What Do You Place Your Faith In?

Smriti and Saddha - Mindfulness and Faith

(notes on today's meditation)

A little while ago we touched briefly on the topic of faith, so today we’ll try to squeeze a large concept into a small amount of time. At first glance it might seem a bit odd to link Mindfulness with Faith but I think it will become a little bit clearer when we look at the original meaning of the words.

The sanskrit word smriti – or the pali word sati - is usually translated to mean “mindfulness” . The modern mindfulness trend is to focus on awareness – but that’s only half of the teaching. The original meaning of mindfulness is a little bit different. And its important to know that because it takes us to other half of our practice which is valuable, perhaps even the greater part of our practice.

The word sati is related to the root word “to remember” or “to keep in mind”.

But mindfulness is more than an acute awareness – it’s also a practice of keeping in mind or taking to heart - some sense of the bigger picture. Our purpose.

The original mindfulness teaching is very long, but essentially tells us that ‘in everything we do, eating, drinking, sleeping, walking, talking, silence, etc., we should keep in mind the significance of it.’

In other words our awareness has a purpose beyond being aware of ourselves. Being aware of ourselves only, without the other half of the practice, fast becomes simply an exercise in ego. The purpose of mindfulness, the purpose of our awareness is to see the ethical or spiritual significance of what we are engaged in, to see the spiritual or ethical in what we are doing. That’s the important other half. In the ancient writings the word used is ‘holy’. So our awareness is for the purpose of being able to see the ‘holy’ in what we are doing. That is sati.

But Zen is very flexible as far as religion or metaphysical philosophies goes, and it is up to the individual to seek out the practice or belief which matches what you think is spiritual or holy.

(Just a note here which struck me this morning: Mindfulness is that incredible, enhanced awareness we experience. And that enhanced awareness, that mindfulness of nature, has the potential to connect us to what is holy by opening up our heart and perception:

When we see a beautiful sunrise or sunset, or an intricate flower, or really hear those birds sing - like this morning during the meditation I heard birds in our background noises on Zoom - or feel the weight and warmth of a smooth stone in your hand - then we come into contact with reality in a way we rarely take the time to experience.

In those moments we get a sense of holy, and our connected-ness to it, and our purpose.)

Saddha or shradda doesn't have a direct english transalation. Shradda comes from two sanskrit words joined together: Shrat meaning heart or truth and dha meaning to direct ones mind towards. Saddha is usually interpreted to mean faith or purpose, but it actually describes a type of positive energy that comes from deep within us. The positive energy which we tap into to shape our world and life.

So here we can already start to see the link between faith and mindfulness.

And there is a question here: what do you place your faith in? What positive energy in our heart do we tap into? Meaning where would you seek support? Or what do you rely on when you hit a wobble? What do you take to heart and what do you use to guide you?

All of that means taking a look at what is important, our core beliefs, our most valued principles or virtues.

Some people place faith in their religion, others science. Or perhaps family or friends? Some people rely on themselves – wealth / status / fame / reputation / good looks /charm / strength (mental or physical) or their mind: business acumen / intellect / knowledge… There are many things we could tap into for support.

(The meditation we used this morning has some points to consider – if you scroll down you will see the summary notes of the meditation.)

Just before we let the cement set in the head - thank you Elize :) - and become very concrete about what we consider to be reliable or what we consider we can place our faith in and rely on, a timely Zen reminder:

Zen masters talk about how it is necessary to have great faith but also necessary to have great doubt. Just to make sure we don’t forget that everything is transitory, everything is impermanent, a reminder that everything we can dream of to rely on, is impermanent.

A Zen saying goes as follows: "Faith is like painting the walls of your room with mud, then trying to convince yourself that it is beautiful, and it smells good"

“Faith is an illusion, a dream that we strongly consider real, but that in reality only impoverishes the true spirituality of man. The strength of our faith and conviction has nothing to do with the fact that a belief is true or not. The truth of our faith is in us only, nowhere else.”

Which reminds us that whatever we can dream up and have faith in, rely on to support us, will one day fail us. But because we have our practice, we know that we are able to flow with that when it happens. We can flow with changes, with impermanence.

The meditation:

Meditating on saddha is a heart practice – it helps us stay aligned to or keep us on our chosen path, keep us true to our core values, and enriches us, improves our sense of wellbeing.

It helps us navigate through situations of conflict or difficulty.

It is a two-prong question:

What are my core beliefs? My most valued principles or virtues

What am I most passionate about? Some examples of values and virtues could be:

Truth, compassion, kindness, generosity, service, humility, resilience, perserverance, empathy, mindfulness, consciousness, authenticity.

and the other question is:

What do I place my faith in? What is important to me, heartfelt, that I use to give myself direction and which shapes my world and my life. In other words: Where or what or who do I turn to in situations of conflict or difficulty?

I invite you to consider: are the two compatible? Does what I place my faith in align with my values?

As we contemplate these questions, perhaps feelings come up in the body, take note of those too.

You might notice that the answers to your questions highlights that they are not always in alignment with those core values, or heartfelt principles or beliefs.

And that’s ok too. Because it’s a process, like our practice.

But if you feel as if your day to day living is almost never in tune with what's important to you, then this might be a hint or signal that its time to recalibrate and move into a different direction.

Have a wonderful week.

Metta to you all

_/\_