Technique…

“We should develop if we could, a new vocabulary. it’s very difficult in the context of our competitive world, to speak about things like this. to bring about the idea of doing something which is not acquisitive; which you’re not going to get anything out of, because there’s no one to get anything.  When you understand what i’ve been talking about, about there being no experiencer separate from experience then there’s no one to get anything out of life, or to get anything from meditation..

So we have here a sort of law of reversed effort. You must therefore understand that as a background to anything said about technique. because whenever we talk about technique, we seem to be talking about the competitive thing. mastery. the idea of “mastery of technique.” but on the other hand, if you play a musical instrument, technique is very important in the making of a satisfactory sound… but if you force the learning of technique, or force the performance of it, everyone will hear it, and you will hear the forcing of it yourself. and it will be unmusical.

And so, you have to address yourself to the playing of an instrument without hurry, and never, never force anything. and you will find there is a point then, where the instrument seems to play itself. and when you get that peculiar feeling of the sound that is coming out of a flute, or a violin string, or whatever, is as it were, happening of itself… then you’re playing the instrument properly.”

~Alan Watts