So good morning.
Thank you for your practice this morning.
So this week I'm introducing a new topic that builds off of last week's exploration of letting go and that's the topic of faith.
When we explored letting go I used the image of a closed fist and how when we begin to let go we simply open the closed fist.
We're opening our hand.
So a lot of people hold the image that when we let go we're sort of dropping the object and that type of imagery it doesn't actually support letting go,
The letting go that we're talking about.
The teaching of letting go points to the object of our grasping,
The object of our holding as it sits in our hand.
We're just no longer clinging to it.
This is where the practice of faith arises.
Can we hold our attachments with space around them?
Can we trust it?
And faith can be a very loaded topic for many people.
Many people link faith to a narrow-minded belief system.
So the invitation is not to associate with the dogmatic religious interpretation.
In the Pali the Pali word that's translated into English as faith is known as sada.
Sada has different qualities other than faith as we may define it.
It's broader so it's trust,
It's confidence,
Sometimes it's devotion or love.
Sada really like literally means to place the heart upon.
What do you place your heart upon?
What do you do in your life wholeheartedly?
And the way that sada is used in the teachings of the Buddha is kind of really as a provisional faith.
It's a faith that we believe in something enough to try it out for ourselves,
To engage in the practice initially,
To be inspired by something.
Faith guides us as a temporary support for our practice.
It's not the purpose of practice to have faith at the end of it.
Having something that inspires us then motivates us to begin engaging in the practice and as we begin practicing and have some experience with practice that kind of gives birth to confidence.
The confidence in our ability to sit here,
The confidence in the value of practicing.
And now part of the fuel for practicing is not just the inspiration that comes from the outside but the confidence that begins to grow within us from the inside.
And with further practice confidence gets transformed into conviction.
And conviction is sort of like this works for me,
I am with this.
And with more time and more experience on the cushion this conviction can lead to a profound level of trust.
We trust in the practice,
We trust in the path more than anything else.
We trust the possibility of the freedom that comes with practice,
The freedom from clinging.
And that trust there's a particular form of acceptance that's embedded in that.
A deep acceptance of presence to be free to live in this world without resisting,
Without clinging.
A deep acceptance that this is right,
What I'm doing,
This is the right way to live for me.
And it's not always easy to accept there are internal,
Like internal and external forces that give the impression that we have to sort of be on alert,
We have to worry about the future or get angry about what's happening.
To want to have things,
To be attached.
But faith has this power to clear away our distractions,
Our preoccupations,
All that's kind of swirling within us.
And sometimes people come to Buddhism,
To this practice,
Not through faith,
But rather out of desperation.
Like their suffering is so great that nothing else has worked.
So they think they'll try this.
You know,
There's this claim that this practice works and people who do it seem to be happy or a little bit more peaceful.
Nothing else makes sense to me,
So might as well just give this a shot.
So there's not much faith in that kind of desperation.
It's almost like giving up.
But then at some point that giving up gives birth to some kind of change and movement,
Some relaxation and maybe a little bit of letting go,
Which is meaningful.
And that gives rise to faith like,
Oh,
This works.
This happened to me when I came to practice.
I reached bottom.
I gave up.
Now many years later,
I can say that giving up was so thorough that I let go of so much that what followed from that deep letting go was something that I started to have faith in.
Oh,
This is the path.
This is important.
This works.
So sada.
Sada as faith is partly what we can be inspired by,
What motivates us to begin,
You know,
To begin practicing and to engage in our practice when everything else feels difficult.
So my hope is that you'll reflect on what your heart has faith in or what your heart believes in.
I love that expression.
What do you believe in?
Because we use that for people.
We can say that we believe in a person like I really believe in you.
It's a powerful statement.
I really believe in you.
It means that we have confidence in somebody,
We see value in who they are.
And we feel that their direction in life is a good one.
So to believe in someone is a wonderful expression of faith.
So as you engage in this practice,
I hope that you believe in yourself.
I hope you have faith in yourself.
And I and my hope is that it involves some sort of love for yourself,
Some inspiration and motivation to really show up for yourself to really be present in some deep way.
So may,
May faith be your companion,
Your friend and your support as we move through this day.
Thank you for your your kind attention.
