I was reading in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind about a story of four horses.  There’s the horse who moves before he even sees the shadow of the whip.  Then there’s the horse who moves with a slight touch of the whip.  Next there’s the one who needs to be swatted a bit before he decides to obey.  Finally there’s the one who has to be beaten to the bone before he responds.

Interestingly enough, the point is not to be the number one horse who is so perfect.  The idea is just to be aware of which horse you are and observe what’s going on.  That’s good news for me, because I’m often closer to the fourth horse than the first one (at least when it comes to meditation and a couple other things).  I’m often pretty upset about that fact, but in the end we learn most from our struggles, even when it’s a struggle to do something basic in a spiritual practice.

I went to a 10 day meditation session years ago.  After I returned I could sit for an hour at a time, sometimes doing two hours a day.  Now I’m happy to be doing my 10 minutes a day.  Life has kinda pushed me just to do even that, but I am making progress with it and feel good about it.

I’ve either been running or doing yoga every morning lately.  Combined with prayer, reading and meditation it makes for a much greater amount of inner peace.  Of course, I still have a lifetime of work to go, but I’m feeling pretty good about things at the moment.