Faith Archives | Amy Elizabeth, Master of Arts

My soul’s exposure to the raw, primal, spiritual energy of the most sacred of all of the Hawaiʻi Islands, Kahoʻolawe, is something I treasure as sacred. Sacred like this wiliwili tree on the island that survived the storms and the bombs. Presently, there are so many storms swirling about in the world, relationally, environmentally, socially. To be the calm in the eye of the storm is my mission in life.

A force for good

Let me back up a bit. My entire life I have felt compelled to make this world a better place. I have volunteered in beach clean-ups, tree plantings, trail maintenance, and political protests to preserve our planet. Yet I find most of my toils happen in the energetic realm of personal relationships. How can I be a force for good, be a part of the solution vs. feeding the paranoia of the human mind?

Halau ‘Ohiʻa

Joining Halau ‘Ohiʻa, a unique professional development opportunity, and engaging with our landscape through Hawaiʻi lifeways, positions me to learn more about this. This is the group of folks I went with to the remote island that was a previous target for military bombing. My classmates are primarily employed with natural resource management. My natural resource management has to do with managing our selves, our breath, and our relationships. Together, we are foundational to the well-being of the landscape. Together, we learn skills we can apply to our professional and personal lives.

Kahoʻolawe, also known as Kanaloa

We engaged in proper protocol for this experience on Kahoʻolawe, also known as Kanaloa. Chanting in the transitions, we chant to ask permission to enter this sacred space as well as to leave this sacred space. We readied ourselves completely.

The uninhabited island of Kahoʻolawe: she is the place of hope in my mind. I feel blessed to go there. To repair the wrongs of humans. To give and receive the spiritual mana (power) of Kanaloa. She represents conflict between peace/war, life/death, cultural perpetuation/forced assimilation. She calls on all of us to reflect in natural great beauty.

“training for peace through destructive means”

She is ravaged by years of U.S. military bombing and “training for peace through destructive means.” She is evidence of one of the greatest travesties of government taking over and destroying, temporarily, the natural great beauty of our earth.

I want world peace. I am working on it one relationship at a time. It seems, the mark of progress is not that world looks like I would like it look, with respectable leaders and genuine aloha radiating in all directions, rather, it boils down to my relationship with myself. I have grown patience and calm. In the midst of the storm.

The calm in the eye of the storm

Is it futile to believe that if we all did this inner work we wouldn’t have such a devastating storm of moral bankruptcy on our hands?

Hungry ghost realm

We all want protection and safety. Let it be based on love and caring and mutual respect for the inherent worth and dignity of all human beings. I don’t want war, fighting, missiles. I don’t want to feed the insatiable hunger of the hungry ghost. Imagine a beast with a pencil-thin neck and bloated belly that never gets enough of whatever it thinks it is lacking, this is the hungry ghost. Therefore, because it thinks it is lacking, its hunger is never-ending, the root is fear.

Replace fear with faith

Let us replace the fear with faith and break the change of habitual hydraulics of our paranoid mind. May it be so.

Developing a Buddha Brain one simple practice at a time. Without faith in the world and in yourself, life feels shaky and scary. Rick Hanson, PhD, neuropsychologist, tells us why faith is important.

Try a little experiment: in your mind or out loud, complete this sentence a few times: “I have faith in __________.” Then complete another sentence a few time: “I have no faith in _________.” What do faith–and no faith–feel like?

In your experience of faith, there’s probably a sense of trusting in something — which makes sense since the word comes from the Latin root, “to trust.” (“Faith” can also mean a religion, but my meaning here is more general.) Faith feels good. To have confidence is to have faith; “con+fide” means “with+faith.”

Faith comes from direct experience, reason, trusted sources, and sometimes from something that just feels deeply right and that’s all you can say about it. You could have faith in both biological evolution and heaven. Sometimes faith seems obvious, like expecting water to yield each time you prepare to dive in; other times, faith is more of a conscious choice–an act of faith–such as choosing to believe that your child will be all right as he or she leaves home for college.

What do you have faith in–out there in the world or inside yourself?

For example, I have faith in the sun coming up tomorrow, my partner while rock climbing, science or scholarship, the kindness of strangers, the deliciousness of peaches, the love of my wife, God, and the desire of most people to live in peace. And faith in my determination, coffee-making skills, and generally good intentions.

In your brain, faith (broadly defined to include assumptions and expectations) is an efficient way to conserve neural resources by not figuring out things each time from scratch. The visceral sense of conviction in faith integrates prefrontal logic, limbic emotion, and brainstem arousal.

Without faith in the world and in yourself, life feels shaky and scary.

Faith grounds you in what’s reliable and supportive; it’s the antidote to doubt and fear. It strengthens you and supports you in weathering hard times. It helps you stay on your chosen paths, with confidence they will lead to good places. Faith fuels the hope and optimism that encourage the actions that lead to the results that confirm your faith, in a lovely positive cycle. Faith lifts your eyes to the far horizons, toward what’s sacred, even Divine.

This is chapter 16, Have Faith, in Rick Hanson’s gem of a book entitled, Just One Thing, developing a buddha brain one simple practice at a time

Visit him https://www.rickhanson.net/