Experiencing the power of faith doesn't mean we've annihilated fear or derailed it or denied it or overcome it through strenuous effort. It means that when we think that we've conquered fear only to be once again overcome by it, we can still go on. It means feeling our fear and still remaining in touch with our heart, so that fear does not define our world.
As we open to what is actually happening in any given moment, we become increasingly aware of our lives as one small part of a vast fabric made of an evanescent, fleeting, shimmering pattern of turnings. Letting go of the futile battle to control, we can find ourselves rewoven into the pattern of wholeness, into the immensity of life, always happening.
We can step out of the hope/fear gyration and give our capacity to love a chance to flower. This is where we can place our faith. Even as we fall, fall endlessly, with faith we are held as we open to each moment.
- Sharon Salzberg, adapted from Faith
Excerpted from The Buddha Is Still Teaching, selected and edited by Jack Kornfield
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