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Guided Meditation: Trusting the Breath

Good morning. Welcome to the first day of fall, the equinox. As we think of the equinox, or not, get in touch with the balance that we feel just being in this moment where we don't need to be anywhere else for this period. We've decided, each of us, to be here just now. So be here. Be here at this fulcrum of just being, of not having to do anything else. Settle in. Become the embodied self. Settle into this body. Relax.

Take a deep breath and let it out. Take another breath. Notice that null spot between the breath in and the breath out—that gentle place of change that happens with each breath. Realize that every moment is like this. Let your head move around and settle on this place. Let your shoulders fall, your arms come to rest, your hands. Feel your body settling in with each breath in and out. The muscles of the legs settling. Just this. The feet on the surface resting. Toes resting.

Bring your attention back to the breath. The reliable, trustable breath. You don't have to think about the breath; you just watch it. You're just aware of it coming in and out reliably, trustable. The air comes in and nourishes our bodies. We can be friendly toward our breath. Welcome it. And even the outbreath, taking away the unneeded, like this moment. Taking in the freshness of the moment. Letting go of the unneeded.

The breath is always here, just not always the same. Sometimes it's deep, sometimes it's very shallow. How is your breath this morning, this evening? Do you notice the movement of air? Aware of the breath. Are you aware of the attitude you have toward the breath? Just allowing it to be what it is, or do you want to breathe a certain way? Is there tension in your breathing, or do you just trust the breath to be there and just be with it?

So soft and gentle, this breath. We can let go of the breath having to be a certain way. We can rely on it, always there. Air in and out. Even when the mind wanders, the breath remains. Always a place to return to. A return that says, I am here.

Aware of my breathing, I step away from thinking, thinking, thinking, and return to the stillness of just breathing. I can let the moment pass with the passing breath, knowing the next one is arising right behind it. No need to hold. Let this moment go. Oh, this one is here. With each breath, feel the arrival, the presence, and the departure. Never the same. Always here. The ease of just being with the breath. No expectations, no judgments, just breathing. Simple. Trusting the breath.

When something else arises, it catches my awareness. I can be aware of that too. The sound, my hands in my lap, just feeling, knowing I can return to the breath. When whatever is drawing my awareness fades, as it does, I can return to the breath. The breath keeps my mindfulness in my awareness. Whatever else I'm aware of, the breath is here. Can return to the breath. The in-and-out motion of the air, and rest here. The breath, always here. Not the same. Coming and going, but always here.

Dharmette: Wisdom and Views (2): Faith and confidence

Hello again. Here we are on Tuesday, on the equinox where the light shuttles between here and not here. It never totally goes away. Just as each day the light fades and comes back. What do you believe about all the things in your life? What do you have faith in?

In our discussion of views, we've talked about how those views are formed through what we believe, what my people believe. Our religion, our class, our ethnicity, our community, our culture form the ideas that we have. The beliefs we have about what's true, how one should behave, what our values should be. We have some beliefs that are based on scripture, doctrine. Some beliefs are very strongly held, some loosely held.

Today I want to talk about faith. Often when we talk about faith, we think about believing in something that we can't understand. But we also have faith in what we do understand. And in fact, that faith, the faith based on understanding, feels quite reliable to me. It relies on true understanding. It is not acquired faith, but realized faith.

Sharon Salzberg^[1], who wrote a wonderful book on faith, calls it an inner quality that unfolds as we learn to trust our deepest experience. Faith has to do with trust. What do you trust? The Buddha said, "Faith is the beginning of all good things." It's quite a statement. Faith can be rigid or unbending. Or it can be a dynamic, resilient capacity to meet the arising and passing away of all things in our life, all of our experiences, with grace and equanimity.

That appeals to me, that kind of faith. The faith that makes me feel like it's not imposed on me, but something that comes out of my inner being. It's confidence. It's faith that really allows us to get up each morning and face uncertainty. It's an uncertain day. We may think we know what's going to happen today. We have our schedules. We have the people in our lives. "This is going to happen, and this is going to happen," but it never happens—not exactly the way we think it is. Or to recover from the blows of the day, the unexpected that happens. "Oh my god, how did that happen?" It's faith that allows us to try again, to love again when we've been hurt, to find the middle way. That is the ease of not expecting life to always go our way. The ease with: this is pleasant, this is unpleasant, but I'm still here.

Faith forms the core of our values and it is the source of our capacity to flourish. Our capacity to flourish relies on faith. Faith is one of the five spiritual faculties^[2], in one of the many Buddhist lists. [Laughter] So it is the source of confidence. It's the thing that keeps us coming back to practice and makes this path a journey, and not a set of goalposts, so that we really occupy our lives.

If we truly understand the faith that is the view that we look out from, just like the development of wisdom, it has three phases. First, there's the learning phase which we take in. So I might say all things are impermanent^[3], and you say, "Okay, yeah, I've read that people have talked about that. Okay, I can see, yeah, things are impermanent. I've watched trees rot. I know things are impermanent, but I really like the upright trees, and we know what we like and what we don't like."

Then we enter the practice component where we apply the theoretical concepts. "Okay, so impermanence, things are always changing. Well, I'm going to watch for that. I'm going to see how that feels. I'm going to notice how that impacts me. I'm going to notice when this belief, this understanding about impermanence allows me to notice when suffering arises from loss or a change that I don't like." When I notice it's my reaction to that change that's causing suffering, "Yeah, okay, that feels right." Or I notice that that change didn't feel bad, and in fact, I welcomed that change. I can change. "Oh, that feels good." That's the learning phase.

But the really important one is the realization phase. There's a Pali word for it, of course: aveccappasāda^[4], experiential confidence. Because of my experience, I have confidence that this belief is true. I have faith in this because of my own experience, not because someone told me. So that we can arrive at this moment with a clear mind, a peaceful knowing: "I'm okay with impermanence. I'm actually okay with it." Which is lucky since my belief is: it's life.

The impermanence of life I can settle with because I have experience with it. I have experience with the fact that things are arising as well as passing away. And if I put my awareness on arising, my attitude about impermanence changing, changes.

So how do we do that? How do we realize the ideas that we're testing? What do we do? It's a matter of where we place our awareness. Where am I looking? The important thing about view is it's a coloring. It's the lenses we look through to see our experience and evaluate our experience. And what helps is to be relaxed when we're looking at that. How do we do that?

One of the really useful things is to develop generosity, a soft heart, an open heart. Establishing good-heartedness and generosity creates a kind of safety for you. It allows you to pay attention to your intentions and not be reactionary. It gives you the sense of ah. From this place, this place of opening feels softer, and I'm able to pay attention to my intentions because I don't have to worry so much about my safety. We can find out what the presence or absence of kindness brings. How does it reflect?

When I was in high school, I was a cashier at something like a Walmart. And one day I decided to just... it was pretty boring being a cashier. And so I decided to smile at everybody that came through the line and see what happens. And it was amazing. Some people reacted very suspiciously. Some people just felt like they'd been seen for the first time just because I smiled. And it taught me about how what I put out in the world is reflected. It's not always reflected the way I want it, but it's always reflected. People react.

So when I began the path, I decided that I needed to develop openheartedness. And as I went on, I realized that required me to be open. And eventually I came to the point where I said, "May I just be?" As the vulnerability became more familiar and more safe, as my faith in being present evolved, I no longer had to say, "May I be openhearted?" I began to just be present, really present.

Another thing that we have to be concerned about is a development of morality. What are the energies and impulses that come? Notice not everything that comes into my mind is beautiful. Some of it is quite nasty. But I can drop the drama around that. I can say, "Okay, that was okay. I don't like the way that feels. I'm going to let that go." I can watch those thoughts come and go. I don't have to grab on to them, explain them, justify them, or blame somebody for them.

And so I develop confidence that every thought that enters my brain is not me. I can get over the fear of being confused and depressed. I can see things are coming and going. I begin to really understand impermanence in a different way. I can look at what is more beneficial: the glee of revenge, or the peace I feel with mastering my own impulses? So that all of the imprecations about how I should behave become my own inclinations instead of what I'm being told to do.

I can look at craving. I can look at renunciation. I can see the mind comparing myself to others, having the craving related to, "Well, that person is better dressed than me. They look better than me. They have more than I do. They have more perceived freedom than I do." And I notice covetousness, and vanity, and selfing. How do I measure up? I notice boredom, an addiction to energy. What kind of energy? Or I begin to appreciate still energy. It happens because we're looking.

When I practice renunciation, I can look at: "Do I really need that? How many sweaters do I need? How many tools? Is this a need or do I actually need something else? Am I really needing to be seen?" Oh, that's interesting. Where is that coming from? What's that about? How does giving feel? Receiving? As we look at these carefully, we begin to develop confidence in our own ability to discern, in our own wisdom. We make a distinction between faith and beliefs, which relies on testing in our own experience.

Sharon Salzberg talks about three kinds of faith. The bright faith where respected sources say you really ought to think about this. Verifiable faith where it's tested by us and it resonates with our own intentions. But finally, it's abiding faith. The faith in ourselves that is brought through this process of looking and seeing. Faith that this is enough, that I am enough. It takes seeing and practice. A lot of practice.

In referring to abiding faith, Sharon Salzberg said, "The offering of one's heart happens in stages with shadings of hesitation and bursts of freedom. Faith evolves from the first intoxicating blush of bright faith to a faith that is verified through our doubting, questioning, and sincere effort to see the truth for ourselves. Bright faith steeps us in a sense of possibility. Verified faith confirms our ability to make that possibility real. Then as we come to deeply know the underlying truths of who we are and what our lives are about, abiding faith or unwavering faith, as it is traditionally called, arises."

I'm going to close with a poem:

My nomadic heart. That home doesn't feel like one place anymore. It's something I carry with me. Quiet and careful. I'm used to living between things, between two sides of my family, between how I see myself and how others see me. Then the fire came and turned my house into a memory. Just like that, I was between places, too. Now I live by the ocean. The water never stays still. It keeps moving like it understands what it means to change. At school, people talk about the beach like it's always been theirs. I listen, learning how to fit into a new normal. Sometimes I miss who I was before. Before I learned how fast everything can disappear. The smell of smoke still follows me. Fear does too. But the ocean always comes back strong and steady. And I think maybe I can learn to come back, too. I'm made of fire and water, of loss and strength, of more than one story. And I am still here.

This was written by Audrey Rose Alexander, grade seven, winner of the 2026 Coastal Art and Poetry Contest. May we all have the wisdom of this grade seven person, Audrey Rose Alexander, to know that things come and go and I am still here. Thank you.