Embrace Repetition

There’s a Sufi story of a dervish who comes to a river where two travelers are arguing. One says, “My spiritual teacher is so advanced he can swim across this channel like a fish.” The other says, “My spiritual teacher is so advanced he can fly over the water.” They turn to the dervish and say, “So what can you do?” “I can take the ferry,” the dervish says. “It’s been running for years, so I trust they know what they’re doing.”

True spiritual practice is like that ferry: it may not be flashy, but it’s reliable, rhythmic, and accessible to all. It carries us over the same path again and again, not in search of novelty, but in search of greater trust with every crossing. The morning meditation. The repeated prayer. The weekly gathering. These may seem like drops in a bucket, the Buddha said, until one day you realize the bucket is full.

We resist repetition not because it’s boring, but because it’s honest. Returning to the same practice strips away our excuses and leaves us face to face with ourselves. Innovation offers escape. Repetition brings exposure. And exposure is frightening, because it reveals our vulnerability.

In other words: maybe you aren’t Superman. Maybe you’re little more than the sum of the tiny thoughts, words, and deeds you’ve repeated for so many years. The weight of that accumulation may terrify you, but it can also set you free.

Because life isn’t a performance. It’s an endless rehearsal where there’s always one more take, one more chance, and where no dazzling victory or crushing failure matters nearly as much as the attitude you bring to starting over, each time with deeper feeling.

Your breath is the ferry. In and out, back and forth, it carries you from one moment to the next. Trust that it knows what it’s doing. Trust that as you surrender to each inhale and exhale, letting its rhythm show you more ease and more sweetness, you’ll arrive exactly where you need to be.

Arpana Caur, "Ascension, 20th century" (2013)