Inner  Frontier
Fourth Way Spiritual Practice

 

Inner Work


For the week of December 15, 2008

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Immediate Challenges

Because life seems to have so many moments, an apparently endless stream of them, we find it difficult to muster the intensity to work at presence in this moment. We feel that we can wait until later, until a more propitious moment. But in truth there is only one moment — now. Events flow into this moment from the future and leave transformed into the past. But it is always now. So putting aside our inner work for a moment eliminates our practice from its only possible venue: here and now.

One way to counteract this tendency to wait until some indefinite later is to pose immediate challenges to ourselves, challenges of presence. We choose to be present from now until a certain near-term event. Then we repeat that in a contiguous series of efforts of presence. Instead of waiting until later, we engage in spiritual practice until later. Some examples:

  • Until reaching the next lamppost or corner on your walk
  • For the duration of one commercial on TV
  • Until you reach the end of the paragraph you are reading
  • Until finishing washing this one dish
  • Until finishing brushing your teeth
  • Until reaching the cashier in the grocery line

The possibilities abound for such immediate challenges. In every department of our life, in every kind of circumstance, we can create an immediate goal for our inner work. Because of the short-term, clearly circumscribed nature of such challenges, because of their concreteness, and because we can foresee the end point, the effort seems manageable and possible. We feel ready to take it on, to rouse ourselves to meet the challenge by staying present for its duration.

For this week, bring more inner work into your daily life by creating and using opportunities for immediate challenges of presence.


     

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