What is faith? According to Wikipedia it is “confidence or trust in a person, thing, or concept. In the context of religion, one can define faith as confidence or trust in a particular system of religious belief. Religious people often think of faith as confidence based on a perceived degree of warrant, while others who are more skeptical of religion tend to think of faith as simply belief without evidence.”

So, is faith always assigned to religion, or can one broaden the definition to any concept, or perhaps practice, habit or routine?

I’ve always been a staunch opponent to organized religion, having once been accidentally saved by the Greek Orthodox church on a strange weekend with my cousin when I was a child of about 8 or 9 (a story for another day). Then there was the time I inadvertently participated in as EST meeting with my friend and her dad in junior high school (oooh, so many stories I could tell). Even to my upbringing in the Jewish religion, the doctrines were seemingly forced down our young, impressionable throats, not about God and demonstrating to us impressionable, young children examples of faith, but rather force-fed the atrocities of the holocaust (“6 million Jews!“) for almost a decade, until we were left either traumatized by the information, or, like myself, strangely detached and numb to it all, as if it were just data in a textbook (probably still a form of coping due to trauma).

But what about those grey areas that are somewhat religion-y, and somewhat a ritual? For example, I have been dabbling in a meditation practice for over a decade. Like anything good for you, I found, with regular practice, I did actually feel better. It wasn’t as noisy in my head all the time, making lists, weighing risks, playing out what-if scenarios. But not only were the results felt mentally and emotionally: I was actually able to take the edge off my physical pain. Not stop it completely, but make it manageable. And, with this revelation of fact based evidence, I began to believe in meditation.

So now, in the past year or so, I practice meditation daily. It has definitely aided in my overall positive outlook on life. I’m less “judgy” of people, or of circumstances. I’m more compassionate. Even in the midst of this COVID-19 outbreak, I am able to look at things in a much more calm and rational way. I don’t worry as much about the big-picture stuff. I focus on my actions and how they impact myself and others.

So, is this belief in the benefits of meditation considered faith? Or is it just a positive habit I have trained myself into performing on a daily basis. If we go back to the definition above “confidence based on a perceived degree of warrant”, then, yes, I have faith in meditation. In how it improves my outlook, in how it provides the mind benefits, both mentally and physically.

But whenever the meditation teachings start taking about Buddhas and past lives and future lives, and people transforming into birds and waterfalls like the Wonder Twins, I feel myself pulling away from it. In my logical brain, I understand these parables are meant to convey greater meaning, and not meant to be actual historic events, but any time it gets less tangible, and more… “wuwu” I need to step out.

So, dialing it back into the circumstances of our new world order, I have faith that the majority of us will get through this outbreak, that this will be a footnote in our history books. And I hope we will have all used this time to spend time with loved ones in our homes; to reconnect and get the know each other again. More importantly, I hope we come to understand ourselves as kind, loving, compassionate people who took actions which may seem to have made no difference in the end, but have saved many precarious lives, had we not taken these measures.