Author Archives: circleofpractice

Deliberately Gentle Practice

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There’s a lot of buzz now about deliberate practice, and rightfully so.  It’s the kind of practice that leads to expertise.

Deliberate practice is goal directed.  It provides the practitioner with feedback: you did this well, you struggled with that.  It focuses on the stuff you struggle with, and consequently it’s difficult.  You do that hard stuff again and again till you get it right. 

I am not an expert.  Don’t get the idea that I’m writing this blog because I am.  I’m writing this blog because I have struggled with practice all of my life, and because I’m convinced nearly everything worthwhile in life comes out of some kind of practice.

When I was young I hated to run.  I would set myself a goal to go out and run five miles, or maybe 40 forty yard wind sprints.  I’d be in agony, and probably not finish.  The next day I’d find a reason not to do it.

When I was in college one of my roommates, a guy who had won the state cross country championship, had a book called The Zen of Running.  I picked it up one day and opened it up to a page that read something like this: “Just go out and run.  Feel the joy of it.  And when you don’t enjoy it anymore, stop.

This one idea totally revolutionized my practice: practice as long as you enjoy it, and when you stop enjoying it, go on to something else.

I began to run – regularly.  Instead of dreading the run, I began to look forward to it.  It was a joyful experience, particularly if it was a bright sunny day.  I would go for a run, and immediately the tensions of the day would begin to melt away.

Now I have never won a race, but I did learn to make running a regular part of my day, a practice.  And my life was much better for it.

Serenity through Practice

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It occurs to me that what this blog is all about is maintaining equanimity in the face of an increasingly chaotic world.  That’s what practice inevitably leads to: a sense of certainty and security that stems from knowing what this day will bring: that is, our practice.

I guess that may not seem like much comfort to someone who may be about to lose their job.  But perhaps we place too much of our happiness in a position contingent upon job outcomes, or job status.

Not that we shouldn’t expect happiness from our work, but that it is rather only a part of our happiness, and our happiness needn’t come to an end just because our job does.

I think you can draw a link between equanimity and certainty of practice.  Maybe the equanimity comes directly from meditation, but I suspect it comes as well from the expectation that, whatever else happens today, I can rest in the knowledge that I Will Do My Practice – and that’s powerful.

It grows in power as we grow in our practice.  As our daisy-chain of days practiced lengthens, so does our expectation of doing the practice and our confidence from having done the practice.

What make the Five Tibetans so powerful for me are not their rigor, not that they make me physically powerful, but rather their very simplicity and ease of accomplishment.  I know that as sure as the sun rises, I can rise to do the rites; and therein lays their power.  They are rigorous enough to keep me healthy, and short and simple enough for me to consistently do them every day.

To the extent that I can develop such a practice in each domain of my life, to that extent I will have an expectation of accomplishment: that the house is neat and clean from having a place for everything, and everything in its place; of emotional equipoise that comes from meditation; of health from yoga and bike riding; of financial health from budgeting, saving, and investing; of mental health from reading, writing, and model building; of spiritual health from reading scripture, prayer, worship, and fellowship; of social health from broadening and deepening connections.

These expectations are what serenity is made of.

Mission

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Practice is the evidence of passion.  It is the path to mastery, to adaptation, and transformation.

Practice is that force in us that is opposite to entropy, to apathy, and to death.

We are dedicated to those who, like us, want to change but struggle with practice.

Our lives have a circular pattern formed by the rotation of a circular earth about its axis, and by the revolution of the earth about a circular sun.  We rise in the morning with the sun, and lay down to sleep with its setting.  And the practices we repeat in the course of a day, in the days of a season, and the seasons of a year determine our destinies over the course of our lives.

Moreover the circles of our friends, family, and coworkers codetermine our conversation, the thoughts of our meditation, and the confidences of our heart.

We seek to bring people together into a circle of practice, to learn from each other how we practice, what we practice, and why.

We believe that from this circle of practice we will lead each other into a new age of well-being and connectedness.