Trust Faith and Determination, these are the three main virtues of a Taoist and what keeps them as one. Without these, the Taoist will soon fall off the branch and quit or fail their own Tao, then they will not be in the Tao anymore. In my years of experience, this rule still stays true regardless of the gender or age of a disciple.  To bring some light for the new Taoists, I am writing this official article to talk about the three virtues and how to self-help if you see yourself having issue with one of these, especially if it is caused by evil attacks.

Trust vs Faith

Most people won’t even understand the difference between trust and faith. Both seems to be just “to believe” and faith seems to be “to trust more, completely”. That’s not how it meant here. Doesn’t matter what the dictionary says, you will learn what it means here, in our lineage’s book, then you will be able to do well as a Taoist.

Trust is to believe someone based on evidence, which is from things they have done and proven themselves in the past. There is always something that supports the belief and there is always a reason behind. For example, you trust this bank, because the bank has a long history and so it should be reliable. You trust your friend for driving your car, because he got a driver license too.  You trust our lineage and the Tao, because you have seen our YouTube, blogs, websites and all the publications.

Trusting is done by using the soul, it is a post-heaven energy, and when trust is going pass a certain level, it becomes a deeper level of trust, which will gradually transition into faith.

There are three levels of trusts. Trusting of words, action and time.

You can trust someone’s words because they have kept their words before. An opposite is that they have lied, or broken their promises, which makes them not trustworthy.

You can trust someone can do something for you, because of what they have done before. Just like your son have cleaned your car before and did a good job, so you trust him for doing it the second time.

You can trust someone because of how long they have been holding a connection or relationship with something. For example, I can trust you being a good disciple, because you have stayed for over 20 years already.

Faith is a blind belief, meaning that it is unconditionally given, without the need of any evidence or proof. You have faith in your son for being home alone, so you just went out and let him stay home all day by himself. You never did it, it’s your first time doing this, how do you even know he will be okay?  There is not proof or evidence, but you have faith in him, so you choose to gave him a chance. You never seen the gods and even the celestial court that we talk about here, but you have faith in the lineage and its teachings, that is why you will keep believing without questioning. You “JUST BELIEVE”.

Faith is all about using the heart, and it is for you to output first. You have to output your heart to believe first, in order for faith to be built. It could be something fake too, doesn’t have to be true. For example, people belief in a religion by putting their faith into something that cannot be proven or witnessed.

There are three level of faith too.

Small faith starts from the heart, and it is a feeling that tells you to believe. It’s the first stage of faith, which is the most important stage. With small faith, you will have to be not skeptical, doubtful or have the feeling of negative.

Medium faith starts from the mouth, meaning that you will not question, say anything that is against your faith. As a result, you will start to praise what you believe or even help what you believe to defend against those things that try to shake your heart.

Big faith is done with action, which means you will not go and do anything that shows you are not faithful. For example, you will not go “research” and find evidence of what you are believing. If you have faith, why would you even care about those “evidence”.

With the 3 kinds of faith, nothing can shake your Tao Heart, and you will forever be connected and bonded with the Tao.

Determination

The most important thing of being a good Taoist is to be determined. That means you will never give up no matter what you are feeling or facing. Nothing can shake you off the Tao, nothing can change or affect your trust and faith, nothing can make you turn against your Tao. This is very important.

Determination can help you overcome challenges and hurdles; those who cannot overcome their challenges and failed are because they are not determined enough.

You are not determined enough, because you have not been a trustworthy person. You did not keep your words, you did not fulfil your promises by action, you don’t hold onto your focus with time, and these three things will make you not determined in anything, causing you to have what we call the “three-minute heat” disease like microwave food.

To fix this problem, you have to accept that you are already poor with the trust part, then you need to blindfold yourself and use faith. To have faith in what you are doing, it means to shut off all your questioning, stop looking around for “evidence” to prove something, stop comparing with other things outside, stop all the distractions and cut off all the distracting elements. Focus to what you are trying to achieve by just believing it unconditionally. Your goal, is to believe it no matter it will be good or bad, and it doesn’t matter if it is going to be successful or not at the end. You will have faith in it, by fully believing it. Don’t question, just believe. When faith is being used, your determination will start to build up. Those who still cannot be determined, is because your faith is still not there yet.

Remember the 3 things about faith – don’t question, don’t look around for proof and evidence, don’t compare, and never give up, try to hold onto something as long as possible, because TIME is the essence you need.

For the Disciples

To all our disciples, we emphasize determination, trust and faith all the time. If you can keep these 3 virtues at a healthy level, you will never fail in your journey of being a Taoist.

Here is one last tip for you – if you run into issue with any of these virtues, don’t try to solve the problem yourself, don’t hold it inside yourself, don’t try to even be so yourself. You should open up and go on LINE, find your uppers and tell them about your problems and be open minded to accept any guidance from them.  If you are already a “victim” of a hurdle, you are the sick one, let the doctor cure you, and not yourself trying to fix your own sickness. That’s why you are in a lineage, don’t be silly and try to fix things yourself all the time.

Ordain to learn more, and most importantly, establish the connection with the Tao and celestial court soon. Interested in reading more? Read our My First Taoism Book” to understand more about Taoism!

Also read up on more articles like this in our VIRTUE section. Don't forget to revisit the post on "Giving Back"

A scripture to recommend on this topic - The Tin Law Justice Scripture.