This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Med: Delight arising from Confidence; Trust (5/5) The Ultimate Fruit of Confidence. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Med: Delight arising from Confidence; Dharmette: Trust (5/5) The Ultimate Fruit of Confidence (Saddhā) - Nikki Mirghafori

The following talk was given by Nikki Mirghafori at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on August 23, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Introduction

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, friends. Hello and welcome to the 7 a.m. California time sit and talk. I'm Nikki, and I'm delighted to be with you in this moment. We've been exploring the topic of Saddhā¹—confidence, Faith—this week. We'll do a guided meditation, and I'll offer some reflections and teaching.

Guided Med: Delight arising from Confidence

Let's begin by coming together, by collecting ourselves and arriving in this moment, in this body. However this body is showing up in this moment, however this mind is showing up in this moment, it's okay. It's all right. Not demanding it to be otherwise, but working with what is.

As if you are greeting yourself, greeting all of yourself, no part left out. Greeting all parts of your body: hello, welcome, welcome to this moment. And inviting the body to settle, relax, to be just as it is here.

If there are wrinkles in the body, let's call them wrinkles, or wrinkles in the mind, it's okay. Let the wrinkles be. Not fighting with them, but letting them be, having a sense of gentleness and softness around everything, with everything. Giving them time, acceptance. It's a gradual process. We know this is a gradual process.

Connecting with our breath, with the in-breath, with the out-breath. Connecting with the sensations of the in-breath and out-breath throughout the body. Calming, soothing, settling.

Maybe dropping just a drop of a sense of appreciation or gratitude into the heart for this moment, for the ability to come together as a community to practice, that the teachings are available. There's a sweetness, a goodness to the teachings, to the community, and our own capacity, our own willingness and commitment that has brought us here. Even if the mind might be distracted or the body achy, it doesn't matter. We're here. We brought ourselves here through confidence, through trust. We're here to acknowledge, to appreciate, to have gratitude and joy for all of this. Just a drop, as if you're taking a dropper with a drop of gratitude and infusing into your heart and mind the goodness of it all. The goodness of it all is here, not to be taken for granted. It could have been otherwise, and it isn't.

Allowing ourselves to know, to be aware, to be lovingly aware of the breath sensations here, right here, right now. Calming and settling, connecting with this moment.

We've brought ourselves here to practice because we know, we have trust—either verified trust, we know that from our own experience, or borrowed trust from other people's experience and reports—that this practice works. More peace, ease, happiness, freedom, non-reactivity, kindness, compassion. We know. See if you can connect with this knowing, with this sense of knowing, trust, confidence in your own heart in this moment. It is a source of brightness, stability. How does it feel for you? Do you feel it in your belly, in your sit bones sitting more bright, in your heart as brightness? How does it show up, this sense of knowing, confidence, trust?

Notice how there may be, perhaps subtle, but there is a gladness. There is a delight, a subtle delight, or perhaps not-so-subtle delight that maybe shows up as brightness. This sense of delight, of gladness, that arises from the sense of knowing, the sense of trust that then helps to settle the mind further, brings peace and more concentration. See for yourself.

Remember, it's not about thinking but experiencing, knowing. If it starts to become too heady, let go and simply be with the experience of the breath in the body. These reflections have already been planted; you don't need to think about them. They will reveal themselves to you.

If you find your mind wavering, remember appreciation, gratitude. Just a drop of it can bring a sense of feeling supported, a sense of confidence and stability. Gratitude for the support of others, your wisdom, the teachings. Appreciation for yourself for bringing yourself to the practice will help you connect with the sense of trust, confidence, stability, and delight.

Remember recognizing the stability, the sense of trust and confidence in yourself, in your heart, in this moment. Maybe it shows up as "yes, this feels right." See how recognizing it—it's already here—but recognizing it brings up a sense of delight, of gladness. See it for yourself.

As we bring this sit to a close together, connect with a sense of appreciation and gratitude for having showed up, for having brought yourself to this practice regardless of the outcome. You've planted wholesome seeds. There's no need for any self-judgment for what happened or didn't happen, just appreciation for having showed up. Appreciation for the community and that the teachings are available in this format. Yay.

Letting this appreciation, this gratitude, help you recognize the goodness in yourself and in all the causes and conditions that have interplayed to bring this moment into being. There is goodness here, recognizing there's goodness here, co-created. With generosity of heart, offering this goodness to all beings everywhere. May my goodness be of benefit to all beings everywhere. In this interconnected interplay, may all beings be safe, happy, healthy, and have ease. May all beings be free, including myself.

Everyone, thanks for your practice. I'm going to transition the recordings, pause for a moment.

Dharmette: Trust (5/5) The Ultimate Fruit of Confidence (Saddhā)

Greetings, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are in the world. It's just so heartwarming, really, seeing all your names scroll by. Very heartwarming. Awe and all the messages in this community, this global community. It gives me trust, a sense of goodness, oh joy. Joy and trust, that's what comes up.

So, we have been exploring this week—today is day five out of five—the teachings on Saddhā, translated as trust or as confidence. I've been putting the word in Pali in the chat, so here it is.

Just a quick review of the aspects we have covered this week. We started by discussing the necessity of having trust and confidence in the practice; otherwise, we wouldn't start. There has to be some "borrowed trust"—"oh yeah, this seems to work for others"—or "verified trust" to continue to practice, when we verify, "yeah, I seem calmer or kinder, not as reactive, something is happening here." So, borrowed trust and verified trust are needed to start and to continue.

Then we talked about the trust or confidence in the Triple Jewels, in this classical language, which essentially is trusting that I can wake up. "It's possible for me, yes, I can wake up, I can be kinder, I can have more freedom, a little more freedom. It's possible for me." So that sense of trust keeps us going. Trust in the teachings, that these practices are verified, they worked for so many people. Trust in that. Trust in the community, that I'm not doing this alone. The support of both practitioners, others externally and historically.

Then we talked about what supports Saddhā, what supports confidence and trust. And actually practicing is the strongest support for Saddhā. When we practice, both in minute ways and moment-to-moment ways, we see that, "oh yeah, this is shifting, changing. I feel calmer, more peaceful than 30 minutes ago." And also in the longer term, when we really bring active reflection on how we're shifting and changing, that reflection is very important. Also, ethical conduct supports our trust. The lack of ethical conduct erodes our trust in ourselves and in the practice; we kind of waver and fall off the track.

Then yesterday, the fourth day, we talked about the role of Saddhā in overcoming doubt, which is one of the five hindrances. Doubt shows up in so many different ways: doubt in ourselves ("I can't do this"), doubt in the practice, doubt in the community, etc. But doubt can also show up in more subtle ways. I invited you to really consider that when in our practice we kind of waver and we're here and there and everywhere, we're not really trusting that here, in this sweet moment of here and now, is the most nourishing place to be. Or when we fall off the path, and "oh yeah, I'll sit, I'll practice, oh yeah, I'll listen to a Dharma talk," and a month goes by, a couple of months. That's a kind of a lack of trust that this really works. So, that's a quick review.

Today I want to talk about what the fruits of Saddhā are. In the guided meditation, I asked you to bring a drop of gratitude, appreciation for yourself, for this practice, for the community. Just a sense of appreciation, gratitude, "yay, this is good." Just tasting, appreciating the goodness. And that appreciation and gratitude can support a sense of Saddhā, a sense of trust and confidence. It feeds into it. It's another way it supports Saddhā.

But what I really want to focus on is the fruits of Saddhā. The ultimate fruit of confidence is freedom, liberation, Nibbāna². That's what the suttas talk about. I'll unpack this in a moment, but maybe a sweet story is from Ānanda, who was the cousin of the Buddha. Ānanda was his attendant; he attended to the Buddha, loved the Buddha, and heard most, if not all, of the teachings because he was always with the Buddha. He fully trusted and had confidence in the teachings. There are many sweet passages about him, this human being who's dedicated to service and really trusts in these teachings, in the Buddha, and the Sangha.

When the Buddha died, Ānanda still hadn't become fully awakened, so it was a sore point for him that so many people had become awakened and he hadn't. And yet, he had full trust in the teachings. It is said that right before the first council of Buddhist elders came together, Ānanda became awakened through his trust, through his Saddhā for the practice, for the Buddha, and also in the capacity of himself to wake up. It's a sweet story I wanted to share with you.

In the teachings, in the Upanisa Sutta³, there's a beautiful sequence that the Buddha lays out that you might have heard about before: this leads to that, this leads to that. In this particular outline, Saddhā (confidence) leads to gladness or delight, and then there are other things that it leads to. Pausing here, in the guided meditation, I invited you to reflect on this sense of confidence. "This feels right, this practice feels right, being here right now feels right." And how recognizing that, connecting to that, brings a sense of gladness. As I was leading you, I was practicing myself, and there was this sense of brightness in my heart and in my body. Yeah, there's this gladness, this feels good, this feels yummy. It might show up in different ways, but there's this gladness, this joy that comes up from recognizing our sense of trust, connection, and confidence. It's not just an emotional high, but a deep sense of contentment and well-being that comes from knowing that one is on the right path.

Just to share the rest of this sequence with you, Saddhā leads to Joy, which leads to Rapture, Tranquility, Concentration, Wisdom, and finally Liberation. Saddhā is really the foundation of all these cascading steps that just happen on their own. It's not like we make it happen. When you have full trust, the rest unfolds on their own.⁴

I also want to briefly talk about how trust is needed to overcome adversity, to overcome challenges in our lives. Trust in the practice. I know that for me, there's been trust in the insights that I had through this practice that have supported me through difficulties and challenges. It's not like challenges in life go away. One of them is the full trust in impermanence. It is impermanent. And that's the trust in the Dharma, right? In the way things are, in the teachings. You might have heard this saying, "This too shall pass." There's a sense of, "yeah, it's going to pass." No matter how challenging it seems right now, maybe their emotions are difficult, it's arising, it's going to pass away. It's okay, just hang in there.

Other insights that have supported me... there's this confidence that it's not personal. Especially when there are interactive challenges with other people, it's not personal. And that's the insight into Anattā⁵, impersonality. They're doing the best they can, I'm doing the best I can. We've maybe bumped against ourselves because of the causes and conditions. And seeing that, ah, that gives my heart ease, release, because I have confidence in that. I have trust in that.

So, I want to invite you to reflect on the aspects of your confidence that you have in the teachings, in the insights that you've had that support you when challenging situations have come up and continue to come up. And also to have trust that the practice leads to Nibbāna, to freedom, to all the steps that I named: to delight—and you can feel the delight in the practice, "yes, I'm on the right path for me." There's a sense of joy and delight in that, which invites the heart to settle into peace, tranquility, to have more concentration, stillness, and wisdom grows from the combination of those, and finally, Nibbāna, liberation.

It's been a delight to share these teachings with you. There's so much more to share about confidence, about trust, about Saddhā. It's part of many lists; you probably know it's part of the five faculties. It was fun to unpack just a little more.

Thank you so much for your practice, for your trust in the practice. May your trust grow, may your freedom, may your kindness grow for the sake of yourself and all beings everywhere. May all beings be happy, may all beings be free, including ourselves. Thanks, everyone. Take good care, be well, till next time.