Dear Friends, Today, we’ll shift to the next of the faculties – viriya – the effort, energy, spark that gets a person started and continuing on the practice. We all know that doing things can sometimes be hard – it’s hard to get started, it’s hard to keep going. That might be why viriya shows up in so… Read More »
Dear Friends, Over the series of talks, Gil Fronsdal has traced a journey along which our saddha may progress. This journey may be linear, or we may jump around, or we may spiral in ever deepening ways. We started with faith, which inspires us to practice. Then confidence, when we start to value the practice and see the… Read More »
Dear Friends, The fourth dimension of saddha that Gil Fronsdal examines is trust. He talks about trust in the Dharma, which he says comes from a word meaning “to support.” As we practice, … we discover that more is going on within us — processes and patterns of life deeper than anything we could engineer, organize or make… Read More »
Dear Friends, Gil Fronsdal brings out a third aspect of saddha that I hadn’t really considered before, that of conviction.https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/11059 He does note a caution with this word – that there are some people do things out of a sense of conviction without regard to the impact on others. We’ll talk about balancing the faculties more later this… Read More »
Dear Friends, Another common translation for the faculty saddha is “confidence.” Gil Fronsdal describes a nuance of confidence compared to faith: Confidence is different from faith. We can have faith that something is important and useful, but that faith can be at a distance. It’s like we have a treasure and know that we have the treasure, but… Read More »
Dear Friends, In Pali, the first faculty is “saddha” – and that word can be translated many ways. One of the common translations is “faith.” For some folks, the word “faith” is a tricky word. Sharon Salzberg talked about how people responded when she first gave talks on faith: Painful associations with the word faith came pouring out… Read More »
Dear Friends, The inspiration for this month’s topic came from this description of the Five Spiritual Faculties on the Audio Dharma page for the series: [The Buddha] emphasized that suffering is workable, that we can engage with our suffering in such a way as to be freed from it. He described five faculties that we need to develop… Read More »
Dear Friends, Thank you for choosing to be part of this January email offering. This is the eighth year I have been doing this, and I continue to be inspired by the teachings, and by knowing you are here with me on this journey. I’m looking forward to exploring the five spiritual faculties with you this month. We’ll… Read More »
Dear friends, I will be offering daily meditation emails again for January 2023. Are you interested in participating? Similar to previous years, I’ll send out an email each day in January, with a short bit of encouragement in the form of a practice, idea, reflection, poem, or song. This year, I’ll explore the theme of the five spiritual… Read More »
Dear Friends, Thank you for being part of this month of exploration. I wish to extend my gratitude to the following. If you have appreciated this month of offerings, I encourage you to support the teachers. Jill Shepherd and DaRa Williams, for sharing their hearts of wisdom and making the talks from this retreat available. More talks by… Read More »
Dear Friends, Here we are, near the end of the month, and we have covered all the recordings from the retreat with Jill and DaRa. Some highlights from the last couple of weeks: The practice of appreciative joy (mudita), and that gratitude (wow thanks) is a supportive ally in cultivating this joy in the joy of others, as… Read More »
Dear Friends, The last track in the retreat recordings, Reflection on Universal Well-Being Chant, is a traditional Buddhist chant, translated to English. Historically, teachings across many traditions were transmitted orally, and being able to chant the teachings in unison was a way to help the practitioners learn and memorize the teaching. You might have chants, hymns, or songs… Read More »
Dear Friends, In the penultimate track from this retreat, The Awakening Poem, DaRa reads a reflection which is sometimes attributed to by Sonny Carroll, although the wording on various websites isn’t always consistent. You can read a version fairly close to DaRa’s recitation here:https://www.michaelppowers.com/wisdom/awakening2.html The poem didn’t really resonate with me, though there are some useful life lessons… Read More »
Dear Friends, One of the question themes explored in Questions and Answers was about maintaining equanimity in the midst of social injustice, the climate crisis, etc. Jill reiterated that equanimity is not about making us immune to the visceral responses that may arise. She says “We want to keep our aliveness, our humanness, our responsiveness, and use the… Read More »
Dear Friends, In Questions and Answers, Jill and DaRa respond to some of the questions that participants had written. Today and tomorrow, I’ll pick out a couple of their responses that have resonated with some of my own questions about the practice. One question was about the hindrance of doubt: Confusion is at times, natural. For example, not… Read More »
