Learning Isn’t the Same as Growing
Learning does not make you wiser if you never implement what you learn, which is why moving from course to course feels like growth while nothing actually changes.
Dandapani shows how to practise concentration inside the day you already have, using the two hours he spends talking with his wife as training in undivided attention. He explains the model he was taught as a monk, that you are awareness moving through areas of the mind, and then takes on the appetite for quick fixes and endless learning without practice.
What this talk covers
- One way to practise concentration is doing one thing at a time, so he gives his wife his undivided attention during the roughly two hours a day they speak, which becomes two hours of daily practice.
- As monks they were taught that you are not the mind but pure awareness moving through different areas of the mind, so the mind does not move, the awareness does.
- He defines concentration as the ability to keep awareness on one thing for an extended period until he consciously chooses to move it, and when it drifts to a client or a contract he brings it back, again and again.
- His teacher taught him one small thing at a time over ten years as a relentless practice: understand how it works, learn how to practise it, then repeat it until it is second nature, and never say you have got it, because if he is telling you again there is a reason.
- People move from course to course and mistake learning for maturing, but learning does not make you wiser unless you implement it, and the self-help industry is happy to keep selling to people who never practise the first thing they were taught.
Learning doesn't make you wiser if you don't implement anything that you're learning.Dandapani
Questions
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Do one thing at a time and give people your undivided attention. He speaks with his wife around two hours a day, keeps his awareness on her, and brings it back each time it drifts, which is two hours of concentration practice built into a day he was already living.
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He defines it as the ability to keep your awareness on one thing for an extended period of time until you consciously choose to move it to something else.
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He is asked this everywhere and says no. He spent ten years learning it one small thing at a time, first understanding how it works, then practising it repeatedly until it became second nature.
Transcript
1,016 words · 5:19
Give me some ideas of how you would practice concentration throughout the day. Or is there something that you can teach where people can take it and apply it themselves through this podcast? Yeah, for sure.
So one thing, you know, I tell people to the one way I tell people to practice concentration is doing one thing at a time. So giving someone your undivided attention is a great way to practice concentration. So every day I speak with my wife, right?
It's something that happens every day. So during she has own business, I have my own business. So during an average workday, I might speak with her maybe for about two hours, a little bit in the morning.
During the day, she might call me, I might chat with her and then she comes home at night. We have dinner together. We make dinner. We hang out.
We talk. So just say an hour and a half to two hours. Every time I speak with my wife, I give her my undivided attention. My awareness drifts away.
I bring my awareness back to her and I stay focused on that conversation. So now I'm practicing concentration for two hours a day. So now I've got two hours, I've clocked in two hours a day. So after a week, when am I getting better at concentration?
So I'm leveraging the things that are happening throughout the day as opportunities to practice concentration. Interesting. It sounds so simple, but makes perfect sense.
You have to share with us how you were taught this. give this great analogy of how the mind works with awareness. You have to share that because I think that's a powerful analogy for people trying to figure this out.
Like, okay, it's just not that simple. I focus on my wife, but then I'm actually thinking about other things that happen in my day. Yeah.
So one of the big things, and you can hear that in my TEDx talk too, I talk about understanding the mind, the way we were trained as monks is that the two things we need to understand is the mind and there's awareness. And you're not the mind, rather you're pure awareness moving through different areas
of the mind. So your mind doesn't move, rather your awareness is moving through the mind. So when I'm speaking with my wife, if I'm getting distracted, it's my awareness that's leaving her and it's moving to a different area of the mind.
I might be thinking about a client or a contract I need to sign or a business opportunity, and then I bring my awareness back to her. We keep chatting for a minute and then my awareness drifts away again and I bring my awareness back.
So I define concentration as my ability to keep my awareness on one thing for an extended period of time until I can consciously choose to move it to another thing. So if I'm speaking with you, I give you my undivided attention. I keep my awareness on you.
Every time it drifts away, I bring it back. It drifts away, I bring it back, and I train myself. And I think that's where people in today's world, I feel so many people are lazy and they want a quick fix.
Because everything that's being sold to them is a quick fix. You only need to do so many hours before you get certified as a yoga teacher. You can come to the weekend course to enlightenment. That's a one week seminar to understand mind-body connection.
I'm like, what BS? Obviously, I'm not ripped like you guys, but if I wanted to look like you guys, can you give me a weekend course to be like this? No.
How long would it take? Two weekend courses. We're selling them at mind pump media.com. Spire program.
$2.99, but if you use this code. No, you're absolutely right, 100%. Right, and people don't want to do the work. Everybody wants a quick fix.
I just came back from Europe last week at some events in London and Munich in Hamburg. Common question, people ask. So can you share with me a really quick way on how I can learn to concentrate? Why is it always a quick way?
Yeah. I have 10 years of my life learning this and the way my teacher taught me was just like wax on wax off just one little thing at a time. A relentless practice.
First you understand how it works. Then you learn how to practice it and then you just repeat that mindlessly till it becomes numb. And you never ever say I know and everybody I teach, the one thing they all say to me
they look at me, okay I got it. I'm like, bullshit, you got it. You know, you know. Because whenever my teacher taught me, I just listened,
and I just shut up, and I said, no. If he's telling me again, there's a reason why he's telling me again, because I don't understand it yet. Because if he knew I understood it,
he wouldn't tell it to me again. And there's something deeper to learn, and you just keep learning the same thing, and everybody wants new things, right?
They're tired. It's like, I'm done with part one. Can you give me part two? What's next?
And people on this crazy learning, you know, it becomes like cocaine. Everybody wants to learn, but nobody practices anything. And they think by learning something, you actually maturing or becoming wiser. No, learning doesn't make you wiser if you don't implement anything that you're learning.
So people are going from one cost to another, to another, to another. And then people in my industry, the self-help industry, that's how they make the money. Right? You keep selling your shit over and over again, and you just keep buying, and you think you're
learning and growing, but you're not. Because you don't even practice the first thing you do. You're taught.