Tag: practice

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My deepest why for practicing

In the courtyard of the Ananda Palo Alto community, back in the day.

I’ve been receiving an increasing number of out-of-the-blue comments from people hoping to hear me play flute more often.

I’m also getting a lot of encouraging feedback about my recent, more regular practice sessions.

Then — to top it all off — I just “happened” to stumble on an old blog post from August 2019, in which I shared something I wrote way back in the early 2000’s, when I was new to Ananda:

“What I want more than anything is to be able to simply be the vehicle for music to course through. I want to be the pipeline and the music the water. And I want to be a wide-open, pure, smooth, silvery pipeline for the sacred water to flow through, not a rusty, corroded, constricted, obstructed pipeline that blocks the flow.”

I can still remember that the inspiration behind writing those thoughts was to more deeply understand (and communicate to others) WHY we need to practice and improve and aspire toward perfection.

Not to impress or to compete or to gratify our ego. But to be an ever more pure channel (or vehicle) for the Divine Flow and, through our ever-deepening attunement, to eventually merge into oneness with that flow of the Divine.

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An overall productive day

This morning we had a garden consultation, while sitting with our friends (landscaper and wife) on the patio enjoying coffee and treats.

I learned which plants need to go into the ground, which ones need fertilizing in the spring, how we could make our already beautiful view even better, and — yay! — I finally have the perfect location (and reason) to plant some jasmine.

This afternoon we took part in a lovely satsang at Chandi ashram house for the current crop of karma yogis.

Each person shared how they came onto the spiritual path, then we spent time chanting. It was quite the international group, as the karma yogis originally hail from Germany, Turkey, Russia, China, and India!

I came home in the early evening and — for the fourth day in a row — I practiced. It’s really quite remarkable, but I even downloaded a metronome app and used it as I did honest-to-goodness long tones.

I hardly recognize myself!

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Talent

“Talent is a pursued interest. Anything that you’re willing to practice, you can do.” Bob Ross

I didn’t even know who Bob Ross was but I really resonated with this quote when I happened upon it earlier today.

What I know from (often bitter) experience is that what we often think of as “talent” can end up being more of a curse than a blessing.

Why?

Well, first of all, it makes it a lot easier for the ego to convince you that you’re “special” because you’re so “talented”…and down that road lies all kinds of pitfalls and potential suffering.

It also makes it harder to learn discipline and even how to practice. After all, if it all comes “easy” in the early stages of playing an instrument you might begin to think that you really are “hot stuff” — having fun and receiving lots of “strokes” — without ever establishing a solid foundation on which to build. There can even be a subtle sense of expecting something for nothing, and that never bodes well for the long run!

The end result is an all too common tendency to get a skewed perspective that’s essentially backwards, where we take credit for being talented, while downplaying the hard work aspect. The truth is that the only thing we CAN take credit for is the energy and effort we put out. We absolutely can NOT take credit for our “talent” or for the qualities and attributes that make us good at something.

I mean, does a professional basketball player take credit for the fact that he’s 7 ft tall? I hope not! But he can certainly take credit for the hours spent learning and then perfecting the skills necessary to excel at his sport.

Over the years of my career as a classical flutist, I came to envy my less “talented” friends; the ones who gained a reputation for their work ethic, plugging away in the practice room and simply getting the job done.

As I learned to be more like them, I developed and refined my skills to where I was eventually able to do a lot more with those unique abilities that I had been blessed with…which ended up being the best of both worlds!