Practice, Practice, Practice
“The most important thing is not how, where, or even why you practice. The most important thing is that you practice.”
During my first stay at Blue Cliff Monastery,* a Zen Monastery in Pine Bush, NY, I was sitting outside the entrance of the great meditation hall after a 50-minute practice, speaking with a monk my age, Brother Promise. It was a wonderful conversation that extended over an hour, and showed me that he and I were similar in more ways than we were different.**
We compared backgrounds, his growing up outside the city streets of Paris, a childhood filled with alcohol and drug abuse. Mine, a quaint, New York City suburbia occupied by video games and tennis tournaments. Yet here we were, sitting together long after the lights of the meditation hall dimmed, two twenty-eight-year-old men, sharing our gratitude for the gift of breathing.
At one point in the conversation, I asked Brother Promise why he had kneeled in prayer during a portion of the meditation practice. Everyone else practicing, both monks and laymen, were instructed to stand up and had done so. Brother Promise told me that in that moment, that was simply what he felt called to do.
Our conversation evolved to discussing the rules and expectations of Zen practice, and the differing beliefs of other religious and spiritual practices, particularly in prayer and meditation. Five years later, what Brother Promise said still resonates with me.
“The most important thing is not how, where, or even why you practice. The most important thing is that you practice.”
This week’s idea is simple yet profound: the most important part of our practice is that we practice. The internet is full of information about meditation: the benefits, the techniques, the tricks. We spend more time reading books and listening to podcasts about the benefits of meditation than we do sitting on the mat. We don’t need more information; we need more practice.
We live in a thinking world. But to benefit from a mindfulness practice, we must get out of our head and into our body. We must value the act of practicing above all else.
Imagine if, this week, you committed to taking the time you would spend learning about meditation, and instead put that time towards your personal practice?
Imagine if, this week, you spent less time listening to the wisdom on social media and more time listening to your inner wisdom?
Imagine if, this week, you spent more energy on tending to the world within you and less energy on everything happening around you?
I invite you to practice with us tomorrow, Monday 1/9 at 8 pm ET, for our second Meditation Monday of 2023. We will enjoy a ten-minute guided imagery practice. I invite you to choose a place, real or imaginary, that you would like to 'visit,' and write it down in a journal before our session. Zoom link: https://stevens.zoom.us/j/99566082328