John Keats coined the “vale of soul-making” in contrast to the Biblical “vale of tears” to indicate the growth potential of adversity and suffering in the world. Sometimes powerful psychedelic journeys feel more like an abyss than a vale, but “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”
To enter the abyss of soul-making and come out the other side requires soul. As Bobby Byrd sang, “I know you got soul – if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be in here.” But what is soul? Fats Waller famously said, “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.” The same goes for soul.
To enter the abyss of soul-making and come out the other side also requires daishin, “Great Faith”. But what is faith? If you have to ask what faith is, you’ll never know. Unless and until you do.
If you permit me to offer a working definition, however, I would say that “Great Faith” (or “Absolute Faith” as Paul Tillich calls it) is simply the overcoming of anxiety (both pathological and existential). With faith, there is no more existential guilt, existential doubt or existential dread. You are free to live your life without worry, confusion or regret and without those psychological defences, false perfection, false certainty and false security, that constitute the inauthentic personality.
In the final analysis, soul is zen and faith is zen. That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
bread of life 