Welcome to the Course
Throughout this course, you'll find the text of each video beneath the talk. It isn't necessary to read these materials if you do not wish to. They will be collected for download in each unit's workbook.
Welcome to the Course
Hello, and welcome to this Tricycle course on faith. Before we get into the specifics of this program, I want to spend a little time exploring the word faith. While a redemptive concept for some, I know that for others, the word faith itself can carry some negativity. It can be commonly understood as being synonymous with religious adherence or unthinking acceptance.
Why explore faith?
Over 25 years ago, when I told friends I was writing a book on faith, a lot of them responded, "Really? Why? Why are you doing that?" One friend was baffled that I could write a book about faith but not be talking about God. "Isn't that the whole point?" she demanded. She wasn't alone. For many I spoke with and taught during that time, the word faith would elicit confusion and, for some, aversion.
I increasingly saw how the concept of faith can be difficult for some people, sometimes associated with mindless belief or the need to proclaim allegiance to a creed or doctrine and then fear being judged by oneself or others for one's degree of compliance. But as I kept exploring faith, I saw how the tendency to equate faith with doctrine distracts us from what faith can actually be about.
I came to see faith as something much richer and far more expansive than the narrow, confining view that tends to come with adhering to dogma and not being allowed to question.
Over the duration of this course, I want to distinguish faith from the realm of doctrinaire interpretation and divisiveness. In Buddhism, faith isn't something we're just expected to have—in the Buddha, in the teachings, or in the meditation—and we then get on with our lives within those constraints. Rather, it's something we develop and nurture through our own exploration and questioning.
Moving beyond hope and fear
I also want to distinguish faith from hope in the sense of attachment, the insistence that everything will work out according to our wishes or contrivances or design. Harnessing hope in that way, hope and fear are extremely close to one another. We get filled with attached hope, and it will necessarily bring fear that our hope will not be realized. They are very closely intertwined. It's like there is a spindle, and around it are weaving these strands of hope and fear and hope and fear and hope and fear in a never-ending cycle.
That doesn't mean that Buddhism promotes hopelessness, but rather a "wise hope," aware of the changing nature of things, aware of what we cannot control.
It's a quality we can call faith rather than hope, unless we make a point of using the qualifier "wise."
With understanding these distinctions, we can delight in the word faith, experience it as fresh, vibrant, intelligent, and liberating. So then what does faith mean as the Buddha encouraged it?
The Buddha's faith
In Pali, the language of the original Buddhist texts, the word for faith, saddha, is a verb—not a commodity we do or do not possess, but something we actively do. The definition of saddha is to offer one's heart, to place one's heart upon. That requires knowing you have a heart, and then knowing that gift is worth something. To "faithe" is not a meaningless gesture, as it also requires understanding where you wish to place your heart. This type of knowing comes from experience, trying things out, and seeing what's best for a life of wisdom and compassion.
To "place the heart upon" does not at all mean rigidly believing in something and thus being defensive about opening to new ideas. It doesn't mean using that which we have faith in as a way of feeling separate from and superior to others. When we talk about saddha, we're talking about a heartfelt confidence in the possibility of awakening for ourselves and others.
Faith opens us to what is beyond our usual, limited, self-centered concerns. In Buddhist psychology, it is called the gateway to all good things, because...
Faith sparks our initial inspiration to practice meditation, goodheartedness, and integrity, and also sustains our ongoing efforts.