Inner Work

For the week of September 12, 2005

Adaptive Practice

Everything changes. Buddhism even teaches that a deep, visceral understanding of the fact of change leads to enlightenment. In particular, our individual situation with respect to our possibilities for inner work keeps changing. We may have more energy or less energy, more time to meditate or less time, more or fewer urgent matters to attend to, good health or illness, pain or the absence of pain, the ability to focus or the lack thereof, inner peace or emotional storms, reminders of the sacred or distractions from it — in short, the whole kaleidoscope of life. An unavoidable question is how to maintain our spiritual practice in the face of all this continual change, both outer and inner.

We need to be flexible and adaptable, like a surfer on the waves of life. The adaptability of human beings provided a major evolutionary advantage over other species. Adaptability also offers spiritual advantages.

No two moments of our life are exactly alike. So our inner work also must adapt. While keeping ourselves firmly grounded in the realm of time and change, we seek through our practice to establish our place in the eternal and to serve the Divine Purpose. Those latter efforts, though, depend on continually adapting our spiritual work to our conditions in time and space.

So in any and every situation, we reach into our toolkit of practices: relaxing and sensing our body, energy breathing, deepening presence, heartfelt prayer, levels of meditation, inner peace, acts of kindness and responsibility, and so on. Creatively, we adapt our practice to this moment. In that way we prepare a brighter future, come what may.

For this week, look for ways to adapt your inner work to your current situation.

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