Came across the following quote in Shunryu Suzuki’s book, Not Always So (page 113), where he says:

Let things work as they do… Real practice has orientation or direction, but it has no purpose or gaining idea, so it can include everything that comes. Whether it is good or bad doesn’t matter.

While he is specifically referring to Zen Buddhism, it seems that if you take the word practice in a general sense, it contains a very interesting idea.

He calls this idea “purposeless purpose,” but this idea goes against my upbringing.

You see, I’ve always been big on self-improvement. Granted, I’ve never been so foolish as to purchase lifetime memberships at a spa across town, or even buy on of those exercise machines… you know, the kind out in your garage right now? It seems almost impossible to not think about some end goal or reward to anything we attempt to do. But I can see the merit is abandoning the future goal…

Think of those young kids who spend more energy on dreaming of being on stage and in reforming their bands than on practicing their instruments. If the artist paints as a form of personal expression as opposed to get her work displayed, the art becomes true.

But even though I started yoga and meditation without any particular goal, and have attempted to leave it at that. I’m seldom that successful. I often get up off of my cushion and think, “That was a pretty good session,” or worse, “that wasn’t very good… I’ll have to work on doing this thing next time.”

Excuse me, I just have to go sit for a while.