In our fast-paced world, the mantra is often “faster is better.” Medication is fast acting, delivery is same day, exercise promises results in 6-weeks or less, jobs tout opportunities for rapid advancement. In this environment we can lose site of the fact that many great things simply take time to achieve. In this post, let’s consider an example of this principle. from the mindfulness tradition, including yoga, martial arts, and meditation.
Why It’s Called A Yoga, Martial Arts, Or Meditation Practice
Mindfulness has deep roots in Asian culture and religion, notably Hinduism and Buddhism. As such, we also encounter its influence in activities like yoga, martial arts, and meditation. The concept of taking a long time to develop and master is baked into these activities, which is why you’ll often hear them referred to as “practices.” And what is the power of this approach?
- Building Consistency/Discipline
Meditation is something that takes a lot of practice. The first time you do it, you will find your mind wanders frequently or even races. However, the more times you do it, the more you practice returning your attention back from these wanderings. What is absolutely critical to understand in this early phase is that there is no shortcut. There is no lesson to learn or teacher to seek out. The failing to stay focused is the point, and you must simply do it again and again with a one-foot-in-front-of-the-other attitude. That is what works, and nothing else. It also leads to the next benefit:
- Building Tolerance
If you are like most people in our culture, when your mind is racing you feel either a sense of anxiety, a sense of frustration, or both. This is why meditating can be uncomfortable. However, as noted above, there is no way around this experience. If you wish to build your mindfulness through a meditation practice you must simply tolerate these feelings in the beginning. Paradoxically, the more you learn to tolerate your mind wandering and the feelings that go along with it, the less your mind will do it. Put another way, the more you fail at mediation, the better you get. Which is what leads to our next benefit:
- Building Openness/Willingness To Try
In America, we often think of the end point of an endeavor and work backwards. No one starts learning the guitar in order to play it badly, they learn it so they can be awesome. Activities rooted in mindfulness emphasize the value of being in the moment without judgement. This allows you to be in the activity, letting it take you where it will. There is tremendous freedom there, and it can broaden your openness to more experience as a person, professional, or whatever. Yoga is fabulous for this, as it puts you into bodily positions that are foreign and asks you to stay there for a long time, discovering sensations and then finding your way to new ones. This takes us to a final benefit:
- Building Depth/Attention To Detail; AKA Mastery
When you are present, thinking about what is happening now rather than what you want to have happen in the future, you notice more. This can have huge benefits. In martial arts this helps to improve technique, putting you in touch with the nuances that make the difference between an amateur and a master. The same idea can apply to any sport, where the difference between making the goal or missing can be a very fine detail.
What each of the above points have in common is that it takes time. In fact, it’s the waiting that is the point. There are benefits that are intrinsic to letting something unfold slowly that can’t be replicated with shortcuts.