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Trust is Essential

So, for reflections today, I'd like to share some thoughts about trust. As I was alluding to trust in the meditation, dropping it in here and there, the sense of trust can be so supportive for our practice, for our life, for our humanity, for the way we show up in the world, supporting ourselves and others. The word for trust in Pali is often transliterated or written as saddhā^[1].

It's a beautiful word that literally means "to place our heart upon." Saddhā is not an intellectual endeavor; it is placing our heart upon something, giving our heart to something, trusting in it. Saddhā is also often translated not just as trust, but also as faith, confidence, or even inspiration.

For some, they arrive in the practice of meditation, mindfulness, and Buddhism turning away from faith. Perhaps from this idea of blind faith that's requested in some theistic religions, where you have to believe in something before you can be part of the practices. So they come to this practice from an intellectual place, perhaps, and that's okay. Or from a place of suffering, but not wanting to place faith in something; it just seems too much. Some people, in fact, turn away, thinking, "Faith again? In Buddhism? Wait, I thought I got away from that." You might resonate with that, or not.

For some people, trust in the divine is not in opposition to this practice. There are many practitioners of other theistic religions and faiths who also practice mindfulness and Buddhism. There is no opposition between having trust in the divine and also having trust in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, which I'll talk about in a bit.

Yet some others, after practicing in this tradition, actually open up more to divinity and to the sacred through this practice. Many of us might feel into, touch into, or experience something that's quite profound and unfathomable in our own first-person experience. It might feel like opening up to a dimension of the sacred or divinity without putting it in a box.

Whatever you resonate with or not, maybe have curiosity about your resonance with the terms as I've introduced them so far: trust, faith, confidence, inspiration—different nuances of this word saddhā.

What is surely true and prominent in this path that we practice together is, as the Buddha has said: come and see for yourself. You don't have to sign up for anything at the beginning; you just come and see for yourself. If it works for you, great. And if it doesn't, great. It's "come and see for yourself." Excuse me... the tickle in the throat is here. Let's try that again. I think it's going to come and go. I trust it will be okay. So, ehipassiko^[2], come and see for yourself.

Even with "come and see for yourself," there still needs to be some level of faith, some level of trust: "Okay, I'm going to give myself to it." Because if we come to it with the invitation of ehipassiko, but we're just apprehensive and not giving our heart to it, it may not work. We need to give our hearts to it and trust it, at least for a certain amount of time. If it's working, great. If it's not, then it's not working for you. But if we're checking our watch every five minutes—"Is it working? Do I have more ease and freedom? Am I enlightened yet?"—if there's not a sense of trust, giving yourself to this practice with humility, it probably won't work.

There needs to be that sense of trust or faith. It could be borrowed trust, or it could be bright trust—before it becomes verified trust, and then as it moves to unshakable trust. It often starts with bright trust. We see someone who is acting in the way we want to be in the world, or they have more freedom or ease. There's a sense of brightness to the trust. We feel, "Oh, I'm attracted to this. There is something that inspires me; something that's inspiring my trust."

Then there can be borrowed trust, which can be similar to bright trust in that you're borrowing trust from what you're witnessing in another person. I often work with borrowed trust in practice meetings with students, where I can see their capacity, their beauty, and their goodness. When they are hesitant and say, "Well, I don't know about this," I say, "Okay, I have full trust in you. I fully trust you with this practice, with this invitation, with what you're about to undertake. Is it okay if I hold it for you, and for you to have borrowed trust? To borrow the trust that I have in you for now, until you see for yourself and it becomes verified trust?" Because after a while, it feels like, "Wait, this thing works. Oh, there it is." It's not bright or borrowed anymore; it becomes verified.

You look back in your life and see—again, practice is like the stock market; don't check on it every single day or hour, but look at it long term. If you've been practicing for weeks or months, look at it over months or even years. Consider some areas of your life where you used to be very upset, anxious, or challenged, that are not challenging anymore. You see, "Oh, verified trust. Something is shifting. I have more peace, more ease, more love, more gratitude," whatever it is you're trusting.

After a while of doing this practice, it becomes unshakable trust. You know it works. Of course it does. Yes, you might have a day or a week or a month when you have monkey mind, but you have unshakable trust that you're planting seeds. It's "working" in ways that you may not be able to fathom, and opening you up even if you're judging that it seems like it's not working. The trust becomes unshakable: "Yes, of course, I've given my heart to this."

So there's a sense of faith that gets developed after a while, and a sense of confidence. I like the word confidence. Sometimes it might feel a little intellectual, and yet it can also feel embodied—a sense of confidence in the heart center. "Yes, trust, confidence."

It could be that these different translations, such as inspiration, refer to the earlier bright trust. Maybe after a while, when it becomes unshakable trust, faith is a translation that works better. But maybe at first, inspiration works better as a translation of saddhā. Maybe later, borrowed trust, verified trust, confidence, and then unshakable trust or faith. Just putting the cards on the table.

The Buddha's Trust

Trust is needed. In fact, if it wasn't for trust, we wouldn't be here right now practicing together. After the Buddha's awakening, the story goes that he didn't want to teach. He thought, "I can't teach this. People won't get it. Why do I bother?" He was asked by his former companions, "Please, Bhante^[3], dear sir, there will be people with little dust in their eyes who will understand the Dharma." He trusted that there are people with little dust in their eyes. Yes, there might be other people who won't understand, won't listen, won't get it, but that's okay. Trusting that there will be people with little dust in their eyes who would understand. That's such a beautiful metaphor. It doesn't say people with no dust in their eyes. We all have a little dust; we still don't see clearly, we have confusion and delusion, hatred, ill will, and attachment. A little dust, but still enough to see the Dharma, to see the beauty of these teachings and this path that can open us up in profound ways. Thanks to his trust to share what he discovered, here we are.

Going even further, had he had no trust in his own ability, in his own being, the inner trust and faith to sit under the Bodhi tree and say, "I'm not going to get up until I'm awakened"—all that sense of confidence really went into his own discovery. And to think that he wasn't a god figure; he was a human being just like us.

Trust in the Triple Jewel

With the idea of trust, or saddhā, in this tradition it is often invited for the Triple Jewel^[4]. I want to say a little bit about that, as I referred to trust in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha earlier. What does that mean? Let's decode it a little bit, because we can take it at face value: "Oh yeah, trust in the Buddha, this human being that existed; trust in the Dharma, the writings and the teachings; or trust in the Sangha, the community of practitioners now and in the past." Yes, that's absolutely one way to interpret it. And yet, there is a much deeper dimension for our hearts to open to what this idea of trust in the Triple Jewel means, for us to have a more meaningful, personal relationship to it.

First and foremost, trust in the Buddha: in addition to the historical figure, the Buddha within. Trust that this being right here is not broken, damaged goods, or bad. Trust that you are inherently good, lovable, and completely loved, beyond all the ways that you judge yourself. Trusting in the Buddha nature, in your capacity for awakening: "Yes, you too. I too." It's here. It's a trust that's above and beyond the personhood, beyond what you can control. Yes, there are practices we can do, and we do our best, we do our part. We hold up our end of the bargain, trusting that the other part, something that's above and beyond what we can fathom or control, has this goodness. Fully trusting, giving our heart to the goodness and the beauty that shines. Trust it's here, even if at times we can't see it or it gets lost.

The second of the Triple Jewel is the Dharma. Trusting in the Dharma—yes, the amazing teachings, the Pali Canon^[5], all of this that's passed down, is pretty awesome. And yet, another way of relating to it is trusting the lawful unfolding of the universe. It's unfolding according to laws and order that I don't understand, but I trust its goodness.

The importance of trusting the lawful nature of the universe is something we see both in this practice and in many different traditions. Albert Einstein, one of my heroes, put it quite beautifully: one of the most important decisions that we make in our lives is to decide whether it is a friendly universe. Whether there is goodness in the universe and we trust it, or whether it's random, or unfriendly. He said if we decide the universe is unfriendly, we use all our might, our science, and our energy to defend ourselves. There's a sense of distrust, and we don't revere or appreciate nature. If we think the universe is just random, he suggested that we end up feeling lost and nihilistic: "What's the point?" Yet the third choice is to have a sense of trust in the goodness of the natural laws. Then we use our science, our minds, and our hearts to support it and to love it.

It turns out there are psychological studies that point to how both personal and societal happiness is linked to the level of trust. Who would know? Societies and individuals who are more trusting experience more happiness and well-being. There's also a link between kindness, trust, and happiness. A study suggests that random acts of kindness work as a link to increase trust and happiness. Try this out. Don't take my word for it; see what happens if, in a relationship or community, you start doing random acts of kindness. Notice over time how that might shift the happiness and trust in that relationship. There are also studies about the connection between trust and oxytocin, and how it modulates fear and depression. It's absolutely fascinating: giving our hearts to trust.

The third of the Triple Jewel is the Sangha. Having a sense of trust in basic human goodness, in humanity, and the people around you. Even if people are expressing anger, frustration, and ill will, there is still common humanity. There is Buddha nature in every single being. In fact, every time you get into a car, you're trusting in the basic goodness of humanity. There is this social trust: "Okay, I'm going to stay in my lane, you're going to stay in your lane. Things could happen, but you're going to do your best, and I'm going to do my best." If there was no trust in the world, nothing would ever get done. There's so much more I could say about that, but time is short.

Trust as an Antidote to Fear

As a practice, trust can serve us in so many ways, and I invite you to explore and discover it for yourself. One way it can show up is as an antidote to anxiety, fear, and worry.

The practice could be trusting that it's okay. If anxiety arises in this moment, having a sense of spaciousness: "Can I trust that it's okay? This anxiety can be here, but it can be held in a wider perspective." Trusting that it's okay no matter what. Trusting in the okayness.

Similarly with fear, which is often future-oriented. I had this experience recently: a thought came up, and I felt a tightness in my chest. "Ouch. What if this thing happens?" Then what came up for me was, "I trust that it'll be okay no matter what. Even if this awful thing happens, it'll still be okay. There's a basic okayness." And it just released the sense of fear and worry.

In fact, one of the translations of Nibbana^[6] (or Nirvana) is fearlessness. This is the path of fearlessness, where there is no fear no matter what happens or whether we deem it to be good or bad. If we step out of it into a bigger sense of spaciousness, having unshakable trust that gets developed as we practice, there is a sense of fearlessness. There's nothing to fear, because nothing can truly happen to you. That may not make sense, but there's nothing that truly can happen to you. You're really okay. It's all okay. I'll drop that in as a Zen koan^[7], which I fully believe, and I'll let that be without trying to explain it. It's not one of those things to be explained; it's to be experienced.

One last thing. You've heard "fake it 'til you make it," but I like to say "fake it 'til you become it." See what happens if you bring in trust. If you practice it until you become it, you really become it.

What do you lay your heart upon? What do you trust?

I thank you all for showing up in the best way you've been able to—showing up for ourselves, for those we love, and for all beings everywhere. May all beings be happy. May all beings have fearlessness. May all beings be free. Thank you so much.