When I want to practice a piece of music, I play it slowly, with deliberate attention paid to each note, that it be right.

I play the music the way I would always prefer to play it thereafter, with every note in place.

I call this process laying tracks.

 

 

I am laying tracks for the railroad of all that I want to express and channel with this music, and I want to lay the tracks exactly right and perfectly, so that I will never have to pay attention to these tracks again.

 

 

There are two different processes here. There is the process of laying tracks, which means painstakingly teaching your body this music. It is necessary to take time at this so that your body learns everything correctly. This process feels like work, and brain science shows it also enlarges the capacity of the brain. Of course – you are forming new neural pathways.

 

 

So that is one process, the work of painstaking practice that requires your constant attention.

 

Then there is the quite different process of performing, which can be for any size audience, including oneself. Now you are allowing yourself to feel the music, to love its beauty and allow joy to course through you.

 

 

At this moment, you have miles of safe, sound track wired in neurally, thanks to your practice of the first process. You are freed of the worry of making mistakes, of getting anything wrong.

 

Let life imitate music

 

An idea that holds true in music practice will find more universal applicability.  Let life imitate music, as well as it can.

 

 

What is the spiritual equivalent of laying tracks? What is the essential, slow practice we must undertake, if we are at all serious about advancing, about changing ourselves and our present situations?

 

Do you desire change?

 

 

What is the track you must lay, in order to assume that perfect version of yourself, that fully realized, noblest incarnation?

Build in your heart the attributes you want to see manifest in your life.

Do not worry too much about specific situations. You often get carried away, depressed and distracted by situations. You are in the ocean of possibilities. It keeps shifting. Decide where you want to go, and then strike out for it, just as you would if you were in the real ocean. No waves can alter your course.

 

 

Build in your heart the attributes you want to see manifest in your life.  It is for each one to decide what is most important.

When you decide upon an attribute that you want, give it a place in your heart, enshrine it on an altar there, with lilies, in peace and gratitude and love.  Keep coming back to visit it, say its name, thank it for being there. Do this as often as you think of it, every day.

 

 

Tenderness, thank you for your presence in my heart. May you grow and increase and draw more to yourself.  May you always be within me, and me within you. Now that you are in my heart, Tenderness, I can never more think, nor be thought of, without You.

Thank You.

 

This is laying tracks