The common approach to faith is that it is something that one needs to acquire, you have to learn how to have faith. Indeed, I wrote a post titled, "Faith - What Is It and Why Is It Essential?"
My comment today is, "Yes, but no." Let me explain.
I have long understood and written that we are born with Buddha nature/the divine essence/the force of the Universe within us. That we are all born essentially perfect, meaning in a spiritual sense, not necessarily physically or mentally.
When a friend said recently that faith is like your baby—nothing should be more important to you than your faith; you should let nothing take you from your faith— the light went on in my brain. Faith, like all the other spiritual qualities that we are born with, is part of us at birth.
What happens to our faith is the same as what happens to all our spiritual qualities. Our life experiences, which are frequently if not mostly negative, are taken by our mind as the way things are, and so whether it's acquiring insecurity, feelings of inadequacy, or low self-esteem, these negative perspectives are absorbed by the ego-mind and made our self-image.
So to, when the reality of the world does not reflect our faith, our ego-mind takes that as a refutation of our faith, of showing the danger of faith, and so our faith is discarded by the ego-mind. This is why so few of us experience faith, and why, if we do, it is so hard to hold on to because our life experiences constantly say to us that our faith is misplaced.
But there is a way out of this vicious cycle. The first thing is to understand what faith in the Buddhist context means. Faith has nothing whatsoever to do with the actions of other people. It has nothing to do with how you are treated or whether someone responds to you appropriately as you deserve, or how the world conducts its affairs. Faith does not mean that some particular material outcome, some achievement, that you desire will happen. This may be the common idea about faith, indeed most prayer is asking for some material outcome, but that is not faith and indeed it is not an appropriate subject for prayer.
Faith concerns your belief in your qualities and your belief that you will be ok, spiritually, regardless what life provides because you will always return home to your true Buddha nature/the child of the Universe within you and so be at peace and happy, not because things will be a particular way.
Having lost our faith—just like our inherent goodness and peace and joy—we must rediscover it. That's why the post noted above is necessary, even if you come to believe that you were born with faith within you; you must rediscover it.
For me, the most powerful element that allowed me to reclaim my faith is the mantra, "things are the way they are because it's just the way it is; it's meant to be and it's all ok." Each morning when I pray/meditate, I am very aware when I say this mantra what it implies regarding how I react to things in my life, how I feel about my life as it is at that moment, and I ask the Universe to give me the courage to view things that way.
Given the world we live in, faith requires great discipline, just like almost every aspect of the Buddhist/spiritual path to end suffering and experience peace and happiness. It thus becomes essential to be in touch everyday, if not several times during the day, with your faith as with other aspects of your spirituality through meditation/prayer.
My comment today is, "Yes, but no." Let me explain.
I have long understood and written that we are born with Buddha nature/the divine essence/the force of the Universe within us. That we are all born essentially perfect, meaning in a spiritual sense, not necessarily physically or mentally.
When a friend said recently that faith is like your baby—nothing should be more important to you than your faith; you should let nothing take you from your faith— the light went on in my brain. Faith, like all the other spiritual qualities that we are born with, is part of us at birth.
What happens to our faith is the same as what happens to all our spiritual qualities. Our life experiences, which are frequently if not mostly negative, are taken by our mind as the way things are, and so whether it's acquiring insecurity, feelings of inadequacy, or low self-esteem, these negative perspectives are absorbed by the ego-mind and made our self-image.
So to, when the reality of the world does not reflect our faith, our ego-mind takes that as a refutation of our faith, of showing the danger of faith, and so our faith is discarded by the ego-mind. This is why so few of us experience faith, and why, if we do, it is so hard to hold on to because our life experiences constantly say to us that our faith is misplaced.
But there is a way out of this vicious cycle. The first thing is to understand what faith in the Buddhist context means. Faith has nothing whatsoever to do with the actions of other people. It has nothing to do with how you are treated or whether someone responds to you appropriately as you deserve, or how the world conducts its affairs. Faith does not mean that some particular material outcome, some achievement, that you desire will happen. This may be the common idea about faith, indeed most prayer is asking for some material outcome, but that is not faith and indeed it is not an appropriate subject for prayer.
Faith concerns your belief in your qualities and your belief that you will be ok, spiritually, regardless what life provides because you will always return home to your true Buddha nature/the child of the Universe within you and so be at peace and happy, not because things will be a particular way.
Having lost our faith—just like our inherent goodness and peace and joy—we must rediscover it. That's why the post noted above is necessary, even if you come to believe that you were born with faith within you; you must rediscover it.
For me, the most powerful element that allowed me to reclaim my faith is the mantra, "things are the way they are because it's just the way it is; it's meant to be and it's all ok." Each morning when I pray/meditate, I am very aware when I say this mantra what it implies regarding how I react to things in my life, how I feel about my life as it is at that moment, and I ask the Universe to give me the courage to view things that way.
Given the world we live in, faith requires great discipline, just like almost every aspect of the Buddhist/spiritual path to end suffering and experience peace and happiness. It thus becomes essential to be in touch everyday, if not several times during the day, with your faith as with other aspects of your spirituality through meditation/prayer.
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