Train your brain

 ​Ask a realtor the best way to invest in real estate and they will say​ what matters is​ location, location, location. Ask a comedian what the secret is to good comedy they will say timing.  A chef will tell you the secret to a good meal is to use the best ingredients.  

If you ask a meditator what the secret is to a quiet mind, or a yogi what the secret is to their peace of mind, they will tell you "steady, consistent practice over a long period of time" (Yoga Sutras 1:12, 2:28) is the key to success. 

Th​is secret ingredient is probably why so few people have a quiet, peaceful mind!  I was intrigued by the title of this article, "Spiritual Bootcamp for Brain Health" by John Douillard.  It is a short article, and in it you will read about some practical and measurable side effects of spiritual practice​. These benefits may inspire you want to do a spiritual practice. ​​What do we do ​with this​ inspiration? The word Bootcamp, to me, implies ​really ​hard work​.  If you follow through with the work, you get results.  If you don't, you won't.  It is really that simple.  Location, timing, ​good ingredients, and consistency.  Those are the ​components of ​an effective Spiritual Bootcamp.  (Here is another interesting short article about training your mind)

It is hard to stay​ as​ dedicated as ​needed to get the results on your own.  The camp part of bootcamp suggests community.  Don't get upset with yourself when you can't do it on your own. It is not really expected that you do ​this independently at first.  You need guidance, constant inspiration, and the important thing is, you need to know HOW to do it​ because​ the sequence of steps is important, and can vary depending on the person.

I would like to relate a quick story to illustrate what I wrote above.  Our family got a dog in September. This is a new thing for me, I never had a dog before and so didn't know much about training one.  We did some reading, enrolled him in doggie kindergarten, and tried as best as we could to follow what we learned.  We found it hard to stay consistent, but fortunately our guy is well behaved and cooperative.  However the one thing we didn't ​master was how to call the pup back if he ran off after a deer in the woods, which happens to be his favorite pastime.  It is also a scary one, because sometimes the deer runs across a street, or far enough into the woods that we lose track of ​him. We made up some stuff to try to get him to listen, and the three of us did different things, and you guessed it, ​it wasn't work​ing​.  I mentioned something to a client of mine, who happens to ​be a dog train​er and she pointed me to a printed resource that I purchased. I made the whole family study it.  Poe t​he pup was grounded for 3 weeks while we all p​racticed the protocol for ​"​reliable recall​"​.  The pamphlet (which to me was like the yoga sutras of dog training) was explicit- you must do it this way for a long period of time.  Each step was outlined.  ​If it doesn't work the author wrote you needed to reread the pamphlet and do it again because you missed some steps. We followed it, and bam! it worked.  ​We know that we have to stay diligent and practice in between walks, and that we still need to reread the pamphlet.  We can see when he starts to falter.  This is not a one time thing​, he is growing and maturing, and he forgets, and sometimes desire to run over rides his current level of training.  Just like the mind and meditation, the training needs to evolved along with the practitioner if peace is desired. There are just too many distractions and enticements in this world of form, whether they are deer running in the woods, or fretting over an old story. ​