Practice?

 We often use the word practice when we associate ourselves with meditation. People sometimes say things like "In my meditation practice I discovered" or "I have been practicing meditation for several years". 

In music, or sports, we also use the term practice. As a kid I might have said,"I need a ride to soccer practice" or my mother might have said, "Hurry up, we're going to be late to soccer practice." It stands to reason that when we practice something, we learn and subsequently use repetitively the skills necessary to improve our ability to play. 

The soccer game is played. The musical instrument is played. I have hardly ever called using a musical instrument practice. Maybe I should have practiced more when I was in band class, but then I had this bashfulness about how loudly the horrible sounds coming from the trumpet were. I prefer to just pick up my guitar and play. Even if I am just strumming a single new chord or picking through a new scale, I just call it playing. Playing is fun. Practice sounds gruling. in college sometimes we would have doubles. Sometimes if we had a bad game where effort was lacking our coach would make us run ladders which would give us a bad taste for practice. Or learning to trap the ball by softly recurving it with our knee or chest, and we would do so over and over and over until our body was bruised and sore. We would subject ourselves to the repetitive nature of learning to improve our abilities and these skills would then help us when we played in the next game. So, one question that comes to mind here is, "Why don't we play life?" Or maybe we do. Let's take a look. 

First what is playing really?When we are kids, we go outside to play with our friends. Sometimes there are rules to the games we play like Red Rover or Red Light Green Light and sometimes we just dig in the dirt or climb trees or roll down the hill in the yard. Sometimes we play board games, and other times we find ourselves playing bored games. And if we do play a bored game, then we are no longer bored because now we have an activity. 

Here is an example. When we were in elementary school our mother decided to take us on a road trip with our pop up camper towed behind an old Chevy station wagon. It took us several days to go from NY to FL with myriad misadventures and challenges. The engine overheated and we needed to get towed and repaired and then one of the tires went flat, and the fuel filter clogged, but that's a separate story. The point I want to make about the road trip is that we had these road games to play. One game was to count the different state license plates that we observed and we kept a list with tallies for each out of state plate. Sometimes we would look for the alphabet on road signs, places of business, cars and even on the different license plates. Someone would see the letter A and they would say the letter and where they saw it. I see A in the word Carolina, B on the Buick passing us on the left, C Carolina again, D on the license plate on that Chevy and so on and so forth. We would occupy our minds to help pass the time so that we wouldn't fight in the back seat. We knew that our minds had a tendency to wander around or stir up emotions and then someone would complain about the heat or the window being open or closed and then we would argue about who was going to write the Mad Libs etc. 

Anyway, these days boredom is something that sedom occurs in life. If I am not happy with my current activity in the moment I choose to find something to do. I am not worrying about being in the next moment, so there isn't any anticipation or angst that goes with that. Sometimes I still think about the past and sometimes I think, how did I get to this thought by trying to connect the thoughts backwards, to observe the oddities of my mind, but as I meditate more, I find less of this happening which is actually a relief.

Well, maybe meditation is practice for life? And I am not really saying that life is game, but maybe I am saying that it is; just a little. Nope. Scratch that. Meditation is life. And, it helps us get really good at living.

In meditation we note our thinking. When we sit, we notice the thinking and observe that the monkey mind is doing that thing again. Sometimes we analyze it and maybe thinking about our thinking is the beginning, but it's still thinking. So, sometimes I play the game, "How long can I keep my mind blank?" This is hard because once you think to count the seconds the mind is no longer blank so there's a difficulty in keeping track. One good way to get rid of the racing mind or the thinking mind is to narrow your focus. We all only have so much attention so if we use that attention to feel, or to sense, we have less of it to devote to words being played across the strings in our brains. And while some of those words are beautiful and melodic, most of them are like a beginner screeching the bow across the violin.

Here is an example of focus: while you are sitting there reading this, "How often has your mind wandered? Are you focused on the words on the page? Or, are you immersed fully in this blog? Did you wonder if you left the coffee pot on? Have you thought, this is a waste of time? Sure this Vanagoonies fella is just ranting away again, but maybe there's a point? Is he going to get there? The more you narrow your focus on reading and understanding the words, the less you are aware of the color of the page. It's the same way with breathing. The more you focus your attention on each natural breath, feeling the air rush into your nostrils, or the pressure building inside your lungs, or the rising and falling of your chest or the feeling of pressure on your butt as you sit on that seat, the less attention you have left for your mind to run away with your thoughts. You stop telling yourself the stories you create about the people around you. You stop telling yourself the stories about yourself. You stop blaming yourself. You stop shoulding all over yourself. And eventually you just stop. Stop everything and just be. Be what you are. Be human, but also be being. 

Sometimes we're all so busy living and we forget to live like we're dying and that's what life really is about. Dying. We're all going to die and we never know when. So die a good death. Die a well lived life. Live a life that is worthy of death. Make your life matter. Be. Experience. Breathe and pay attention to each breath as it comes and goes. Feel. Touch. Taste. I mean, fully taste. Savor the details of the coffee in your cup. Don't just slam it and run. Smell. Is that a flower? Is that something burning? Mmmmm bacon. Be curious. See. Immerse yourself in your surroundings. Look at nature. Look at the leaves. See the clouds. Live. Be. Be alive for while you are living, you will be able to be. Whatever changes death brings, may they Be also. 

Namaste