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Back to Zen: Stop Trying to Quiet Your Mind | Henry Shukman, with Henry Shukman.

How Does Practice Become a Flow State?

Henry Shukman says flow states might be some kind of preparatory training. A musician already knows how to practice: do the same thing again and again and slowly, gradually make it second nature. Getting to know flow starts in that repetition.

Doing exactly the same thing every day for 10 years suddenly feels easy. The skill has become second nature. The person is on a kind of autopilot, doing it better than ever, with a clarity of mind and a richness in the experience. Baseball players, basketball players, and football players know the same shift.

Music and athletics are not required. Any kind of habitual task works the same way. As the person gets better and the practice skills come together, the person hits moments of being on cruise and in the zone.

Grokipedia·Henry Shukman

Transcript

Zen: Stop Trying to Quiet Your Mind | Henry Shukman ·

The Kevin Rose Show

More from this episode

  1. What Did Suzuki Roshi Teach About Monkey Mind?Henry Shukman says Suzuki Roshi, who wrote Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, taught a different way to meet monkey mind.
  2. Why Does the Great Way Dislike Choosing?Henry Shukman says the great way is the great reality, one single whole that excludes nothing. It has no size.
  3. What Is the Backward Step in Zen?Henry Shukman says the backward step in Zen is disengaging from outward activity.
  4. What Does Rumi Mean by Come Back?Henry Shukman says Rumi's call to come back, in the translation by Coleman Barks, means returning to now after the mind has wandered off.
  5. What Was Henry Shukman's Awakening Like?Henry Shukman had an awakening as a youth, far from home, so complete that he felt he could die that night because his life had already been fulfilled.
  6. How Can Someone Walk and Still Go Nowhere?Henry Shukman says a student who declared that Bodhidharma never took a step seems to have found a reality where there is nowhere to go.
  7. Would Kevin Rose Rather Fly the Plane?Kevin Rose would rather fly the plane than ride as a passenger, silly as that sounds. Needing to know shows up as a preference for control.

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