From Dukkha to Shraddha - or Unsatisfactoriness to Faith

I’m currently helping on the Friday morning follow-on course and during the last 5 weeks we’ve been looking at the Wheel of Life and Spiral Path.  This week looking particularly at how we can move from our repetitive trips around the wheel and into a more creative way of being and towards liberation by way of the spiral path.  The first stage from the wheel onto the path is moving from Dukkha or unsatisfactoriness/suffering to Shraddha or faith.  What is it that helps us from one to the other?  At the moment it feels as though there is a lot of dukkha in the world and in our own personal experiences, things just aren’t how I want them to be.  It can be an easy place to hang around in and somewhere I find myself to one degree or another much of the time.  If only this was that or that was this…  So what keeps me coming back to my Buddhist practice?  Well that’s shraddha or faith.  Faith that that there is something more, faith that there is a spiritual path and I can follow it and change.

The first discovery of this faith was after a weekend retreat in Nottingham lead by Saddhanandi in 2015 which for the life of me I can’t remember what it was about but I remember leaving the centre thinking wow I’ve found something here.  If fact I think I said to Satyamegha as we left ‘Who needs alcohol when you can feel like this?’  There was some shift within me that has never gone back.  Following that I’ve had other similar experiences on retreats or just within my own practice.  Things that have helped me find my vision again.  

At this time in particular I’ve found dukkha an easy place to be, my repeated story of what use am I?  I’ve been furloughed from work since Easter so my sense of purpose is a little off.  But it can also show up in comparing, such as everyone I’m sure has a better meditation practice, reads more, studies harder, understands that study better blah blah blah…  Not helpful or metta-ful but still present.  So what has helped me this time?  We’ve just finished studying the Vimalakirti Nidesha – a beautiful and slightly cosmic story crammed full of pertinent Dharma.  One of the most helpful pieces of Dharma I’ve taken away is the Samgrahavastus or Means of Unification.  There are four of them Dana (generosity) Beneficial Activity, Loving Speech and Exemplification.  By looking at my current experience through the lens of these four ways of being, I’ve found that I’m not quite as useless or rubbish at everything as my mental states would have me believe at times.  I have felt more connected to those around me as I’ve seen the self-imposed barriers don’t really exist and the real physical distancing barriers present at the moment can be removed by working with these four principles.  They really are means of unification which at this time feel more important than ever.

Vanessa Grundy