Develop Your Own Mantra

"There are . . . traditional mantras from the Hindu and Buddhist traditions that are like prayers. But just as you can compose your own prayer, you can develop your own mantra. Not every phrase is equally suitable. For example, the phrase " I willwin the lottery," while an example of positive thinking, isn't the most spiritually deep sentiment. The most effective mantras are those that express core spiritual values — generosity, kindness, calm, and care."
Work as a Spiritual Practice

Exercise Your Spiritual Muscles

"Doing spiritual practice in the midst of busy activity is like lifting the heavy weights. Just because you can do it only once, for a moment, does not mean that it has no effect. On the contrary, it exercises your spiritual "muscles" as much as doing many repetitions with the light weights, just in a different way."
Work as a Spiritual Practice

Come Back to Your Intention

"To keep coming back to your intention, over and over again, even when it seems you are making no progress at all, is how spiritual practice actually begins to accumulate some staying power. The intention itself becomes the goal. Or to put it another way, we find, over time, that the repetition of our spiritual effort brings us some pleasure."
Work as a Spiritual Practice

Spiritual Path not Like the Interstate

"The spiritual path is not like the interstate, with friendly green signs to tell us which exit is which and how to get to Los Angeles or Houston. It is much more like being dropped into the wilderness. We have to figure out which way to go by moving along, by being curious, by experimenting. Most of all, we need to trust our instincts and our innate sense of direction."
Work as a Spiritual Practice

To Be Present

"To be present is the most fundamental generosity of all. When there is nothing else to do, when we are in a situation that seems hopelessly blocked, there is still one thing we can do: We can be there."
Work as a Spiritual Practice

Outer Power vs. Inner Power

"During my business travels, I find myself becoming irritated if the hotel I'm staying at is noisy, if I have a middle seat on the airplane, or if the restaurant service is slow. Because I am living a life of more wealth, and more seeming control, my state of mind is actually less resilient and less accepting than when I was a monk. Because I have more Outer Power, I am tempted to use it to make my life more protected and smooth. But it has the opposite effect. Instead, I have less Inner Power. I am more vulnerable and weak."
Work as a Spiritual Practice

The Earner's Work

"The Earner's Work is what we all do to survive. In the process — and there is no help for it — we create a ripple in life's pond. Depending on what we do, we create footprints of disturbance or of restoration. The individual's footprint is small, but when combined with everyone else's it is large. We can simply take care of our needs without much thought about the larger footprint, or we can recognize that we are all complicit in the making of it and need to take responsibility for it. Recognizing the inevitability of our individual and collective footprints is the first step in understanding how to walk in the world with footprints of restoration, of care, of compassion and love."
A Whole Life's Work

Encourage Others

"A Zen student once asked Soen Roshi, a Japanese Zen master, 'How can I encourage myself?' His answer: 'Encourage others.' "
A Whole Life's Work

You as a Candle

"One way to look at [a] candle flame is to see it as always new, ever-changing. Every moment the flame is different, just as in every moment each breath we take is new. The wind blows the flame, mist dampens it, conditions change it, just as in our long life many things occur. Our personal history is unique. When we are born, the candle is tall, and as we age the candle grows shorter and shorter. One day it will be gone.

"Another way of looking at the candle flame is to see it as light. Regardless of whether the flame is strong or weak, or whether the candle is tall or short, the light is the same. It burns as brightly whether the candle is tall, medium, or short — whether we are at the beginning of our life, in the middle, or near the end. One day our individual light may go out, but light itself continues because light is everywhere: in the sky, in the sun, in the stars, in the whole universe. The individual candle flame burns down and goes out. It dies. But the light of the universe, of which that flame is one particular instance, does not.

"Whether we live or whether we die, the candle flame burns just the same. That light is who we most deeply are, and we can rest in that light at any time simply by relaxing into it and surrendering to it."
Aging as a Spiritual Practice