1. Zeal has said to be like a fire that needs both feeding and watching. Which does your spiritual life need right now?
2. Share your responses to the question of how the girl learning to ride her bike is related to the spiritual path.
3. What practices can help you raise your “sail to the winds of grace?”
4. What imagery could you conjure that could help you train your fearful thoughts like the wrestler does with his and the zealous waves?
5. Where in your life is the stillness that enables you to hear where you need healing?
6. Where can zeal help you in your spiritual life? With letting go? With trusting? With emptying?
7. Do you give it your all even if no one is there to clap?
8. Share your reactions to the concept of “dancing on the void.” How does it capture living the spiritual life?
Possible Practices
1. Pay special attention to where your zeal manifests in your life this week.
2. Journal about how society and its rules may have impacted how much zeal you allow into your life. Consider what activities you could add to remember to have more zeal.
3. Identify a spiritual teacher or friend who exhibits a lot of zeal. What could you emulate to deepen your own experience of life?
4. Try to observe children and the zeal they exhibit so effortlessly.
Visit the Zeal homepage for more ways to practice this spiritual quality. Follow the links in the left column to:
- a collection of quotations on compassion
- book recommendations
- book excerpts and teaching stories
- film recommendations
- music and art meditations
- a daily cue, reminder, vow, and blessing for compassion
- a prayer or mantra
- personal explorations including imagery and journal exercises
- practices and spiritual exercises
- questions for discussion, storytelling, sharing
- take action with household, group, and community projects
- and more
Prepared by Persephone Zill with contributions from Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
