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Writer's pictureSteve Ehrenreich

Searching For Strength

Updated: Nov 4, 2022

Natural as it might be Integrated Strength lies dormant in most of us, simply an unutilized part of our potential. Dis-covering Integrate Strength therefore requires a perspective of searching, of performing our training activities ‘in search of’ that integration.


Applying a searching perspective helps us to avoid some mental traps that interfere with getting results in our training.


Mindless Repetition


Staying in searching mode helps us to avoid the trap of mindless repetition.


Mindless repetition is the dutiful practice of an exercise the same way over and over with the expectation of different results. I see this very often in standing practice, this idea that if I stand there long enough something will happen. I will earn achievement with effort alone. If I practice long enough I deserve to get it. Bollocks.


We want to perform our exercises from the perspective of active observer. Passive repetition doesn't cut it. We are searching for a changes in feeling state. Once we create it, we learn to re-create it reliably until we no longer need the trick to conjure it up.


No amount of repeating the exercise wrong is going to make it feel right. You have to find the right way. To find something you must set your intent to search for it.


Hard work pays off when its applied in the right places. More time training, more repetitions more dedication is great, is required if you want to get good at anything. Repetition is not a bad thing, mindless repetition is. In searching mode you may do 1000 repetitions of a technique yet each would be independently observable as unique because of its particular combination of variations. That is the aspirational goal anyway


Projection


Taking a searching perspective prevents us from projecting our own incorrect or incomplete ideas onto our practice.

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2 Comments


johnz
Dec 17, 2021

Thanks for that. I'm currently trying to build a sitting meditation into my daily practice, and this article explains just how I should go about it - albeit then as a 'passive' observer ?

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Steve Ehrenreich
Steve Ehrenreich
Dec 17, 2021
Replying to

I think the ability to have both passive and active versions of the practice that mutually reinforce one another is the model to consider.

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