The second way to understand how practice works is that the very practice itself deconditions the mind from its habitual pattern of running from discomfort. One sits (or stands or walks or eats or whatever), hour after hour, practicing remaining calm and alert through the whole range of body and mind states that present themselves—all the while not doing anything to change experience but rather discovering that experience is bearable. Thus one comes to see that the practice itself is an antidote to the usual flurried reaction of the mind to each new moment.
