Inner Work

For the week of: March 17, 2003

Shaping Your Inner Life

             Unless we bring some intention to the matter, our inner life goes almost entirely in a haphazard and automatic fashion, often with unpleasant results. Rudderless, our mind and heart falls prey to each passing whim, buffeted by the winds of impinging events, at the mercy of habitual emotional reactions and thought patterns. This is no way to live, yet we accept it as our norm. To shape our inner life, to give it a direction takes work, persistent, subtle, and intelligent work. If we abdicate our responsibility for this work, then we stay in our automatic, reactive jungle of thoughts, emotions, and impulses.

To climb out of this morass, we set our feet on the spiritual path, in a day-to-day, moment-to-moment, year-after-year engagement with the practices of our chosen way, such as presence, sensation, prayer, kindness, meditation, and letting go. And we take it seriously, for example by working at sensation throughout the day. Pliant, yet steady, we persevere. Over time, we find more meaning, joy, creativity, and love seeping into our inner world, as we allow ourselves to be shaped by the path.

For this week, renew your practical efforts to shape your inner life, rather than being shaped by its erratic impulses and its chronic repetitiousness.

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