope you have found it helpful. I am more than willing to continue this discussion... I look back on all of this and it sounds so cheerleaderish for this funny little religion based on a smiling fat guy. It’s fascinating stuff; I hope you can at least check out a bit of it. If you are interested in how I got to where I am (and where I am), feel free to ask. May you find something worthy of belief, and may you find happiness. I sincerely wish you the best.

Lisa Dryer can be reached at Djanaba@mindless.com for questions or discussions about Buddhism (or medical school, about which she admittedly knows a great deal more). Namaste!