The Practice of Practice

A Teaching Story

By Richard Brier, Tiburon, CA

It was very still in the early morning when he went to the park.

His only company was the birds, the gorgeous sky, and the great mountain. He was as regular as the sun, he considered a day without practice a waste of time. For when he practiced he became an ancient sage, a new-born baby, he became as exalted and as humble as the grass. He became a beginning student of the Great Way, he became a lover pursuing his beloved with relentless yearning, he fused with the unfolding moment. And he had practiced this way since he was very young. As a boy he would walk as straight a line as he could. It was a game he played with himself, one step in front of the other, straight and true. And when he played sports, he only cared about the flow of the game. When he shot a basketball, there was the perfect release from the fingertips and the ball going to the sky for a short visit to heaven before descending through the net with the great sound of swish. He had always been delighted by those Zen moments, perfect, effortless and complete.

And when he had been a Ping-Pong champion at age 16 at the Boys Club of America in Brooklyn, New York he had loved the flows of the rallies and hitting the ball just right, just to the intended place with just enough power to spin to win the point. And all of this was why he practiced in the park each morning. What he practiced was modern T’ai Chi which was called “instant energy.” The movements were a simple and a sacred ritual. He moved beautifully and had the grace and power of a torrential river moving in slow motion. Watching him was magical because you could see this energy in him, an almost visible aura released from the confines of the flesh. When people watched him they felt harmonious and released from their burdens. He taught many people. Few practiced alone. It was strange, for they loved to do it with him. They almost all said they were too busy to practice. And that was just the point. Practice is not another thing to do on an endless list.

He thought of it as freedom, a quiet space to breathe, a place to delicately touch the essence of life. He knew that only practice nourishes the deep self at the center of endless activity. So he practiced for the whole world. And he practiced for joy, for love, and for communion. He practiced so that he would remember to remember. The doom of man is that he forgets his own infinite being. For him and all who know its secret, practice is everything and can be done anywhere, either externally in the form or internally in mind-heart. And besides, it was great fun to know that it is all the play of consciousness, the cosmic dance of creation.

When he went to the park it was very still, early in the morning. His only company was the birds, the brilliant sky, and the great mountain. He was a regular as the sun, he considered a day without practice a waste of time.