This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Moving into the Present; Intro to Mindfulness Pt 2 (6) Five Faculties: Confidence. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Moving into the Present; Dharmette: Intro to Mindfullness Pt 2 (6) Five Faculties: Confidence - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on March 04, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Moving into the Present

Good morning from Northern California in Redwood City, and hello to those of you in other time zones. We are here for the beginning of our new series for this week. As a follow-up on the hindrances, the topic will be the five faculties.

The reason to follow up is that the five faculties line up with the five hindrances in a nice way, and are supports to do the very opposite that the hindrances do. Whereas the hindrances obscure and hinder awareness and present-moment attention, preventing us from immersing ourselves in our present-moment experience, the faculties support awareness. They promote awareness and support us in bringing forth our capacity to really be immersed in this present-moment experience that meditation is about: mindfulness.

The first of these faculties is usually translated as "faith" in English. I'll talk more about it later, as it might not be the best translation for everyone. It gives support and strength to whatever effort is needed for meditation. Some people like to call it "confidence." So it's not about believing in something, except for believing in the value of a particular kind of action. And for this morning, that action is a very unique thing that's sometimes not associated with action, which is meditation.

Maybe it's an activity that we engage in. Even if that activity means the ending and stopping of a lot of our doing—physical, verbal, and even mental doing—we're still involved in an activity of calming, of settling, of quieting, of becoming still. We're in the involved activity of seeing clearly what's here. Seeing clearly enough so that we're not in conflict with what's here; we're not struggling with it, and we're not for it either. We're not holding on and trying to make something happen. This is part of an invaluable path to bring suffering to an end. It's an invaluable path to reduce our suffering and live in a way that sets the heart free. We have confidence that this is what we're doing.

Remember that at the beginning of a sitting, so that we can lovingly, kindly, and relaxingly give ourselves over to the practice. It is a wholehearted practice, a whole-being practice.

So assume a meditation posture and close your eyes. The wholeheartedness of practice for some people can be initiated by the posture that we set ourselves in to meditate—putting ourselves into an intentional posture. Maybe it's a posture that you're familiar with, that you found for yourself long ago. But still, you're intentionally finding a posture that you think allows you to be most present, most wholeheartedly present, without any strain. So it is a bit of an intentional posture. Whether you're lying down in bed, sitting, or standing to meditate, it's still intentional. It is intentional because it supports a wholehearted engagement to be here in our experience.

Then, take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Part of taking deeper breaths is to begin to launch ourselves into the present moment. It's kind of like a rocket going into space. There's a launching engine that gets it going, maybe a booster engine which keeps it going. Once it's in space, it doesn't need much propulsion anymore. It just kind of is there in a peaceful, quiet environment, allowing it to travel along the Dharma pathways. So the deeper breaths are kind of like, "Okay, here I am, this is what I'm doing."

And then let the breathing return to normal, relaxing the body. Maybe this rocket has gotten wobbly as it takes off into space. So there are rudders, or whatever it has, to begin to smooth itself out. We smooth ourselves out by relaxing the body and quieting the thinking mind so that our travels in meditation, the unfolding, can go smoothly here and now.

Then settle into the breathing. If I'm allowed another metaphor, it is kind of like rowing in a boat. The momentum forward is with every stroke of the oar, the rhythmic circle of lifting a paddle and moving it through the water. The cycle of the breathing—each cycle of breathing—is like an oar, where you can give yourself over wholeheartedly to the onward momentum of being immersed here now, with just this present awareness of what's happening.

If you find yourself pulled away from the breathing by some other present-moment experience, be aware of that peacefully. But if it's a strong pull, see if there's something in the system, the mind, the body, or the heart that can be relaxed and softened, and then return to the breathing.

In a rowboat, you're always in the water. And if you're rowing, you're always moving through the water. We're always in the present moment. If you give yourself over to the breathing, to the mindfulness, you're always moving forward in the present moment. Entering the present more deeply, fully, over and over again. Moving on the path, the pathless path, here in the present moment.

With each in-breath, you're dipping your oars into the water of the present moment and pushing yourself forward into the present moment, through the present moment. Be so completely involved in the activity that everything else can get still and quiet. Just this.

And then as we come to the end of this sitting, center yourself again on the breathing. Then center yourself in your heart, a heart center, or wherever you center yourself to be close to your kindness, friendliness, love, compassion, and good will.

Let yourself breathe together with your good will. As you breathe, the oars are moving you forward into good will, into the ocean, the sea of love or kindness towards the people in your life. Your good will is not static; it's dynamic, orienting yourself to others. Even if you don't step towards them, your good will inclines, leans towards others. You are rowing in the ocean of good will, bringing your good will, extending your good will to others.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. And may our capacity to have good will both move us towards people and be something we move through. Like rowing through the sea, rowing forever into the world with good will and love.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Intro to Mindfullness Pt 2 (6) Five Faculties: Confidence

Hello, and welcome to this new five-part series, this time on the five faculties. Following up on the hindrances, I want to point out that last week, in talking about the hindrances, I talked also about how especially the last three hindrances interfere with our ability to practice—they inhibit action. The first two hindrances, desire and ill will, might propel the wrong kind of action. Greedy desire and hostile ill will cause us to act on those impulses, and those aren't very good.

In the five faculties, it's a little bit the same thing, but the opposite. The first two—faith and effort—involve action, activity, and engagement. The last three—mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom—support action. The Buddha was said to be a teacher of action. He was a kammavādin¹, an actionist.

Maybe Buddhism isn't often associated with action when we're in the meditation traditions of Buddhism. [Clears throat] It is not associated with action because of our meditation tradition: we sit still and we're quiet. This is partly because in the West, people have such busy, spinning minds. We are striving, pushing, or trying to do so much that a lot of the teachings say, "Don't do anything, relax, settle, just be. Don't do, just be." However, for the Buddha, I don't think he ever really said "just be." He was a teacher of action, of engaging, of being active in the world.

There are three ways we act: in body, speech, and mind. They're all activity; nothing is static. The deep immersion into the present moment, where deep stillness and peace can happen, is a kind of activity. It's a way of being active, a way of doing that brings deep peace. For people who are athletes or musicians, or in different activities that people do, some expend a tremendous amount of physical energy. But in doing that, we come into harmony. The mind becomes still, and some inner stillness and quiet takes over. We know that when we stop the activity, we feel peaceful and calm, maybe concentrated. So activity and being calm, activity and being peaceful, centered, and quiet—being still even in a certain inner way—are not opposed to each other.

The first of these five faculties is usually translated as "faith" in English. When we do that in English, many people associate it with Western religious ideas of faith—having faith in a tenet, having faith in something outside of us, or having faith in the purpose of life, meaning, what's most sacred, or some understanding.

When the Buddha used the word saddhā², it was explicitly a kind of mental state, a mental activity that had some kind of desire as part of it. That's why it's kind of parallel with the first hindrance. The first hindrance is sensual desire, or avariciousness—wanting to have things. Saddhā is also a desire, but it's considered a wholesome desire. It's a desire for us to engage in the path of practice, to become interested and motivated to work for the end of our suffering. It is a desire to start that path and to engage, recognizing, "This is what I want to do. I want to end my suffering and become free."

So it's not a faith in a doctrine, but more of a faith, belief, or confidence that there's something to do and we want to do it. We want to practice, we want to meditate, we want to live by the precepts, we want to live by the Eightfold Path. Yes, we want to meditate. There's a big "yes" that comes out of this so-called faith or confidence. That is the first of the faculties.

To call it "confidence" perhaps associates it more with being confident we can do something, take care of ourselves, or engage in activity. But what "confidence" might miss is the heartfelt feeling behind it—the affective quality of faith. Faith can be an inspiring heart quality. Somehow, the word saddhā in Buddhism is a combination of these English meanings of faith and confidence.

I think it's helpful to appreciate that the Dharma path that we're on calls on us to act. For example, meditation doesn't work unless you do it. You have to show up, maybe every day, to meditate and do it regularly. A lot of the benefits of meditation come from doing it regularly. Even if you think meditation is mostly just sitting and letting go very deeply so you can just be here without the normal tensions of daily life, it's still the activity of getting to your seat and sitting down to do it.

But even in meditation, there can be a delightful, healthy, and calming way of thinking of meditation as an action. The metaphor that I gave for the last meditation was that of rowing a boat on the ocean. You're always on the ocean when you're rowing, but with every stroke of the oars, you're moving forward in the water. You are always arriving in the ocean, always moving through it, immersing yourself into it. You're going forward into the ocean. Here, we're immersing ourselves in the present moment, but it's not a static event. There's a movement, a momentum on the path, moving forward into it more fully.

The idea is that the breathing might be the oars. The cyclic movement of breathing in and breathing out. You might figure out for yourself which is which—is the stroke the out-breath or the in-breath? Is the lifting of the oars out of the water the out-breath or the in-breath? Different people might have different associations. But it's not meant to lead you astray, looking into the future for something else. You're just looking to be really right here, in this ocean of the Dharma, the ocean of the present moment.

There's a forward movement, and that moving forward in the practice is not that you're going someplace, but you're moving forward into being more immersed here in yourself in this moment. There's a dropping away. The water that rushes back off the hull of the boat is all your thoughts, all your preoccupations. They just wash away. And so we can just be here in this moment with ourselves in a full way.

We have faith that it's valuable to do this. We have confidence that it's invaluable to be on this Dharma path and to engage in all the pieces of the path that we understand. There is the possibility of freedom from our hatred, freedom from our greed, our addictions, our resentments, and our envies. It is possible to be free of our anxiety, free from our negative self-talk. It is possible to free ourselves from these things so that the beautiful parts of ourselves—the marvelous parts of good will, compassion, kindness, and peace—can flourish. So that our ethical sensitivity can guide us to do well in this life and not to cause any harm. We can find a deep way to live a harmless life, to not cause any intentional harm. The world needs people like that.

To be inspired is to feel, "Yes, I have faith in the activity, the path, the action, the engagement." This is a path of action the Buddha gave. However, we have to be very careful that it's not action that we're straining with. It's not an action that we are tensing. It's not a competition, and it's not a race to get someplace. We have to find a way to engage in this path, in the meditation and the Eightfold Path, in a way that is nourishing. It feels good—of course you want to do it. This is a good way to do it, and that's the art. Not only is it a Buddha teaching of action in terms of you having to act, but he's also a teacher of action regarding how you act, how you engage. But there has to be faith, confidence, trust, or inspiration: "Yes, this is what I want to do."

For the Buddha, the primary purpose for saddhā was to begin and continue doing the practice. And since that's what we're here for, to practice together, may your inspiration, your confidence, your trust, and your faith in this possibility of being on a path to freedom be a wonderful fuel and a wonderful motivator. Let it not just motivate you in how you meditate or even just meditating. Maybe there's a way that this says "yes" to a way of living that lets the Dharma path of harmlessness, the Dharma path of freedom, propel you into greater awareness, greater mindfulness, greater showing up here and now for this life. For each person you encounter, for every activity you do, and every way in which you regard yourself—may all those be for the benefit of yourself and the world. May you have faith in that possibility.

Thank you. So for the next four days, the topics are the faculty of faith, the faculty of mindfulness, the faculty of samādhi³, and the faculty of wisdom. Thank you.