Being present

I think I’ve discovered the key to meditation, only by accident. Yesterday evening I went to the music practice rooms to practice piano, and spent an hour playing whatever I felt like. The piano was nice, and I was awake, and it wasn’t crowded and I was in no hurry, and I think that combination of things made me really really focused, more than I’ve been all semester long. I completely forgot what was going on around me and just played. I didn’t play especially well, and an hour isn’t really that long a session, but the focus made it a really great experience. It’s the kind of practice session I wish I could always have, and I imagine people who are really talented/famous musicians (or artists or athletes or whatever) are all really in touch with their own concentration and can do this every day. As for me I’m going to try to work on it more. I always try to, but I think I’m getting better at it now.

I’ve realized for several years now the power of doing this, of focusing all your thoughts and energy on the one task at hand. Pilates taught me this. In Pilates the exercises look deceptively simple, but if you don’t focus on them, first of all you can’t do them, and second there isn’t any point because you won’t be using the right muscles. Pilates requires all your concentration. For this reason you can spend a much shorter time doing Pilates than other exercises, with even better results, and the time spent doesn’t leave you exhausted, rather invigorated. I got the same feeling of awakened energy after piano yesterday. I’ve also read that this was something Audrey Hepburn lived by. Someone said she has truly mastered this art of doing in the moment: if she was getting a haircut, she was getting a haircut, not talking, or reading, or something else. A kind of funny example, but an important one, because it reminds us that it’s not just the obvious things like art or exercise that we should be putting all of ourselves into every time we do them. Confucius said this too, which is why I like Confucius (despite all the much-touted reasons not to like him). He was talking about ritual, specifically elaborate funeral rituals, but his thoughts still apply to everyday life. He was watching funeral rites get more and more ornate, even as the people performing the rites became less and less interested in the emotions that originally prompted the rituals. What is the point of a big show of grief, he asked, if there is no actual grief behind it? If you’re just going through the motions, you’re not doing any good, and in fact you are making things worse by being disrespectful. You’d be better off doing nothing. That’s the way it is for Pilates, and it applies to piano practice too. If you’re just going through the motions without really putting your heart into it, you might as well just stop and go do something you enjoy more, like eating or spending time with loved ones or dancing or something. Life is too short to do things just for the sake of doing them. This is a really big part of my life philosophy, and it’s funny because I’m always finding it again in the most random things. Like fake politeness, which I try never to do. Or chores; since I can’t get away from things like washing dishes I try to find some kind of pleasure in them. Don’t laugh, I know there are certain chores you enjoy doing, not in the same way you like other things of course, but in a way of their own. I find doing laundry relaxing, for instance, though I know my sister hates it. I dislike vacuuming, but if I’m feeling productive and awake, it can actually be kind of fun to make my apartment clean. I know you know what I mean.

I’m getting rambly. Okay, gist of my entry: it’s tough, but whenever possible I believe we should try to really get into what we’re doing instead of just going through the motions. I don’t mean to sound like I always do this, because I don’t. But in an ideal world, this is the way I would spend my life. Getting into what you’re doing doesn’t mean only doing things you like, it means realizing that everything you do constitutes part of your life, the experience of living, and taking it as such.

[This post was imported on 4/10/14 from my old blog at satsumabug.livejournal.com.]