Automatic Pilot

From Menletter April 2004

By Tim Baehr

We work on our spiritual selves, through religious or meditation practices, trying to become better, more aware men. One of the things I work on, for instance, is "right speech," the Buddhist practice of telling the truth, being kind in our speech, and not engaging in gossip and idle chatter.

But if you irritate me enough, you're likely to get an earful of unkind-sounding words. And if I'm embarrassed about something you ask me, you're not likely to get the whole truth out of me. And if you come to me with a juicy bit of gossip . . . well, you get the picture.

How easily diligence slides into laziness, loving-kindness slides into active dislike, compassion slides into stony indifference, moderation slides into gluttony!

What the heck is going on here? And how do I reverse my tendencies to backslide from what I know I should be doing?

One way to look at it is that, if I practice often enough and deeply enough, I'll become so evolved, so aware, that I'll catch myself before I slip.

Another way to look at it is that I'm only human, a sinner after all, and that human nature will always eventually trump the most pious intentions.

The first way seems arduous, perhaps impossible; the second way is just defeatist.

How about another way to look at all this? One word that comes up fairly often in our spiritual seeking is "practice." Meditation practice. Dharma practice. Religious practice.

What happens in the more mundane world of practice? In sports, if you practice enough, you'll eventually get pretty good -- maybe without the underlying talent to achieve pro levels, but still pretty good. When you learned to drive, you probably had a learner's permit and had to go out and practice with Mom or Dad sitting nervously in the passenger seat. If you're a musician, you know that regular practice is vital.

At first, we're usually awkward and make a lot of mistakes -- missed shots, jerky clutch pedal, missed notes. Even when we've gotten pretty good, the practice of the skill takes huge chunks of our concentration.

Then something happens. At some indefinable point, we notice that the skill has become automatic. We may not even be able to identify this point in time and place. Suddenly we don't have to think about technique in making a basket or hitting a baseball, or consciously remember put the turn signal on and check the mirrors before turning, or figure out the fingering for the next note. Things have begun to flow. Yes, there will still be more practicing, but we've crossed some sort of threshold.

Now let's think about spiritual practices. How do we know that a practice is "working"? I'll propose this: A practice "works" when we notice that it has become automatic. Just as we might thoughtlessly make a snide remark about a co-worker, we just as thoughtlessly say something kind -- or at least shut up. A usually unpleasant colleague asks for help and we gladly pitch in, before we can catch ourselves and remember that this is the last person on Earth we'd like to help. Our partner is unhappy about something we did, and we find ourselves listening sympathetically rather than getting huffy or defensive.

Does this work all the time? Of course not. Our aim can go off in sports, or our driving need more conscious attention when we're feeling distracted, or we can lose our touch on the piano. We've heard about the baseball player in a slump who goes "back to the fundamentals" with extra batting practice.

Sometimes we have to go back to the fundamentals in our spiritual practice. Most of us do the "right" thing a good deal of the time. A spiritual practice can make those right things come a bit more frequently, a bit more automatically.