Life is challenge and change. It is easy to ignore life's challenges in an industrialized society with its conveniences. I can turn my back on a challenge and just watch TV or get in my car and drive to a store for distraction. Challenges are circumstances which demand a behavioral or internal personal change.
Practice requires facing challenges with purpose and consistency. If I am living in mindfulness with compassion, the path to facing and resolving any challenge becomes clear readily. If I am living on the tides of my emotions and selfish needs, I perceive challenges as threats which can often immobilize me or distract me from my path to wellness and harmony in my life.
The key to walking an even path through life is mastery of emotions and needs in favor of mindfulness and compassion. Patience and an acceptance of the inevitability of change come with this form of practice. Challenges become the exercises which tone and strengthen the heart and mind.
