ave maria

Everybody has been told that nothing is possible without faith & nothing impossible with it. But who has embraced this mystery wholeheartedly? Faith is certainly the indispensable condition for any sort of spiritual process, but it is also, & above all, a limitless fulfillment. It takes faith to receive the gift of faith: mysterious interplay of light & darkness. Ultimately, faith is also, the supernatural gift of divine light. No human effort can make up for faith. And still there is no end without a beginning, no traveling without a first step, no flight without an opening of one’s wings. Faith bears witness to the presence of the divine in the human. In the final analysis, faith is like an adumbrated light of our deepest Self………Patrick Laude

the faithful unwrap layer by layer, down to the seed, down to the bare bones, down to the pit of hope or despair….it’s all the same here….the point is to bear witness, & to linger in the immensity of knowing the Absolute…

Faith is a part of being alive, being human. The better question is, how is faith nurtured? How is it awakened in us? Sometimes it comes just because someone else has faith in us. Other times, wisdom brings faith. We see over and over again, for instance, that our lives are not under our dominion or control. We may despair at first, but when we realize and accept that we are not in control, we can also let go. We can acknowledge the faith it takes to step into the unknown. The wisdom of our realization awakens that faith. But this brings up an interesting question: If the proximate cause of faith is suffering, and everybody suffers, why do only some emerge from their suffering with faith, love, and compassion? Sometimes it is a moment of grace. And patience, as Trungpa Rinpoche said, is grace. Something happens when we don’t resist, when we don’t hate ourselves for what we’re experiencing. Our hearts open, and we realize we’re not alone in our suffering. Even the suffering, we begin to see, is a vehicle for a larger sense of connection to all of life. Once we have that, we have faith. ……Sharon Salzberg

we are the weary…make no mistake about the exhaustion of time & culture & despair……& yet through our most intimate reflections, we endure, refine the art of awakening & begin to live over & over again….

where is this new depth of spiritual belonging?…

Throughout all the regions

of the Universe,

there is no place

where the Source is not…..

….Hakuin