Program Particulars
*Times denoted refer to web version of audio

(01:30–03:40) Music:
"The Multiples of One" from Awakening, performed by Joseph Curiale

(03:34) Buddhism and Suffering
Buddhism embraces life's inherent suffering, or dukkha, the first of the Four Noble Truths. In the Speaking of Faith show "Brother Thay: A Radio Pilgrimage," listen to Thich Nhat Hanh speaks about the necessary presence of suffering in the world.

(03:51) Quoting from Salzberg's Work
Krista cites a passage from Salzberg's introduction to Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience:

I want to invite a new use of the word faith, one that is not associated with a dogmatic religious interpretation or divisiveness. I want to encourage delight in the word, to help reclaim faith as fresh, vibrant, intelligent, and liberating. This is a faith that emphasizes a foundation of love and respect for ourselves. It is a faith that uncovers our connection to others, rather than designating anyone as separate and apart.

Faith does not require a belief system, and is not necessarily connected to a deity or God, though it doesn't deny one. This faith is not a commodity we either have or don't have—it is an inner quality that unfolds as we learn to trust our deepest experience.

(05:31) Definition of Faith in Buddhism
Thought to be the language the Buddha spoke during the 5th century BCE, Pali is a dialect of Sanskrit and is the language of Theravada Buddhism. The Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism is composed of a collection of Buddhist writings, the Tipitaka, that are divided into three discrete sections.

In the Theravadan tradition, the equivalent word for "faith" is saddha, which literally means "to offer your heart, to place your heart" and connotes conviction, trust, confidence, clarity, and devotion. Saddha is commonly used as a verb; it is considered an action of connection and participation. Read more about Salzberg's view of faith within her Theravadan Buddhist tradition.

(07:40) Phases of Buddhist Teaching
The first phase of Buddhism is referred to as "bright faith." This is the kind of faith that happens when a person's heart is opened by encountering somebody or something that inspires through their qualities of love, wisdom, or kindness. This may involve a known acquaintance or a historical figure like the Buddha in which one can begin to sense possibility and a happier way to live. "Bright faith" tends to be a wonderful feeling but unreliable, which can lead to distraction.

The second phase, "verifying faith," is a deeper, more mature level of faith that is anchored and grounded in experience of the truth. Centered in a deeper understanding of the nature of the mind and body that one arrives at through meditation, the inspiration and confidence one feels arises from an interior wisdom gained from experience rather than coming from someone else's insights. Doubt is one of its core elements.

(10:11–10:54) Music:
"Auscencia" from Tata Monk, performed by Alex de Grassi and Quique Cruz

(10:30) Reference to Naropa Institute
The Naropa Institute is a non-sectarian institution founded in 1974 in Boulder, Colorado.

(12:10) Quoting from Salzberg's Work
The extended passage that Krista quotes was excerpted from the third chapter of Salzberg's book Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience:

Questioning means longing to know the truth deeply, and insisting that we can. It means leaving whatever distant slant we may occupy to come close and see more directly what is true. And it means being willing to be honest about how we ourselves are seeing things, even if that vision differs from the norm. Learning to question means feeling we have the right to all of this.

(13:06) Different Types of Buddhism
A vast number of strains of Buddhism have emerged over time. Learn more about Theravada, Tibetan, and many other forms of Buddhist thought. At the core of each of these sects are the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path.

(14:46–16:34) Music:
"Hymn: Jesu corona virginum" from Hildegard von Bingen: 11,000 Virgins, performed by Anonymous 4

(15:42) Reading from Luther's Work
In criticizing the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church, Martin Luther (1483-1546) insisted that individual Christians did not have to go through the church to get to God but would be justified by their faith alone. The following translation by Rev. Robert E. Smith was excerpted from Luther's introduction to the Book of Romans in his German Bible of 1522:

Faith is not what some people think it is. Their human dream is a delusion. Because they observe that faith is not followed by good works or a better life, they fall into error, even though they speak and hear much about faith. "Faith is not enough,'' they say, "You must do good works, you must be pious to be saved.'' They think that, when you hear the gospel, you start working, creating by your own strength a thankful heart which says, "I believe.'' That is what they think true faith is. But, because this is a human idea, a dream, the heart never learns anything from it, so it does nothing and reform doesn't come from this faith, either.

Instead, faith is God's work in us, that changes us and gives new birth from God. (John 1:13). It kills the Old Adam and makes us completely different people. It changes our hearts, our spirits, our thoughts and all our powers. It brings the Holy Spirit with it. Yes, it is a living, creative, active and powerful thing, this faith. Faith cannot help doing good works constantly. It doesn't stop to ask if good works ought to be done, but before anyone asks, it already has done them and continues to do them without ceasing. Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever. He stumbles around and looks for faith and good works, even though he does not know what faith or good works are. Yet he gossips and chatters about faith and good works with many words.

Faith is a living, bold trust in God's grace, so certain of God's favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it. Such confidence and knowledge of God's grace makes you happy, joyful and bold in your relationship to God and all creatures. The Holy Spirit makes this happen through faith. Because of it, you freely, willingly and joyfully do good to everyone, serve everyone, suffer all kinds of things, love and praise the God who has shown you such grace. Thus, it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire! Therefore, watch out for your own false ideas and guard against good-for-nothing gossips, who think they're smart enough to define faith and works, but really are the greatest of fools. Ask God to work faith in you, or you will remain forever without faith, no matter what you wish, say or can do.

(16:46–17:16) Music:
"Hora" from Tsirkus, performed by the Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band

(19:25) Mention of Shabbes
Shabbes, deriving from the Hebrew shabbat meaning "rest" or "cessation of labor," occurs on the seventh day of the week, and is observed as a day of rest and worship by Jews. Shabbes begins just before sunset on Friday and ends at sundown on Saturday. Learn more about the preparations and festivities.

(20:44) Citation from Kushner's Work
Krista quotes from Rabbi Kushner's book, Eyes Remade for Wonder:

One reason we find talking about God so difficult is we are part of what we are trying to understand. The thing about spiritual truth is that it wants to be spoken. It is too important, too transforming to be left alone in silence. It seems to have speakable content. The problem is that once you speak or show the words to someone else, then both of you are different. The words have changed both of you. And now you must start all over again. I believe that in one form or another this making of words is the touchstone for all spiritual traditions and of all spiritual renewal: To say what is just at the outermost edge of what can be spoken is to deal with words that are so primary and dazzling that they are infinitely personal and intimate.

(22:55–25:36) Music:
"Highwire" from Tsirkus, performed by the Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band

(29:38–30:03) Music:
"MazlTov Variations" from Tsirkus, performed by the Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band

(30:28) Quote from Kushner's Book
Rabbi Menachem Nahum, who lived in the town of Chernobyl in the Ukraine, was an 18th century mystic and early leader of the Chassidic movement. His classic commentary on the Torah has been translated into English as Light of the Eyes. In it, a core teaching states that everything in life contains far more than what is visible to the eye:

There is nothing besides the presence of God. Being itself is derived from God, and the presence of the creator remains in each created thing.

(30:57) Reference to Book of Job
Rabbi Kushner mentions the "whirlwind speech," which can be read in its entirety in the Book of Job, chapter 38.

(32:37–33:10) Music:
"Alba" from Tata Monk, performed by Alex de Grassi and Quique Cruz

(33:17) Reading from Traveling Mercies
The following edited passage was excerpted from Anne Lamott's book Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith:

A memory came to me then of our pastor, Veronica, telling us just the week before how she gets direction from God in prayer. She said that when she prays for direction, one spot of illumination always appears just beyond her feet, a circle of light into which she can step.

She moved away from the pulpit to demonstrate, stepping forward shyly, this big-boned African-American woman tramping like Charlie Chaplin into an imagined spotlight. And then after standing there looking puzzled, she moved another step forward to where the light had gone, two feet ahead of where she had been standing and then again. "We in our faith work," she said, "stumble along toward where we think we're supposed to go, bumbling along, and here is what's so amazing: We end up getting exactly where we were supposed to be."

(36:04) The Story of the Crucifix
Read a passage from Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year, in which Anne Lamott writes about the crucifix she mentions and the absurdity of her faith:

How did some fabulously cerebral and black-humored cynic like myself come to fall for all that Christian lunacy, to see the cross not as an end but a beginning, to believe as much as I believe in gravity or in the size of space that Jesus paid a debt he didn't owe because we had a debt we couldn't pay? It, my faith, is a great mystery. It has all the people close to me shaking their heads. It has me shaking my head. But I have a photograph on my wall of this ancient crucifix at a church over in Corte Madera, a tall splintering wooden Christ with his arms blown off in some war, under which someone long ago wrote, "Jesus has no arms but ours to do his work and to show his love," and every time I read that, I always end up thinking that these are the only operating instructions I will ever need.

(38:16) Citation of E.L. Doctorow
Lamott cites a 1985 article in The New York Times by E.L. Doctorow:

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing… Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

(38:38–40:20) Music:
"Auscencia" from Tata Monk, performed by Alex de Grassi and Quique Cruz

(38:46) Reading from Traveling Mercies
The following edited passage was excerpted from the essay "Why I Make Sam Go to Church" that appears in Anne Lamott's book Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith:

Sam is the only kid he knows who goes to church, who is made to go to church two or three times a month. He rarely wants to. I make him because I can. I outweigh him by nearly 75 pounds, but that is only part of it.

The main reason is that I want to give him what I found in the world, which is to say a path and a little light to see by. Most of the people I know who have what I want, which is to say purpose, heart, balance, gratitude, joy, are people with a deep sense of spirituality. They are people in community who pray or practice their faith. They are Buddhists, Jews, Christians, people banding together to work on themselves and for human rights. They follow a brighter light than the glimmer of their own candle. They are part of something beautiful. I saw something once from The Jewish Theological Seminary that said, "A human life is like a single letter of the alphabet. It can be meaningless, or it can be a part of a great meaning."

Our funky little church is filled with people who are working for peace and freedom, who are out there on the streets and inside praying, and they are home writing letters and they are at the shelters with giant platters of food.

(44:18–45:04) Music:
"Akamani" from Tata Monk, performed by Alex de Grassi and Quique Cruz

(45:09–47:09) Music:
"La illaha il Allah" from Ocean of Remembrance: Sufi Improvisations and Zhikrs, performed by Orüj Güvenç & Tümata

(45:25) Reading from the Qur'an
The following passage was excerpted from Surah 49, al-Hujraat, of the Qur'an:

The desert Arabs say, the nomads say, "We have faith."
Instead, say to them, "No, you do not have faith.
"Instead," only say, "We have submitted. We have attained to Islam."
"This is because faith has not yet entered into your hearts."

(47:17) Reading from the Hadith of Gabriel
The following account, commonly known as the Hadith of Gabriel, is considered by many of the great Islamic scholars to relate in a concise and comprehensive manner the religion of Islam. This hadith, also known as the foundation of the Sunnah (Umm al-Sunnah), encompasses the meaning of the Sunnah as a whole. The three dimensions of Islam are laid out in the Hadith of Gabriel: Islam, Iman, and Ihsan.

The following passage was excerpted from the Hadith of Gabriel:

One day we were sitting in the company of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, when there appeared before us a man dressed in pure white clothes, his hair extraordinarily black. There were no signs of travel on him. None of us recognized him. He sat with the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. Resting his knees against his and the palms of his hands on his thighs, he said, 'O Muhammad, tell me about Islam'.

"Islam, submission to God, means that you bear witness that there is only one God and that Mohammad is his messenger. It means that you perform the prayer, you pay the charity tax, you fast during Ramadan and, if you're able to, you perform the pilgrimage to the Kaaba."

The man says, "You have spoken the truth." And all the companions express surprise at the fact that he seems to be putting himself in a position of authority with respect to the prophet. The stranger says, "Now tell me about faith, about iman."

The prophet says, "Faith is that you have faith in God, the angels, the Scriptures, all the messengers and the last day." Again, the stranger says, "You have spoken the truth." And it's at this point that he introduces even a higher category, one that is called ihsan.

At this point, the prophet says, "Ihsan is that you worship God as if you see him, as if you see God, and even if you don't see him, to remember that nonetheless he sees you." The stranger goes through asking the prophet a few more questions and each time affirms that the prophet has spoken in truth.

In the end, the prophet turns to his community and says, "Do you know who that stranger was?" The community expresses their ignorance. And he says, "That was Gabriel. He came to teach you your religion."

(50:33–52:54) Music:
"Courante" from The Cello Suites: Inspired by Bach, performed by Yo-Yo Ma