so this whole question of this faith, the faith to to practice, I ran across something and Roshi files that I think is really, really helpful. And it's an interview with Norman Fischer, who was a Zen teacher, connected, I believe, with the San Francisco Zen Center, and Sharon Salzberg, who's another Dharma practitioner. And I just want to read a little bit from the interview. Because the title of the article is the question of faith in a non theistic religion. And the the interview was a follow up to a book that she had written, Faith colon, trusting your own deepest experience. So Norman Fischer says, In your book, you talk about the progression from bright faith, to verified faith to unwavering faith. I want to ask you how faith arises and how one kind of faith unfolds into another. And she says many Durmand, students can recall that period of bright faith, which is at first and intoxicating rush of falling in love, falling in love with a teacher or a teaching or falling in love with a brand new sense of possibility, which we feel previously when we've previously felt confined, or unworthy. And this, this is sort of the that, that excitement of coming into practice, and realizing how much is here. I also experienced it when I, when I went into AAA, back in 1990, they actually have a term for it there. It's called the pink cloud. And it usually doesn't last, you need to move beyond that giddy joy in the beginning to something more settled and rooted. But it is wonderful. And it is a place where many people start. Other people sort of don't even know why they're doing it. Somehow, rather, they're drawn to the practice. And some people are pulled, kicking and screaming into deep realization. Just all depends on the person. But as she said, this initial bright faith is incredibly exhilarating and wondrous, the first step, she says, This state has some similarities to blind faith. And if you're a skeptical type, you could view them as the same. Blind faith has that same kind of exhilaration and feeling of having a much larger sense of possibility. But blind faith implies that you can't question you can't examine, you can't investigate. Blind faith is the end of the road. While in Buddhist teaching bright faith is just the beginning. It's necessary and compelling, but it's still just a start through questioning, putting things into practice and examining them. And bright faith moves to the next stage verified faith, which relies less on external sources and more on our own experience. Verified faith comes from our own experience of the truth. The movement from bright faith to verified faith happens through putting something into practice and not just believing what we're told. It's about not being gullible about questioning everything. What is frightening about blind faith then is if there is no maturing into verified faith. That questioning part goes right back to the Buddha, who told his listeners don't accept anything? Just because I say so. Or because your whatever teacher tells you it's true. You detest it like you would test currency like a gold coin. Bite it, scrape it, cut it, find out if it's really gold. It is true that we can bring blind faith into Zen practice. We can imagine have ideas about what reality is have some kind of intellectual understanding and make that a thing. We can we can take the attitude that well Other people are more realized that I am. Whatever they say, I'm just going to have to accept. We can we can lose sight of our own potential. Don't do that. Don't do that. Believe in yourself. Give yourself a chance. Have faith in yourself faith in the practice. Some people that the obstacle is just there to habitually addicted to their own critical mind. They see the faults and others, they see the faults in themselves. A lot of progress in Zen practice is just that softening. But back to back to normal. And Sharon says, How does verified faith move to unwavering faith? And she says, Through constant deepening, it's like something seeping into your bones. If you've seen the power of love enough, for example, then you know, it's so deeply that it's something that becomes something that you don't need to refer to externally. You know, it's so very deeply