On “hope” in Buddhism

Bhikkhunī Dhammadinnā

This is an edited version of an invited paper (with the pre-assigned title “Building hope as a contribution to the common good: An urgent co-responsibility in the spirit of universal fraternity. A Buddhist position”) read at the conference “Buddhists, Christians, Hin­dus, Jains and Sikhs: In dialogue and collaboration to renew and to re-ignite hope in our times,” which was held at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, on June 4th, 2025, organized by the Dicastery for Interreli­gious Dialogue in collaboration with the Centre for Interreligious Studies of the Pontifical Gregorian Uni­versity, the Unione Induista Italiana, the Unione Buddhista Italiana, the Institute of Jainology and the Sikhi Sewa Society.

Read the original article here

“Hope” may be regarded as a cornerstone of spiritual and existential resilience or valorised as a virtue tied to divine promise and eschatological fulfilment; within mod­ern secular discourse, it functions as a psy­chological resource against despair and as a motivational force for social change. But what of the Buddhist position (or of a Bud­dhist position) on hope, with Buddhism being often represented as a tradition ori­ented solely toward renunciation, detach­ment, and the cessation of desire. This appears to be implicitly antithetical to the very thrust of the intentional act of reaching toward the future, which is the fundamental posture of “hoping,” at least in the common-sense un­derstanding of the term? Can we speak meaningfully of hope within such a frame­work? And, if so, what form might Bud­dhist “hope” take? Is it sufficient to iden­tify some equivalent of this concept in the doctrinal Buddhist lexicon, or is a more ar­ticulated analysis necessary of how this construct is (or is not) articulated within the Buddhist teachings?

I preface what follows by saying that any attempt at offering a sufficiently nuanced Buddhist position on “hope” in a way that does justice to the ways in which this con­struct takes shape in the many text- and religio-historical layers of the Buddhist traditions—in the plural—would be unfea­sible of course in the present occasion. Thus, to address this question, I turn to the early Buddhist discourses that constitute the foundation for all subsequent develop­ments in Buddhist thought and soteriology that inform the diverse Buddhist living tra­ditions.

In fact, the Indic term “hope” (āsā and āśā respectively in Pali and Sanskrit, two of the main scriptural languages of the early Buddhist textual tradition) appears rarely in the early texts and, when it does, may be marked by ambivalence. For instance, the sage is described as having gone “beyond hope and despair” (Sn 4.3). This dual tran­scendence may suggest nihilistic abandon­ment or emotional austerity. Yet, the goal of Buddhist practice is not emotional numbness but liberative clarity. The Bud­dha’s “rejection of hope” is not the rejec­tion of possibility, but of the mental prolif­eration (Pali papañca, Sanskrit pra­pañca)—the delusional hypertrophy of the ego—that attaches to outcomes and thereby binds one to suffering. Moreover, it unavoidably reifies the other by way of confining her or him to the function of ful­filment of one’s own needs.

Being hopeful, in this sense, becomes sus­pect not in its aspiration but in its entan­glement with craving, that is, the thirst for experience and the thirst for the annihila­tion of experience (Pali taṇhā, Sanskrit tṛṣṇā). Such a form of “expectation” is among the proliferations that obscure the immediacy of the Dharma, i.e., reality and epistemic alignment with reality. Hope for future salvation, for attainment, or for re­lief by means of controlling existence in the form of its continuation or else its sup­pression—even subtly—can become a veiled clinging to reified self-view: to pin one’s hope on some state of becoming, an otherwiseness, is to be caught again in the vortex of saṃsāra, and it is the expression of a conflictual stance towards existence it­self. At the same time, personal transfor­mation and facilitation of external change are the sole intentional choices and ac­tions—at the physical, verbal and mental level—that resolve the impasse of such a conflicted position and real-ise, make change real.

Clearly, this implicit critique of (what is seen as misguided) hope is far from being a doctrine of resignation. Throughout the early Buddhist scriptures, we encounter a different kind of orientation—a trust in the possibility of transformation. Hope is re­cast as a calm assurance in the intrinsic value of the path itself. And now I am looking at how this construct is articulated in the early teachings, attempting to make at least some of its dimensions explicit. The Buddha is on record as having stated that he would not have established a form of life designed to actualise the path to emancipation from all that is unwholesome (to which I return below) had he not seen such an emancipation as possible. In a sense, the whole decision on the part of the Buddha to share with others a path to the end of their own suffering and the histori­cal establishment of the Buddhist commu­nity with its monastic and lay members is a hopeful gesture rooted in the conviction that change is possible.

Buddhist hope is epistemically and soterio­logically rooted in the realization of awak­ening, that is, emancipation from all distor­tions and conceits. Discernment between the wholesome (pali kusala, sanscrito kuśala) and the unwholesome (pali akusala, sanscrito akuśala), and the deci­sion to embrace the wholesome, form the capacity for moral life. The strong interest in a transformative moral psychology cen­tred on subjective experience characterizes Buddhist moral discourse as a moral phe­nomenology, where the training in ethics and the training in mindfulness incremen­tally reinforce each other.

Ethics is not compartmentalized away from other domains of existence because the Buddhist mapping is informed by an integrated vision of the affective, cogni­tive, aesthetic, ethical, etc. terrains of ex­perience. This approach is a consequence of the Buddha’s unbiased knowledge of the principles of construction of subjectiv­ity he affirms to have attained through first-person realization of the truth of awakening (Nibbāna or Nirvāṇa respec­tively in Pali and Sanskrit). As a result, ethics is primarily oriented toward the final deliverance of the heart-mind (Pali and Sanskrit citta) from defilements and igno­rance, free from any potential for decep­tion or falsehood. Such interrelatedness of the teachings on ethics and liberation finds paradigmatic expression in a concatenated definition of virtue, concentration, and wisdom, stipulating that the proper devel­opment of each is a condition for that of the subsequent quality, and when wisdom is properly developed the mind-heart be­comes liberated.

As the paramount epistemic and soterio­logical value, awakening also serves as the highest ethical value, reckoned as resulting in the remainderless cessation of what is unwholesome. The entire trajectory of eth­ics is built upon this foundational distinc­tion between what is “wholesome” arising from the three roots of non-greed, non-an­ger, and non-delusion, and what is “un­wholesome”, arising from the three roots of greed, anger, and delusion. Ethics is em­bedded in the pedagogical scheme of the so-called four noble truths. These are in­formed by the Buddha”s own awakening, which constitutes their source and their foundation. In the recognition that there exists (or there occurs) the experience duk­kha (Pali; Sanskrit duḥkha) and that suffer­ing is present in the way I construct the world of self and other (first truth), they affirm the universality of the possibility of the end emancipation from its cause, crav­ing (third and second truth) through an in­tentional path of cultivation (fourth truth).

Notably, dukkha can at times involve “suf­fering” and even outright “pain”; but duk­kha is not in itself suffering or pain: it is that which is by its very nature unsatisfac­tory and constitutionally incapable of providing peace and contentment. Even hedonically pleasant experiences and sub­lime states of mind such as the most pro­found meditative absorptions are marked by dukkha without causing any suffering or pain at all. Moreover, the existential un­ease that is dukkha is also distinct from psychopathological discomfort in the strict sense.

This points to the fact that the specifi­cally Buddhist understanding of “hope” that emerges from the early discourses is one not rooted in projection or craving, but rather in a gradual alignment with the real­ity of life as it is and in an unshakable con­fidence in the path of existential transfor­mation at the internal as well as interper­sonal level. This is in turn a call for an atti­tude that does not rush to resolution. Hope begins with the acknowledgment and con­templation of dukkha: acceptance of what is not satisfactory, at times painful, with­out surrender to despair.

The capacity to offer hope to oneself and to others lies in the ability to co-inhabit the world of suf­fering together, while coexisting with the realistic possibility of change that is intrin­sic to the very nature of reality, which is made up of causes and conditions rather than immutable essences. As a matter of fact, the principle of conditionality of men­tal states, of inner life as well as relational life, grounds agency and ethical owner­ship. Agency and ethical ownership are in this way the heart of Buddhist hope.

This brings us back to the epistemic status of hope in early Buddhism. In this frame­work, what can be known is prioritized over what can be hoped for. In a sense, early Buddhist faith (Pali saddhā, Sanskrit śraddhā) is not a substitute for liberating knowledge, but a provisional confidence that supports inquiry. It occupies a provi­sional epistemic space: not yet knowing, but willing to proceed based on tested principles. The fully awakened person is reckoned faithless (assaddha), having gone beyond the need for such a type of faith by dint of having attained liberating knowledge and irreversible ethical purifi­cation.

Buddhist hope—if we may still use that term—manifests as a justified, pragmatic confidence grounded in the law of condi­tionality and cause-and-effect. One does not believe blindly that awakening will come, nor does one despair if it is not im­mediately present. Instead, one cultivates a trust in the path because it has yielded fruits, not only for others but in one’s own life. In this way, hope in early Buddhism occupies a low-epistemic-risk, high-moral-value position. It is epistemically cautious but existentially generative.

I would suggest that this may be best ap­preciated as a form of epistemic humility. In contrast to dogmatic certainty about metaphysical truths or blind optimism about the future, the Buddhist practitioner recognizes the limitations of her or his finitude and epistemic faults. In a soterio­logically-informed epistemology and epis­temologically-informed soteriology, this is quite crucial. Hope, therefore, becomes grounded not in belief about the future, but in the moment-to-moment verification that the mind can be trained, defilements weak­ened, and suffering reduced. This is hope through insight. This is hope through de­constructing the self-referentiality and self-conceit that always accompany craving for the two proverbial two extremes of further becoming or else for its suppression.

This subtle, sober orientation reflects an “existential confidence”: a confidence not in outcomes, but in process. It is worth emphasizing that this quality is not static. It is cultivated, strengthened, and deepened through contact with the Dharma (i.e., ac­cess to the Buddha”s teachings), the exam­ple of more advanced disciples of the Bud­dha, and one”s own experience. As such, it serves not only as a psychological founda­tion, but also as an epistemic bridge be­tween ignorance and wisdom. It permits movement and scope for effective action without requiring final supramundane knowledge. It keeps the practitioner in re­lationship with the path even when first-person certainty is unavailable. In that way, whilst honouring and foregrounding the subject’s epistemic and ethical agency, it does away with any form of glorification of experiential subjectivity as the main or sole valid existential terrain and compass.

This becomes especially poignant in the context of death and impermanence. Bud­dha offers a simile: a person is swept away by a great river and grasps at grasses on the bank. Let go, the Buddha enjoins, let go of the past, the future, and the present. With a heart freed of clinging, cross to the far shore (SN 3.25). This is not hope as projection but hope as release. It is a movement toward awakening not through possessing a secure future, but through be­coming fully present to the present, with full responsibility. Mental proliferation generates an illusory world of duality, where hope and fear arise as oscillating re­sponses to imagined scenarios (MN 18). To see through proliferation is to disarm both hope and fear—not through indiffer­ence, but through wisdom. The relinquish­ing of hope, paradoxically, opens the door to a deeper freedom: one no longer lives in reference to projected outcomes, but in the freedom of presence. Mindfulness be­comes an expression of a non-attached hope—each moment of lucid attention af­firming the potential for awakening. Not through fantasy or metaphysical promise, but through sustained intimacy with real­ity. From this standpoint, the Buddhist ap­proach to hope is not escapist but deeply grounded.

In a world marked by ecological collapse, economic inequity, and widespread vio­lence, this pragmatic, epistemically modest form of hope is crucial. It affirms human agency, ethical clarity, and the real possi­bility of transformation, without requiring metaphysical commitments that may falter under scrutiny or else might be unwar­ranted impositions on others. There is no salvation as an external gift, but there is freedom as an internal unfolding and the attendant relational authenticity. And that unfolding can be trusted.

Notably, hope is not merely as a state of mind but a phenomenon with embodied and relational and interpersonal implica­tions at the same time when it arises in the space of care. Here the Buddhist practi­tioner attends to the dukkha or the suffer­ing of another without feeling the urgent need to eliminate it (this stance must be understood delicately in its depth; obvi­ously, saying that a Buddhist does not seek to immediately resolve pain or suffering, their own and/or that of others”, can lead to mis­understandings, as it may evoke views such as the belief that pain is the result of karma and therefore should not be allevi­ated, or it may recall notions of purifica­tion or atonement through suffering). Hope, in this light, is co-constituted: it ex­ists where the possibility of healing is made present not through guarantee, but through presence itself. It does not aim at a hasty, pre-emptive, externally adminis­tered closure, resolution, and the erasure of dukkha (or of suffering) without first lis­tening by approaching the other and recog­nizing the full legitimacy of their present condition.

Here hope is more deeply linked to cura (care) than to cure—it emerges not when we assert that things will improve, but when we remain faithfully present to what is, especially in moments where im­provement cannot be promised. In this context, hope takes on a temporal vulnera­bility: it is the openness to a future not yet determined, without demanding that the future conform to our expectations.

Through applied contemplative practice, I come to apprehend experientially a funda­mental homogeneity between the constitu­tion of my embodied experience and that of the other, of others. There is real, lived continuity, and there is commonality in this experience of the way I construct my experience of my own embodiment and the way others construct their own experi­ences of their own embodiment. And this is our meeting point. This is where we al­ready meet. This is where communion and fraternity arise, namely, from a fundamen­tal insight into the commonality of the em­bodied predicament rather than, say, ap­pealing to a normative noble intention or even a religious ideology. The quality of presence (i.e., mindfulness) builds or re-builds lives that no longer need attach­ment.

In closing, I would like to offer the image of the lotus to illustrate the only apparently contradictory Buddhist position on hope-without-hope. The lotus does not hope to bloom; it simply grows in accordance with causes and conditions. Likewise, the per­son who cultivates ethics, inner collected­ness and wisdom does not hope in the con­ventional sense. Her or his is hope without grasping, responsible and co-responsible—and, from a Buddhist perspective, it may well be the most truthful hope of all.

Thanks are due to Elena Trusel and Boris Zobel for their comments on a draft of this text.

Abbreviations

MN      Majjhima-nikāya
Sn        Sutta-nipāta
SN        Saṃyutta-nikāya

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