The following cards (#13-30) are additional spiritual principles and practices that can be essential in recovery.
Otter floating on its back
Faith for the nonreligious might seem like an unneeded principle to add to the spiritual toolbox. This viewpoint is usually held because faith gets confused with belief. Belief is a product of the mind, while faith is a product of personal experience. Beliefs are not based on facts but on preconceived ideas and opinions about truth. They are founded on what is desired and hoped for rather than evidence. Alternatively, faith unfolds as we pay attention with curiosity rather than rigid judgment. We decide to keep an open mind and see what happens. As Alan Watts explained, we don’t grab hold of anything; we just “relax and float.” Faith enables us to try once more and trust again. Though we may learn from the past, we don’t use it to over-generalize in the present. Beginning faith may start from the confidence we see in others, but it is our own investigation that will ground it. We put ideas into practice, staying open to our experience without reservation and to whatever the truth might turn out to be. Faith then becomes an open-hearted orientation to life rather than a never-changing position.
When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted and carried out, lead to welfare and to happiness’ — then you should enter and remain in them.
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