Meditation practice is like piano scales, basketball drills, ballroom dance class. Practice requires discipline; it can be tedious; it is necessary. After you have practiced enough, you become more skilled at the art form itself. You do not practice to become a great scale player or drill champion. You practice to become a musician or athlete. Likewise, one does not practice meditation to become a great meditator. We meditate to wake up and live, to become skilled at the art of living.
Interpretation
Meditation, like any other skill, requires consistent practice for personal growth and understanding of life.
In this quote, Elizabeth Lesser emphasizes that the practice of meditation is akin to mastering any art form or sport, where discipline and regular effort are crucial for improvement. The ultimate goal of meditation isn't to excel at the technique itself but to enhance one's awareness and ability to live fully, highlighting the transformative purpose behind the practice.
In practice
During a mindfulness workshop, this quote can inspire participants to commit to their meditation practice.
Whatever is happening, whatever is changing, whatever is going or not going according to my plans - I release my hold on all of it. I leave behind who I think I am, who I want to be, what I want the world to be. I come home to the great peace of the present moment.
If you're interested in opening the doors to the heavens, start with the door to your own secret self. See what happens when you offer to another a glimpse of who you truly are. When your heart is undefended, you make it safe for whomever you meet to put down his burden of hiding, and then you both can walk through the open door.
Every day we're given a choice: We can relax and float in the direction that the water flows, or we can swim hard against it. If we go with the river, the energy of a thousand mountain streams will be with us . . . if we resist the river, we will feel rankled and tired as we tread water, stuck in the same place.
Grief is an expression that you loved well.
May you listen to the voice within the beat even when you are tired. When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead. May every experience in life be a door that opens your heart, expands your understanding and leads you to freedom.
When we slow down, quiet the mind, and allow ourselves to feel hungry for something that we do not understand, we are dipping into the abundant well of spiritual longing.
Discipline is doing what you are supposed to do in the best possible manner at the time you are supposed to do it.
The tongue like a sharp knife ... Kills without drawing blood.
Our task is to listen to the news that is always arriving out of silence.
Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.
We learned about dignity and decency - that how hard you work matters more than how much you make... that helping others means more than just getting ahead yourself.
"Beauty fades," my father would tell me, "but dumb? Dumb is forever."
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