The Five Spiritual Powers: There's confidence, Saddha or faith, Energy, Mindfulness, Concentration and Wisdom.
Okay, Wisdom you already know about, Energy you already know about. Concentration and Mindfulness, these things are all things you know, and have been well explained. But Saddha, or confidence or faith, this one is a little different to the normal practice that you do. But it's the confidence that you build up which will open you for being almost like a sponge.
In the Scriptures, there seems to be two ways people get enlightened. One is that they're listening to the Buddha teach, and something just goes right in and "Boom," they get it. The second way is that they are actually practicing. They're sitting, walking, standing whatever and they're actually doing some hard intensive practice.
One of the sections of the Scriptures is the Digna Nakaya, which is called the longer teachings. There are about 32 or 33 of these Suttas, and they are much longer than others. The first 10 or 11 are very similar and the Buddha is talking about the practice. While he's talking, he gives what's called a "Lion's Roar". This is where he actually tells people what he did, his accomplishment, the value of it, and often explaining basically how he got enlightened. A lot of people got enlightened in those Suttas. I couldn't figure this out in the beginning. It was almost like he didn't give them any methods. All he was doing is talking about how great he was. Which was nice to know. But these people are getting enlightened without any real teaching. There was not any practicl - what to do - teaching.
Then I discovered what Saddha means and how it has to be balanced in our practice. Without it, we can't get enlightened, and with it, we can. When he was giving these teachings, the people he was teaching, already had enough wisdom. But they just weren't quite sure, is this the right guy for me? That sort of thought. They weren't quite sure. They had enough wisdom, that was there, he didn't have to teach them that. But what was blocking them in their practice was confidence in the Buddha as a person and confidence in the Buddha's practice as a way to go.
So when he gave them this intense explanation of how he got enlightened, as they're listening, it's like "Wow!". Can you remember what it was like when you were like 6 or 8 years old and you read your first Superman comic book, or Spiderwoman or whatever it was and you got so excited and you know it was like "Wow!" And then you wanted to be another Superman or Superwoman. Well this is what was happening to these people and this was what they needed just to get that little boost to their wisdom and they were able to break through the little bit of delusion that was blocking them.
This was very interesting for me to find out that these Suttas which I thought didn't really have any practical teaching were important for some people to help balance and bring forth the Saddha that they needed in the practice. So that's a little reason why Saddha is one of the Spiritual Powers and a very important part of our practice.
The other day, I was asking if you come to an interview with us, do you expect some good answers? Most if not all of you do, if you're coming to us open, you're coming to us ready, with ears open, heart open, mind open. But it's likely you didn't come that way to your very first interview. You probably came kinda, "Umm, is this the right guy for me? Is this the right gal for me? Are they really the way I want to go? I'm not sure." So you didn't have the same Saddha in your very first interview with us. You didn't have the same Saddha you now have. Now, because you have this Saddha, you come to the interviews much more open, much more ready, with some good questions, hopefully. And you're ready to get some good answers.
This is how important Saddha is.