So for the talk today, the general topic, maybe the title can be service, faith as service. And in and now the idea of service is to offer care. And but to offer care. And then when we combine the idea of faith is maybe it's associated a little bit with devotion a little bit with trust, a little bit with generosity, that faith is, can also involve not only what we receive, we have what we trust and kind of just allow for, it's also something deeper, and that it's also a wellspring of what we offer. That it's an action, of expression of our love, and expression of our faith and expression of where we place our hearts. What, what inspires us in some deep way. And, and so faith is not the only recipients in having faith, we're actually givers. And to really have faith, I think, it really helps to also to, if there is a feeling or recognition inside, that there's a desire for action to do something. And many times it's its desire to serve. Whatever the source is for the faith, to support it, to help it out to benefit it. But it could be a faith and this kind of the service aspect of faith doesn't have to be to some particular the source of the faith and your religion, for example, or your community, religious community or practice community. But it could be faith can elicit this desire to out of love or care, compassion, out of a fullness of heart, to serve our people anywhere in the world, maybe Haiti, maybe other places, maybe your neighbors may be more fully in your own family. And this idea of service, to serve is a beautiful thing of the heart. It's theirs. It's kind of an A wonderful, rich, multifaceted quality of generosity, of love of care. And there's something about a caring, that's really part of freedom, non clinging, which I talked about yesterday, as we don't cling to anything, there's much more room in the heart and the mind, to be responsive to the world around us responsive to the suffering and the joys of the world. And to respond in a way that feels like we're expanding the faith or expanding our freedom, expanding our love out into the world in some wonderful way. And so, to serve out of faith, is not to want anything in return. But rather, it's just a clear clean expression of generosity, of serving something that's valuable to serve. And, and this language that I use in the meditation, that the circles have giving and receiving, and to have those circles be to flow and move and, and turn freely not to be clogged up or stopped or not have the brakes on or you know, four wheel. If you take the bottom half of the wheel away, it's not a wheel anymore, it won't roll, you need the whole wheel to roll. And so the wheel of giving and receiving, giving and receiving, that arises not out of assured not out of obligation, but from being settled in some deep way in our hearts in a way that we have something here we trust. Here we have a devotion to here we have confidence in our yesterday I talked about the confidence and non clinging, that is your rest and that confidence is not a passive thing. But it is kind of like the soil, the nutriments for then responding to the world response, which again, I want to emphasize is not an obligation. But this feels like the most natural thing in the world that just have what flows out of it. The liberated heart, the heart and the heart that's filled with this kind of Dharma faith. It's the heart that goes for refuge is not a pass of heart. It's one that has an orientation and a motivation and inspiration to act in a new way to live a new way. And, and one of the ways of understanding this is to live with care. To offer care
to care for, you know, it's in some ways it's natural to care for I think I would say it a little differently. One of the wonderful things to do is to care for the place in which you're practicing, as part of the practices to care for their place, your practice, part of the practice is to care for the world in which your practice on that worlds spreads out beyond any walls beyond any boundaries, and open ended. And so to do that, with it as a sense of the kind of service that is almost like a devotional service, or an expression of love, or goodwill. So I've talked about all these different qualities, characteristics of faith this week, then there's many more faith is a rich, rich capacity thing. And, and as I said, in meditation, I think that I actually prefer not to have not to believe that I know exactly what faith is. I can talk about different aspects of it. But it feels much more in harmony with faith, with this deep trust, not to know fully what it is, and enough knowing, too, open myself to, I could trust it or appreciate something larger and bigger than anything I could know anything that I could have control over or possess or, or until there's a kind of a wonderful feeling of, of willingness to be open, that doesn't have to know but is ready to serve, ready to care, ready to participate in this world as if I belong here. We belong here, where belonging is this wonderful circle of giving and receiving care. And maybe in the end, this practice that we do is a practice that transforms us into free beings. They're deeply connected to our communities and our world. In this mutuality of giving and receiving care, this service has an element of faith. So thank you
