The other day, in the middle of a conversation about something else, my buddy Coyotebanjo described several of his primary activities – playing music, teaching, and doing musicology, and even blogging – as “practices.” He said “Those are my practices.”
This got me to thinking. How do we define our activities as “practice?” Coyotebanjo’s view is quite different from the way many of us look at practice. For musicians, especially, “practice” can become something that the reality of everyday life seems to keep us from doing anywhere near as much as we’d like. “If I didn’t have so many damned students, I’d have time to practice.” (What is wrong with this picture?) The same goes for spiritual practice: how many of us attempt to meditate, only to find that we blow it off regularly because “life” got in the way? This definition of “practice” seems to be something that is only allowed to us as a reward. It’s reserved for a special activity of some kind, exclusive of our other activities. “You can practice your violin when your taxes are done.” “You can meditate after the laundry is folded or the article is edited.”
The word "practice," according to Merriam-Webster, came into the English language through a long convoluted path from the Greek praktikos, through its Latin and Middle French equivalents, to the Middle English practisen. Leaving out literary or archaic usages, as a transitive verb, practice means 1) to carry out, or apply; or 2) to perform or work at repeatedly so as to become proficient, or to train by repeated exercises. As an intransitive verb, it means 1) to do repeated exercises for proficiency; 2) to pursue a profession actively; 3) to do something customarily.
But there is a way of using the word “practice” that Merriam-Webster does not include. The dictionary definition includes brushing one’s teeth and learning how to tie one’s shoes. These are important activities, obviously, but there is an additional meaning we give to the word practice when it is applied to something that we “do customarily” or “perform or work at repeatedly” in order to create meaning in our lives, or to improve a skill that is edifying to us in some sort of meaningful, internally resuscitating or nurturing way. These are the sorts of practices that we punish ourselves by blowing off – but in fact, in Coyotebanjo’s world, these are not regarded as “special” – this kind of practice is what you do, because there is nothing more important, frankly, than creating meaning in your life. And why does it have to be limited to one thing? It’s ALL the things you choose to do on a regular basis because those activities have meaning to you or create meaning for you.
Does your work have meaning to you? Then it’s a practice. Does gardening have meaning to you? Then you bet it’s a practice. Anything you do. Maybe you do yoga, take a morning walk, bird-watch, say your TM mantra, recite nam myoho renge kyo, read the Bible, Koran, Torah, Heart Sutra, whatever you do that creates meaning for you, and hopefully for those around you. It doesn’t have to exclude “work.” Maybe you bring people’s mail to them every day. Maybe you make food for people every day. Maybe you manage other people’s money, or process their health insurance claims. Can this be meaningful? Can it be a practice? Would your life be better, and have more meaning, if your “job” were a practice?
To that end, it’s also worth considering that all our practices work in tandem with each other. For example, it’s much easier to make your “job” a practice when you’ve meditated that morning, even for 10 minutes. It’s much easier to make a performing for people a meaningful “practice” if you’ve “practiced” the technical stuff enough so that it’s not getting in your way and making you crazy on stage.
There are ways to sabotage any kind of practice, of course, as I know only too well. It’s very easy to strip the meaning out of even the most potentially rewarding activities. With apologies to Merriam-Webster, here are some “anti-definitions” of practice:
1) to perform or work at repeatedly so as to reward one’s self for previously having completed every other obligation in one’s life for a 52-week period.
2) to perform or work at repeatedly so as to punish ones’ self for a) sucking so badly at one’s instrument / sport / other skill; b) having an uncontrollable monkey-mind.
3) to pretend to perform or work repeatedly at something while staring into space / cruising the internet.
4) to perform or work at repeatedly so as to become more bad-ass than any other person who does the same activity.
5) to perform or work at repeatedly so that we will be loved and admired by mommy, daddy, teachers, partners, critics, Jesus, Buddha, God, and a variety of anonymous, emotionally-threatening entities created by our minds.
I realized recently that the single biggest impediment to my practice – both musical and spiritual – is a lack of conviction that such activity would “do any good.” When I tried to unpack the “do any good” part, I discovered that it really meant “a lack of conviction that such activity would result in a state of technical perfection / enlightenment.” What rubbish! How silly our minds are. (A therapist might say my, my, did we have some parents with extremely high expectations of their little darling? Time to get over it.)
I’ve decided I need to come up with a definition of practice that will work for me. To that end, I humbly offer a two-part combo-definition of meaningful practice.
1) to perform or work at something repeatedly and mindfully so as to create meaning in one’s life
2) to perform or work at something repeatedly and mindfully without any expectation of results.
Please note: I didn’t say there wouldn’t BE any results – I said don’t expect them. This is a very, very important distinction. If you don’t include part 2 of the definition, then I guarantee that all those anti-definitions are going to creep up and bite you.
A Zen teacher once said that every day we must "show up for the impossible." Perhaps this is the very definition of practice.
