Drop By Drop

Change happens. It’s happening right now. The fact of impermanence as a fundamental feature of existence is not news, although I forget that fact when I’m stuck in some fixed view. Through continual practice of insight meditation and 30-plus years of Alexander awareness and teaching, I’ve become familiar with how major shifts in habitual thinking and being happen. Sometimes the experience of change feels big and nearly instantaneous, like a chunk of an iceberg breaking off and tumbling to the sea. Letting go occasionally feels like an avalanche.

Mostly though, change happens incrementally, bit by bit. A week ago the shrub outside my window here at my desk had tight little buds. Today there are sweet, small green leaves. Next week they will surround tiny flower buds ready to bloom. Perhaps you’ve noticed these natural changes in the plant beings in your neighborhood. Can you sense the gradual growth and changes in yourself?

Done regularly, insight meditation is powerful medicine that brings healing and restores balance in body and mind. There are times, however, when it feels rather dry and routine, and doubt can slip in. It is typical to become disheartened at some point on a long silent retreat, and it's especially easy to feel discouraged in everyday practice. It can seem like nothing much is changing, that the forces of greed, hatred, and delusion are monolithic, just as strong as ever. In daily life it can seem like habitual reactivity is always operating, even when meditation practice is deep and calm, no matter how sincere the intention to be mindful.

During one long retreat a few years ago, I noticed an image arising over and over again: a drop of water falling on a stone in a river. I understood that awareness was telling me to keep at it, that with each sit or walk, with each breath, I was moving toward liberation. Continuity, discipline, momentum -- bit by bit water wears away the stone. Each drop is as important as every other, each contributes to an eventual change of shape.

The Alexander Technique is like this too. Early lessons are mostly about recognizing what is actually going on, how one is doing things, what habits of movement and tension are present. Once the habits are known, different choices can be made, exploration can begin, new ways of thinking are cultivated. At first this doesn't last very long; habit is strong, and perhaps it is only possible to take a few steps before the old familiar pattern takes over once again. If we can accept that this is the way of it, we will progress in a steady fashion, which leads to thorough and lasting change.

Thus the sage advice to "begin again and again." Each time we choose to perform an action with awareness and ease, not allowing the unconscious habits to dictate our behavior, we are carving out new neural pathways, literally changing the shape of our brains and the ways our system regulates itself and becomes resilient. Over time, the body-mind will recall the open and easy way, and old habits are less likely to interfere. This builds a kind of underpinning that becomes more powerful the more we practice. Sometimes it is then possible to have a big change in a short period of time. The avalanche, the major shift in consciousness or sensory experience just happens, all at once.

Ayya Medhanandi Bhikkhuni describes how this works, in The Dharma of Snow:

"...we need to be able to feel our humanity, to feel our nature from the inside. Not superficially but from within, where the invisible factors of mindfulness, clarity, faith, energy, concentration, and wisdom can dismantle and dissolve years and years of deluded ways of perception, of relating to life. That’s what this practice brings about, given enough patience and diligence and surrendering to the process. It brings about a spiritual transformation. It’s invisible. We don’t know it right away, but after years we begin to see. We see the changes in each other. We see the changes in ourselves. It’s quite remarkable."

I find this essay deeply encouraging, a true validation of my commitment to daily mindfulness practice and to my role as a teacher of the Alexander Technique, as I support the gradual changes that liberate my students from the prison of their unconscious habits. I much prefer complete and lasting change that takes time, over quick changes that disappear like soap bubbles.

Every time we wake up, we wake up a little more. Each time we choose fresh responses and new, clearer ways of moving, we rediscover ease.

So, no discouragement. The bunny munching weeds outside my window, who is just a little bigger today than he was last week, says “no worries. Trust the process.”