Sitting in my bed last night reading "Faith", by Sharon Salzberg I came upon her discussion of a promise. She was talking about the night the Buddha became 'enlightened'. According to Sharon, what was significant to this part of the Buddha's story was Moras' (killer of virtue and killer of life) attacking of the Bodhisattva's faith in his own potential. The Bodhisattva asks the earth to bear witness to his right to be sitting there, in essence asking the earth to affirm his 'right to be free'. The Buddha sat all night under the bodhi tree in deep meditation and was enlightened by morning. Sharon remarks about how this is a story of a 'promise'. The Buddha's promise that freeing the mind from habits of fear and anguish is a real and attainable goal. She says this goal is not just for him alone but something we can all attain. After all, didn't the Buddha promise this?
Hmmm.... I thought to myself, not being Buddhist but being a person who spends a lot of time meditating and practicing the art of freeing my mind from habitual thoughts that stem from insecurities and fear, is this goal actually attainable? Is this promise of being free and happy and unencumbered by anguish, a promise that wasn't meant for me? Does it set up an notion that if I can't 'meditate' myself into a state of freeing my mind where I am completely happy, then I've failed? After all, I spend a lot of time meditating. I make great effort to free myself from fearful thoughts. Hell, I've made incredibly courageous life altering decisions after deep meditation and contemplation. Recognizing that I have the ability to make choices that might not be easy (like the Siddhartha sitting under the bodhi tree being attacked by Moras), but that will give my life more meaning if I persevere.
After sitting with this for a while, I realized that maybe its not the promise of something 'attainable' like freedom from suffering that keeps me meditating and practicing yoga but just maybe it is in-fact the promise of a journey that keeps me coming back. The journey into myself and the getting to know and experience myself. Not a promise of 'happiness' but a promise of recognition and a promise of learning and experiencing all of it- the sorrow & the pain, the love & the joy. All of it a choice and none of it an obligation.
Donna Jackson
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One of my favorite writers and dear friend recently wrote about faith in her upcoming memoir. She said, "it seemed to me that faith really is an accomplishment. If accomplishment is, in part, defined as something requiring effort, certainly I was learning that faith required enormous effort." She goes onto say that most of our spiritual practices (and I am paraphrasing here) eventually become habit. "But it was in the space around these rituals that faith resided."
ReplyDeleteShe says, "To pause. To be still - not leaning forward, not falling back." Then "why is it so difficult? So scary? Why did something that should be effortless require so much effort."
It is so true. All the knowing we already have inside of us, and yet, we walk around sometimes and our behaviors, feelings, actions often show themselves as not knowing, or forgetting, or denying or it is easier not to listen for the pauses, not to sit amidst the silence that offers itself to us like a wise but passive companion.
Faith? The intangiable tug of the whole idea. A strength that sits inside of us waiting to be seen, felt, heard.
a saying that has stuck with me for many years is: Faith isn't the absence of fear, it is moving forward in spite of it. This makes faith more of a verb to me, it shows me that having faith and living faith are two different things. At times I am unhappy and I am afraid, but I have a knowing, a gift from sitting in meditation that shows me the only constant is change and all of my experiences in life have either been a lesson for me or for someone else. I choose to have faith in the ebb and flow of life, playing in the waves is always so much fun.
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