There is always a practice before the practice; a sitting before the incomprehensible long enough to feel and sometimes understand the mystery each instrument and craft is designed to invoke.
Mark Nepo
Practice Before the Practice
Topic: Spiritual Growth & Practice
Every single being has an amazing, unfathomable gift that only meeting life head-on and heart-on will reveal. And we can’t fully know our gift alone. We need each other to discover the gift, to believe in the gift. And then, to learn how to use it. The challenge for each of us is not to discount our gift because of the indifference of others, and not to abdicate our gift because of the various weights we’re forced to carry. My hope is that we will better know our own true nature and the depth of our own resources by being in conversation with the inner terrain as it opens, including how to restore our trust in life, when suffering makes us lose our way; how to begin the work of saying yes to life, so it can enliven us; and how to make our inwardness a resource and not a refuge.
There is always a practice before the practice; a sitting before the incomprehensible long enough to feel and sometimes understand the mystery each instrument and craft is designed to invoke.
Mark Nepo was born on February 23, 1951, in Brooklyn, New York, and has dedicated over four decades to intertwining poetry and spirituality. With a PhD in English, he embarked on a teaching career at the State University of New York at Albany that spanned twenty years. His upbringing in New York infused his work with a blend of urban wisdom and a quest for deeper truths, setting the stage for his contributions to literature and spiritual thought.
The turning point in Nepo’s life came with his battle against lymphoma in his thirties, profoundly shaping his worldview and creative output. This experience led to significant works like "The Book of Awakening," offering meditations on the essence of life. His writings, including "Seven Thousand Ways to Listen," "Reduced to Joy," and "Inhabiting Wonder," delve into the complexities of human experience, advocating for a life lived with depth and mindfulness.
Now residing in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Nepo continues to influence through his books, workshops, and lectures. His journey reflects a commitment to resilience, deep listening, and openness, guiding others to navigate life’s challenges with grace. Nepo’s work serves as a beacon for those seeking to engage more fully with the world and their inner selves, embodying the journey towards authenticity and understanding.
The Endless Practice
Nepo, Mark. The Endless Practice: Becoming Who You Were Born to Be. Simon and Schuster, 2015.
Mark Nepo
Theme: Spiritual Growth
About This Mark Nepo Quotation [Commentary]
Mark Nepo’s words, “There is always a practice before the practice; a sitting before the incomprehensible long enough to feel and sometimes understand the mystery each instrument and craft is designed to invoke,” call us to pause and immerse ourselves before we take action. This “practice before the practice” is a kind of preparation, not only for the skill itself but for a connection with the deeper mystery within each act of creation or expression. Nepo reminds us that to cultivate skill and spiritual growth, we must first sit with the unknown, allowing it to affect us. Only then can we genuinely engage with our purpose, equipped with the openness and reverence needed to reveal our gifts.
Nepo emphasizes that discovering and developing one’s gift is not a solitary endeavor. He highlights the role of connection with others and with life itself in uncovering the “unfathomable gift” within each person. We are invited to face life “head-on and heart-on,” embracing both joy and challenge to better understand and use our unique gifts. Life’s challenges—whether from indifference or the burdens we carry—should not deter us but rather deepen our commitment. Through moments of quiet “sitting” with life’s mysteries, we develop the insight and resilience needed to stay true to our path.
In this way, Nepo speaks to spiritual growth, which requires us to “make our inwardness a resource, not a refuge.” By turning inward, not to avoid life but to prepare for it fully, we develop inner resources that enable a more meaningful engagement with the world. True progress, like that of a master potter or musician, comes from a continuous commitment to learning and presence. When we patiently sit with the unknown, we open to a deeper understanding of our nature and a more intentional relationship with the world. This steady, deliberate journey brings our gifts to light and strengthens our ability to share them with others.
Mark Nepo Quotation from The Endless Practice: Becoming Who You Were Born to Be. [Excerpted Passage]
From the moment we open our eyes, we are meaning-seeking creatures, looking for what matters though we carry what matters deep within us. And more than the hard-earned understandings we arrive at, more than the principles or beliefs we stitch together out of our experience, how we stay in relationship to the mysterious Whole of Life is what brings us alive and keeps us alive. Everyone knows firsthand that life is messy and painful, beautiful and unpredictable. The endless practice is keeping our heart open to the whole of it. And the journey of becoming who we were born to be never ends. It’s limitless, eternal. We don’t arrive—we grow.
I believe and give my heart to the notion that spirituality is listening for and living into the soul’s place on Earth. A life of spirit, regardless of the path we choose, begins with a person’s acceptance that they are part of something larger than themselves. The want to know who we really are and to know the truth of our existence and our connection to a living Universe is, to me, the fundamental life-giving question that the heart commits to once opened by love or suffering. How we are led and pushed to our true nature is what spirituality and personal growth are all about. At the heart of each spiritual tradition are the questions: how to be in the world without losing what matters, and is living an awakened life of any use if we don’t bring what matters to bear on the world? Though every path offers some form of refuge, the journey of every human being is to discover—through their personhood—their own living relationship between the soul and the world, between being and experience, and between love and service.
Every single being has an amazing, unfathomable gift that only meeting life head-on and heart-on will reveal. And we can’t fully know our gift alone. We need each other to discover the gift, to believe in the gift. And then, to learn how to use it. The challenge for each of us is not to discount our gift because of the indifference of others, and not to abdicate our gift because of the various weights we’re forced to carry. My hope is that we will better know our own true nature and the depth of our own resources by being in conversation with the inner terrain as it opens, including how to restore our trust in life, when suffering makes us lose our way; how to begin the work of saying yes to life, so it can enliven us; and how to make our inwardness a resource and not a refuge.
In Japan, before an apprentice can clay up his hands and work the wheel, he must watch the master potter for years. In Hawaii, before a young man can ever touch a boat, he must sit on the cliff of his ancestors and simply watch the sea. In Africa, before the children are allowed to drum, they must rub the length of skin stretched over wood and dream of the animal whose heart will guide their hands. In Vienna, the prodigy must visit the piano maker before ever fingering a scale; to see how the keys are carved and put into place. And in Switzerland legend has it that before the master watchmaker can couple his tiny gears, he must sit long enough to feel the passage of time. Starting this way enables a love of the process that is life-giving. The legendary cellist Pablo Casals was asked at 92 why he still practiced four hours a day. He smiled and replied, “Because I believe I’m making progress.” It is this sort of deep progress that saves us.
Brief Comments From Nipun Mehta
Mark Nepo is a poet, teacher, storyteller and author. The excerpt above is from The Endless Practice: Becoming Who You Were Born to Be. “There is always a practice before the practice; a sitting before the incomprehensible long enough to feel and sometimes understand the mystery each instrument and craft is designed to invoke.” (Mark Nepo)
Indeed, twenty-five years of ServiceSpace experiments outside of market logic is the practice before the “product”. Thank you for standing for that practice.
―Nipun Mehta, Practice Before the Practice (Aug 17, 2023) Today’s Call Notes―in Service Fellows.
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