The Practicing Mind: Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life Master Any Skill or Challenge by Learning to Love the Process

by Thomas M. Sterner

We all want to be happy and have ideal lives, but what constitutes right and wrong is neither universal nor constant.

First we must become aware of exactly when we are involved in the process of judging. Since most of us judge all the time, we don’t have to wait long for our first chance to observe ourselves participating in this exhausting act. And then we have a special opportunity: the chance to meet a quiet, nonjudging presence at the heart of all our beings.

We must work at being more objectively aware of ourselves. We cannot refine any part of our daily thought processes if we are not separate from those processes. At first, this seems to be a confusing concept to grasp, but with the slightest shift in perception, it becomes clear. If you are aware of anything you are doing, that implies that there are two entities involved: one who is doing something, and one who is aware of or observing you do it. If you are talking to yourself, you probably think you are doing the talking. That seems reasonable enough, but who is listening to you talk to yourself? Who is aware that you are observing the process of an internal dialogue? Who is this second party who is aware that you are aware? The answer is your true self. The one who is talking is your ego or personality.

When you are aligned with your true self, you are immune to other people’s behaviors. When you feel that someone is acting inappropriately toward you, that feeling comes from a judgment of the ego. From the perspective of the Observer, you find yourself just watching that person’s ego rant and rave while you listen quietly and unaffected.

When you decide to engage your practicing mind in any activity, you are evoking this alignment with the Observer. The ego is subjective. It judges everything, including itself, and it is never content with where it is, what it has, or what it has accomplished. The Observer is objective, and it is here in the present moment. It does not judge anything as good or bad. It just sees the circumstance or action as “being.” In other words, the circumstance “just is.” Thus the Observer is always experiencing tranquility and equanimity.

When a friend or family member falls short of something they considered an important goal, we console them with a detached wisdom that we don’t apply to ourselves.

“Do, Observe, Correct.”

They drew the bow, they released the arrow, they observed the result, and then they made corrections for the next shot. They do, they observe, they correct. There is no emotion in any of this. There are no judgments. It is simple and stress-free, and you can’t argue with their technique because, for many years, they dominated the sport.

It’s tiring at first. Remember, you are breaking an unwanted habit in how you deal with problems.

Soon the enjoyment that you experience from staying in the present moment will make hitting the target smack in the middle irrelevant.

“Here’s where the fun begins.”

Kids basically want a sense of security, lots of free time, and experiences that are fun and free from stress. Do adults want anything different?

To me, the reason to work at all that I have been discussing in this book is obvious. It raises my level of control over my life and allows me to choose a path that is filled with more ups than downs. It makes me live in the present and brings happiness and peace to whatever I do in the ever-present moment. It both makes me aware that I am a conscious choice-maker and empowers me with the privilege to make the choice.

Children have much to offer because we can learn from them if we listen to ourselves as we teach them.

With deliberate and repeated effort, progress is inevitable.

This knowledge commands us to stay in the present moment, which brings awareness to all that we do. This awareness gives us the opportunity to take control of the choices we make. It teaches us to stay focused on the process and use our goals as stars to guide our course. When we make staying focused on the process our real goal, we experience a sense of success in every moment. Even when we feel we have fallen out of our focus on the process, the fact that we are aware of the fall means that we have come back into the present moment.

If you look at most of the things that we make our daily priorities, you will notice that in times of personal crisis, they seem insignificant. And in these moments, by contrast, things that we usually pay little attention to become everything to us. Our health and the health of our family and friends, and who or what we feel the Creative Force is, become our sole priorities,

You can eliminate a certain amount of this distraction by carefully choosing what you expose yourself to in the way of media, be it TV, music, or reading material. If it doesn’t enrich you, then you don’t need it.