When we despair, our most visceral torment is that we feel separate from everyone and everything around us, alone and on our own.

reality. When we feel torn away from connection and purpose, we can end up so caught in our state of mind that the whole world seems to exist in reference to our pain.

In Pali, faith is a verb, an action, as it is also in Latin and Hebrew. Faith is not a singular state that we either have or don’t have, but is something that we do. We “faithe.” Saddha is the willingness to take the next step, to see the unknown as an adventure, to launch a journey.

This state of love-filled delight in possibilities and eager joy at the prospect of actualizing them is known in Buddhism as bright faith. Bright faith goes beyond merely claiming that possibility for oneself to immersing oneself in it. With bright faith we feel exalted as we are lifted out of our normal sense of insignificance, thrilled as we no

strong. I once had a dream in which someone asked me, “Why do we love people?” I answered, “Because they recognize us.” I think this is true. When someone recognizes a basic goodness within us, beyond our habits and conditioning, when someone recognizes who we fundamentally are, it is the most important thing that can happen to us, and we respond

But if that inevitable sorrow is joined with faith in interconnectedness, rather than bitterness at the nature of things, we can more likely get up the next morning and once again do the best we can, knowing that in this interconnected reality, even the smallest action done with good intention is consequential.

One of the hardest parts of all the loss and dislocation was that it was surrounded by an ambient, opaque silence about what was happening. Because no one spoke openly or even acknowledged all the changes as loss, my immense grief, anger, and confusion remained held inside.

The first step on the journey of faith is to recognize that everything is moving onward to something else, inside us and outside.

It is in the nature of our existence that we can’t, by decree, or effort of will, or fervent desire, or even by all-consuming love, make the pain go away for someone.