This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Med: Touching the Earth for Stability; Trust (1/5) Borrowed & Verified Trust. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Touching the Earth for Stability; Dharmette: Trust (1 of 5); Borrowed & Verified Trust - Nikki Mirghafori

The following talk was given by Nikki Mirghafori at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on August 19, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Introduction

Hello friends. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are, whatever time zone you're on. It's lovely to be with you and feel your presence on YouTube. There you are. Yeah, lovely to feel your presence. Very sweet.

I'm Nikki, and I've been away for a while, traveling in Asia. I'm delighted to be back, supporting the Sangha and offering teachings this morning. For the theme of this week, I'd like to... actually, let's just sit together. I'll introduce the theme afterwards. How's that? I think that's better. Let's just sit, and I'll introduce it through this our sit together.

Guided Meditation: Touching the Earth for Stability

Let us land. Let us land in our bodies, in this moment in time, wherever we are. Arriving and settling here.

Arriving, settling here. Feeling the connection of our feet with the earth. I am here.

Letting ourselves feel the connection of our sit bones with the cushion, the chair. Just as the Buddha touched the Earth on the night of his Enlightenment, we're touching the Earth. We're touching the Earth with our bodies. This Earth that we're on, allowing us to feel how our body is on the earth, supported by gravity. Allowing our body to relax, the muscles to relax.

Feeling supported by gravity, there is a sense of trust that here we can let go of the muscles and soften, relax into our chair, into our cushion, our seat. Gravity is here. We're not going to go flying into space like on a spaceship, even though we are traveling through the universe at astounding speeds. And yet, with gravity, there's a sense of trust that, yes, the heart can relax and connect with the breath. This breath, here.

Letting the in-breath and the out-breath flow through the body. It's not so much that we are consciously breathing or controlling the breath. And if there is this subtle control of the breath, no need. Let that go and really let the breath be free, calming, soothing, settling the mind and heart.

We show up again and again to our practice, to our meditation practice, to this moment. In this moment, being aware, lovingly, kindly aware of the breath, of the body, of this mind's states, with a sense of trust that we are planting seeds. This practice works. In some way we may not understand and be able to articulate, even. It's okay. But in some way it works. In some way.

And letting this knowing be a sense of settling, confidence, stability, as perhaps the mind wanders to thoughts. It's okay. Minds do that. Inviting awareness back to settle, not with judgment or anger, self-disappointment, "Oh, here you go again." None of that. None of that is needed, even if very subtle. Sometimes it's a subtle sense of confidence, uprightness in how you're sitting, in your posture. Sitting like a Buddha, allowing your inner Buddha to be known, to be seen.

One breath at a time.

If you find at any point that the mind has wandered into a story and is lost, remember. Feel the Earth. Feel the Earth with your feet, with your sit bones, or even perhaps touching the Earth, or your cushion, or your chair. It's a reminder: I'm here. I'm on this Earth. A sense of stability, uprightness, trust. Connecting again and again.

Remember that this reconnecting is always available. We might forget and feel lost, and it's so simple to turn our attention to it. So simple to just turn our attention to it when we remember. It's okay. We all get lost sometimes. We all do. Don't judge yourself. The more we judge, it becomes heavier and harder.

Regaining connection with the body, with the breath, with the Earth.

Here. Connecting through your feet with the Earth, your sit bones. Here. Here stabilizes the heart and mind. Just here, sweetheart. Here. Not the past, not the future. Here. Just here. Simply here.

If today, especially, the mind is busy, as Mondays can be, feel your feet on the earth. Stabilize. Connect. Here.

As we turn slowly to bring the sitting period to a close, I'm aware of how you might be feeling a little different than when you arrived. A tiny bit different, perhaps. Maybe a little more settled. Perhaps the mind is just a bit calmer, the heart, maybe very subtle. Perhaps you feel a sense of connection with your feet to the Earth, your sit bones, the breath moving through, more than you did before. They're more available, just a tiny bit more available.

Let these tiny shifts—ways that the heart and mind can settle and resources of stability become a little more available, just a tiny bit more—let it be a source of confidence and trust. Yes. Yes. Planting seeds.

May our practice of planting seeds, of growing in trust and confidence in the possibility of change—more peace, more trust, more ease—may this support us and support others with whom we interact, and those they interact with, radiating out. May our practice support all beings everywhere. May they have a sense of confidence and trust in the midst of doubt and confusion. Support them. May all beings everywhere have ease. May all beings everywhere have well-being. May all beings everywhere be free, including myself.

Thanks, everyone. Thanks for your practice.

Dharmette: Trust (1 of 5); Borrowed & Verified Trust

I had forgotten how sweet it is to be with the morning Sangha, the 7 a.m. Sangha, California time, and see all your reflections, all your names scrolling by. Very sweet. Worldwide, so many places in this world. So sweet. Oh, my heart is warmed.

Great. So the theme for today, as you might have gathered—actually, the theme for this week—is confidence, trust. The word in Pali is Saddhā.¹

Saddhā is translated as trust, confidence, and sometimes faith. It is a very significant concept, and not just a concept, but part of our practice. Buddhism is not so much conceptual. I take this practice to be really practical. When I started practicing years and years ago, I just wanted to practice. I just wanted to meditate. I became interested in the concepts and the teachings only later.

It's interesting because some people come to practicing meditation, mindfulness, or become interested in Buddhism from being not interested in faith-based religion. Somehow there's a sense of this faith that we associate with theistic religions, with having to have faith in God as an entry to the religion. Unless you have that ticket, you can't enter. They come to the practice of mindfulness and Buddhism because it doesn't require any beliefs. It doesn't require believing in anything. You don't have to believe in rebirth, you don't have to believe in the Buddha, you don't have to believe in anything. You practice, and through your practice, you see, "Oh, I'm a little kinder, I'm a little gentler with myself," or "I'm a little more peaceful." "Okay, this kind of works. Maybe I'll do more of it."

It's that kind of confidence, or faith, or trust that is part of Buddhism. It's not blind faith. It's a trust and confidence and faith that comes through verifying the results of the practice.

Also, some people come to the practice of mindfulness and Buddhism also having faith in Divinity, in God, being Christian, being Muslim, being a Jew, and also practicing and being a Buddhist. That's all good, too. That's all fine. Again, there are no requirements, no tickets that any particular faith or belief needs to be held. It's just what is helpful, what is wholesome, what is supportive for your humanity, for your wisdom and kindness, really. Wisdom and compassion are the two wings of the bird. How can we practice in a way that we can grow in those beautiful qualities for our sake and the sake of the world? The other beliefs can be there. You can be practicing, you know, chakras, energies, and be doing this practice.

The idea of trust and confidence, Saddhā, in Buddhism is an essential quality for anyone beginning to practice or continuing practice on this path. There has to be some level of trust in this practice. At the beginning of the practice, the trust is often borrowed trust. What is borrowed trust? I know for me, for example, borrowed trust was this friend of mine years and years ago. I'm still grateful for her. When I was very sick, very ill, she had done meditation retreats, she had done meditation practice, and she said, "You know, this might support you. Not necessarily physically, but it might be supportive in some ways." So I had trust in my friend. This is a good friend. I borrowed her trust to start practicing and go on my first 10-day meditation retreat because of that borrowed trust.

There's also borrowed trust when we have not just good friends but also teachers and people that we respect. We see that there's something a little different about them. "Ah, I like that. I want that, whatever that is—a sense of stability, confidence, kindness, or whatever it is." There's something that I want to cultivate. So you're borrowing from their trust. "Okay, there's something they've done that works. I'm going to borrow from that." It's a borrowed trust that something they've done works.

Then, when we practice on our own, it becomes verified trust or verified faith. We verify it. Maybe even through the sit, I invited you from the beginning to the end to notice if you are just a tiny little bit perhaps calmer or more peaceful. "Oh, yeah. Okay, this practice works." Something about sitting in silence and bringing awareness and attention to the body and the breath. Yes, there's something about this toolkit that works. Verified trust, verified faith, verified confidence. And you can have more and more verified confidence as you see how you change, how you are kinder.

This borrowed Saddhā, and then verified trust... at some point, when we keep practicing, it becomes unshakeable trust. It becomes unshakeable trust and confidence in these teachings, that they really, really work. They work for me.

There are different levels. Also, there's one more type of faith or trust I'll mention. Sometimes it's bright faith, bright trust. Maybe we come to the teachings at the very beginning and there's this bright faith, bright trust, that is very bright, and then it becomes more verified through our own practice until it becomes unshakeable. There's a sense of stability to it.

Trust and faith can be particularly helpful at the times when we feel unmoored, when we feel lost. And we all feel lost at some point in our lives, maybe at times of transition, at times of difficulty. We just don't know which way to go, what to do. There's a sense of being completely unmoored, perhaps as if we're falling and there's nothing to hang on to. And that borrowed trust, just a little bit of trust in something, it doesn't have to be huge trust. It could just be a little bit of trust. For example, if you wake up and you're feeling out of sorts and there's a lot of doubt coming in about everything, find just something little. Maybe, as I was bringing in the meditation, just bringing a sense of trust and confidence in, "Oh, my feet are touching the Earth. Okay. Trust, confidence in gravity. Okay, I can just sit here for a moment." Just tiny little bits of trust and confidence. And if it's physical, embodied, it's even better, even more supportive to support us through times of lack of trust, doubt.

There's a lot more to say, but I realize we have four more days on the topic, so I'll speak about those. One thing I wanted to say is an invitation for the rest of the day to notice this: to notice areas of trust and also notice areas of lack of trust. Where can there be trust? "Well, maybe I don't have trust in this, but can I have a little bit of confidence in this? Yes. Maybe I feel overwhelmed by this project. Ah, but can I have trust, confidence that I can take this first small little step?" Maybe just open this book and just read the first line, or just answer this one email, or again, just breathe and feel my feet on the earth.

So notice where there is trust. Because the more you notice trust and confidence, the more it grows. You notice that, yeah, it's there. It's really here. There's so much of it here.

All right. Thank you all for your practice. Thank you so much for your presence all around the world. I look forward to exploring so many different aspects of trust. This was just the introduction today, dipping our toes.

May all beings be well. May all beings be happy. Have a great day.