A few years ago, I tweeted something on the social media platform that used to be known as Twitter. At that moment, I was likely overwhelmed by my community’s urgent and pressing needs and my own emotions. I wrote, “When the macro feels too big and overwhelming, I’ve learned to focus on the micro. I ask myself, ‘What can I do in the small space I occupy that can help me feel less powerless?’” I shared this reflection with Abbot Shim Bo Sunim before last Friday’s Zen Practice. He pointed to his heart and said, “And truly, the only thing we can control is here.”
Over the past week, I’ve been reflecting on this piece of wisdom. We often live our lives with the delusion that we have more control over things than we actually do, especially during times of low stress and anxiety. We only begin to question this notion when things begin to fall apart. It’s easy to pilot a ship when the sea is calm. It’s much harder in a storm. In reality, the only thing we can control is ourselves. As Plato wrote in his Republic,
The just man… sets in order his own interior life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself.
This type of inner tranquility is the goal of many religious and philosophical traditions. Each tradition offers its own prescription for achieving this type of inner life, but common themes include humility (displacing the false, guarded sense of self) and a regular practice of prayer and/or contemplation.
One practice I frequently revisit is called the Ignatian Examen. This practice of reflecting on one’s day through the lens of gratitude enables me to assess my day’s events and interactions, prompting me to identify instances of closeness with God and moments of feeling distant from God. If you’re not particularly religious, you can substitute a higher power, highest values, or any other concept that resonates with you. In a recent episode of the Modern Love podcast, Andrew Garfield aptly described the practice as “living each day twice” to fully savor it. Through my practice, I’ve often discovered the vast potential for growth in my ability to love or demonstrate generosity. In the words of Robert Frost, I’ve got miles to go before I sleep. Deeper still, I discover the profound presence of God within me, all the time, even in moments when I “feel” estranged from it. Thomas Merton, a Christian Trappist monk, writer, mystic, and theologian, astutely reminds us that God is not somewhere out there, hiding from us, constantly avoiding us. The inverse is true. It is we who hide from God. God, he says, “dwells at the very heart of our own being. He is nearer to us than we are to ourselves.”
The Tao teaches us to “Shape the clay into a vessel; it is the space within that makes it useful.” Practices of prayer and contemplation play a crucial role in shaping our inner lives. Through them, we begin to reveal ourselves to ourselves and thus discover the divinity within. Without them, it becomes challenging to cultivate a life rooted in inner peace, a peace that my Christian tradition proclaims “passes all understanding.” These practices are not about escaping from the world; rather, true contemplation reveals the degree to which the world out there is really the world in our hearts. Every human being — including the ones who do terrible, deeply inhumane things — is equally as human as we are, and all of us are trying to find a sense of self and security in a world that can feel deeply and profoundly unsafe. Without a moral center, it is easy to find a false self in convenient stories rooted in violence, prejudice, and hate.
Often, the religious, political, and spiritual leaders we admire are those who cultivated an inner steel that enabled them to face the heartbreak of the human condition with a compassionate resolve. I am thinking of Congressman John Lewis and others on Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, or Mother Theresa of Calcutta. Violence and inhumanity perpetuate by forcing its opponents to use it in return. Only peace can create peace, and that peace starts within, with us discovering ourselves secure in the inner embrace of God. Regardless of the external circumstances, each of us can adopt a practice that helps us create a peaceful space within ourselves, enabling us to influence the space around us from a place of overflowing peace.
