Changing Your Habit Energy

There is a Zen story about a man and a horse. The horse is galloping quickly, and it appears that the rider is urgently heading somewhere important. A bystander along the road calls out, "Where are you going?", and the rider replies, "I don't know, ask the horse!"

This is also our life story. Many of us are riding a horse, but we don't know where we are going, and we cannot stop. The horse is our "HABIT ENERGY", the relentless force of habit that pulls us along, that we are often unaware of and feel powerless to change. We are always running. It has become a habit, the norm of our everyday living. We run all the time, even during our sleep--the time that we are supposed to rest and regenerate our bodies. We are our own worst enemies, in conflict with ourselves, and therefore we can easily stir conflict with others.