Faith isn’t something that is talked about a lot within the practice of receptive mindfulness, so it is good to explore how it fits into meditation practice, especially practice that is emphasizing direct experience. How can we know something like faith directly?
We can use the Buddha’s teaching of the Five Spiritual Faculties to describe the qualities that we are looking to bring into being more and more in mindfulness meditation – and this is what Sayadaw U Tejaniya does. These faculties are mindfulness, wisdom, energy, stability of mind and faith. So here faith is an integral part of what we are cultivating to bring about wisdom and clear seeing.
In my own practice I tend to use the section from the Satipatthana Sutta that is seen as the primary way of defining ‘right mindfulness’ in the early Buddhist tradition. This consists of 4 qualities – mindfulness, clear knowing, helpful energy and a mind free from gross hindrances. This list doesn’t explicitly include faith – although it does emphasize positive mind qualities that are experienced in the quality of awareness free from ‘desire and discontent’.
Bhante Sangharakshita, in his seminar on the Five Spiritual Faculties talks of faith as “for a Buddhist, faith means faith in the Buddha”. He goes on to say that we are really saying when we have faith in the Buddha is that we have faith in the Buddha’s Enlightenment, we have faith or confidence that Awakening is possible – because the Buddha was able to Awaken.
To say that we have faith that Enlightenment is possible is really to say that we have faith or trust in our capacity to grow and to change. We have faith in our ability to change in a positive direction without putting limits on that capacity to grow in many ways. For example, to grow more aware, more patient, more compassionate and wiser.
Faith manifests as a confidence in the teachings of the Buddha, the path to Awakening, and the teachings of mindfulness and wisdom. Looking into our experience directly means that we can recognize in our own heart and mind how that awareness affects the mind. We can notice how the mind feels when faith or confidence or trust are present and see how they benefit the heart and mind. We can see when faith is deepening our ability to practice and serving as a strong motivation.
We can also learn a lot from a kind of impersonal faith in Awareness itself. We can start to see that when mindfulness increases, the mind starts to understand itself in a new way. Just the act of being aware can stimulate faith by recognizing its role in the positive growth of qualities that allow insight and understanding to flourish.
When, in meditation, we experience the heart-mind brighten or uplift, when we notice the expansive pleasure of deep relaxation of the body and mind through awareness, we can often also notice how these moments of practice increase our confidence in our capacity to tread the Buddha’s path.
Here are a couple of suggestions for practice.
Take faith or confidence or trust as an ‘object’ throughout meditation and into daily life. What does it feel like in the mind-heart or the body? Track your experience of confidence or trust in practice and notice what conditions lead to them increasing or diminishing. If faith qualities diminish this isn’t a cause for concern or judgement but curiosity. If they increase that is also something to get interested in.
Notice what kind of thoughts and feelings might be present when faith is present. What is the relationship between faith and confidence and other qualities such as joy or inspiration, appreciation and gratitude?
Uncontrived Mindfulness 