What are skills? Should they be defined as the certain attributes that keep humans alive? Are they specialized abilities that take years of training to obtain a goal? Can people just empty their minds and master a skill without effort? Being skillful is something that first begins as an act that requires constant thought, but as one progresses the thought of a person’s actions become less necessary in order to complete the task. As soon as one gets to the point of mastery, the need for focusing on perfecting actions falls to the wayside and allows for mindlessness in the activity. Zhuangzi believed that the mastery of skills does not include thought, but rather it is the acting instinctively that one drops everything and the path will just
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These skilled workers have mastered their skill through training and learning about their art so that they can act without needing to think. While it may seem that the minds of these talented people are teeming with knowledge, it is that they are completely empty and have achieved a still mind. A still mind is where there are no thoughts raging, where the correct path is already laid out for one to walk upon without any trouble. As with Francisco Varela he believed that when one enters is engaging in an action then one’s consciousness fades and allows for that person to master a skill and becomes completely empty (Varela, 1999). Becoming empty is the best way to learn how to master any skill and learning how to become empty is the foremost skill that is needed to live the best kind of …show more content…
Ignoring both worrying about failures and seeking pleasure from successes in activities allows for the path to become sharper and can help begin the process of emptying the mind. If a person gorges themselves on either of these kinds of thinking, then they are not masters of their craft yet. Artists and Musicians can only master their craft when they work spontaneously and do not perceive any sign of trouble as complex, but rather as another walk along the path. Emptying the mind is one of the most difficult skills that anyone could try to attempt and it take hundreds of hours of practice just to have an inkling on the emptiness of the mind, but once a person gets to that level of emptiness, than any kind of skill becomes possible to master and the path towards a good life
These skilled workers have mastered their skill through training and learning about their art so that they can act without needing to think. While it may seem that the minds of these talented people are teeming with knowledge, it is that they are completely empty and have achieved a still mind. A still mind is where there are no thoughts raging, where the correct path is already laid out for one to walk upon without any trouble. As with Francisco Varela he believed that when one enters is engaging in an action then one’s consciousness fades and allows for that person to master a skill and becomes completely empty (Varela, 1999). Becoming empty is the best way to learn how to master any skill and learning how to become empty is the foremost skill that is needed to live the best kind of …show more content…
Ignoring both worrying about failures and seeking pleasure from successes in activities allows for the path to become sharper and can help begin the process of emptying the mind. If a person gorges themselves on either of these kinds of thinking, then they are not masters of their craft yet. Artists and Musicians can only master their craft when they work spontaneously and do not perceive any sign of trouble as complex, but rather as another walk along the path. Emptying the mind is one of the most difficult skills that anyone could try to attempt and it take hundreds of hours of practice just to have an inkling on the emptiness of the mind, but once a person gets to that level of emptiness, than any kind of skill becomes possible to master and the path towards a good life