In an earlier discussion, we talked about grasping being an issue for healing.

Our ideas of ‘must haves’ and ‘must bes’ are impeding our ability to let go and let heal.

We have seen and possibly acknowledge that having been down in the mud and in the trenches, allows us, or affords us, the opportunity to share with others. It is hitting the pause button on judgements and viewing reality for the first time as it is, not as we wish it or project it to be.

So what about the second issue? Doesn’t faith mean we should be healed of all our ills if our faith and the faith we choose to believe in is real?

Again, we are taking this argument from a stance of grasping; of looking for certainty in a sea of change. It is trying to force permanence out of impermanence and being angry when we can’t. We sometimes choose to look at faith as a forced mysticism, a magical cure-all that is only graced upon those of true and real faith.

Are we gods ‘chosen people,’ or is it more along the lines of the reductio ad absurdum argument?

Faith isn’t about walking on water or raising the dead; it is more about the courage to look at uncertainty with a willingness to allow it to exist.

It isn’t believing in miraculous happenings, but about seeing the miraculous in the mundane and rejoicing in that simple awareness.

Demanding that faith must prove miracles in order to be justified or listened to, is our projection of fear unto the speaker.

Faith in the process is seeing the dirt and the earthiness of those teaching and having a willingness to listen with openness. It is a judgment free interaction.

We walk the trenches of earth and fear, and samsara together, not looking for a way out. Not looking for nirvana to come shouting, “Hey, I’m over here! Come look at me!” But seeing that nirvana and samsara are both simply ideas we force on truth. It isn’t an escape; it is a simple presence in the moment.

Faith becomes real when we stop trying to escape.

So when I bring us back to the beginning of our interaction: when I show my earth of dealing with my own anxiety, and showing the faith of sitting with my own uncertainty, it isn’t a process of look, see, and do.

Instead, it is a mirror for both of us. It is that hand in hand walk where we both meet and uplift one another.

Thich Nhat Hanh said,

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” 

When we stop the idealized process of searching and demanding, we are left with only our fear and our uncertainty, but our hand in hand approach is where miracles happen on their own!

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Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: Leland Francisco on Flickr