Practicing Your Scales
October 19, 2006
Developing skill as a meditator is very similar to developing skill as a musician. You start out with the scales—say you’re learning the piano—and you want to play beautiful music, but they have you playing these dumb scales and it can be pretty boring. But if you don’t stick with the scales, you can’t play the music. Over time, as you develop your ear, you begin to realize that there really is a skill to running your fingers up those notes. One of the signs of a really good pianist is his ability to make his runs sound like water, totally effortless—and yet a lot of effort goes into getting there.