Training Day 19 of 71: A Practice Takes Practice

Today was one of those days that I really didn't feel like running the measly 3 miles on my training schedule. I was troubled by a minor ache in my inner knee and felt this could be a legitimate excuse to put off my jaunt around Beverly Hills Adjacent. That's what happens after a while. The newness wears off and it's just about getting up and doing it again. And that's why it's a practice. And supposedly that is when it starts to work on you.

A spiritual practice is essentially a tool to overcome the limitations of the mind. It is a structure that we create to stabilize ourselves, and discipline the constant mental noise that pushes us every which way if we allow it to reign. Whether we approach the practice with enthusiasm or begrudge it, it can still do its work. It can still provide the container for transformation. As long as we keep showing up.

Charlotte Joko Beck is a Zen teacher and author of Everyday Zen wherein she says, "Our practice is to die slowly, step by step, gradually disidentifying with wherever we're caught in. If we're caught anywhere we have not died. If we need approval, we haven't died. If we need power, if we need to have a certain position, if it's not okay with us to do the most menial job, we haven't died. If we need to be seen in a particular way, we haven't died. If we want to have things our way, we haven't died... As we identify ourselves with less and less, we can include more and more in our lives."

Perhaps this seems like a far cry from my measly 3 mile morning run, but I swear it's related. The point is to not listen to that little voice telling you all the reasons you can't or shouldn't. Disidentify with that controlling little slob of a whiner that always has a judgment or a reason not to engage in the present moment and not to follow through on your commitments to yourself. The point is to just do it. Not because you feel like it. Or because it'll give you something you want. Just because it's your practice. Let that be enough.

So I ran all the way up La Jolla to Melrose and it was, of course, quite nice. And then I went to Kate's Vinyasa Flow class at liberation (see the little treasures from the Liberation garden in photo above), and that too, was a very sound decision. Plus my knee doesn't hurt anymore. Onward.