Dasuke recommended a book to me titled "The Mind Illuminated," which is about meditation. It's available online for free. Here's a site where you can read it. A lot of it feels super relatable to Mahjong, and it resonates with me quite a bit. For example, the "Six-Point Preparation for Meditation" on pages 70~74 feels quite useful. The paragraph beginning at the end of page 43 and continuing on to page 44 is also relatable.
He only recommended this to me a few days ago, so I haven't had much practice with it. But, that's what I'll be working on. Trying to stay diligent and focused, and trusting in the methods. To that end, I've created a schedule for myself, both to work in consistent meditation times and consistent Mahjong times. Here's my plan for October.
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Diligence and focus have been big problems for me, both inside the game and out. In that meditation book, pages 86~88, all apply to me when it comes to playing Mahjong. Then, in game, I won't play to my fullest ability. My mind will wander, I'll skip thinking about whether I should fold and just push, stuff like that. My hope is that by training my attention with meditation, that will transfer over to my Mahjong play, too. And, by following a schedule, I hope to start integrating Mahjong more regularly into my schedule, and fulfill more of the initial promise.
Another book Dasuke recommended was "The Little Book of Talent," which I haven't read yet. I ordered it, and it'll arrive tomorrow, so I'll talk about it in my next update if I find it useful. I need something to fill that Reading block of my schedule, after all.
Also, next month is November, which means NaNoWriMo. For November, I'll be swapping the Mahjong cells of my schedule with Writing cells. I might still play some in my free time, we'll see. I'm going to do my best to complete NaNoWriMo, so the blog will take a break during November. I'll update you on my Mahjong progress and how this whole schedule thing worked on October 31st. Spooky.
Anyway, check out that book! Try meditating for a few weeks! Maybe it'll help you. Hopefully I'll have something substantial to post about next time.
Thanks for the post, always interesting to read.
ReplyDeleteDo you find the schedule restrictive ? Like there are evenings when you want to do literally anything but mahjong, or sometimes you're really up for it at a time of day when you're supposed to be doing something else ?
There are some things about the schedule I've changed since. I added an extra half hour to each day, since I found I was getting over-rested with the amount of sleep currently scheduled. I also expanded the weekday free time block to one hour, since half an hour didn't really feel like enough time to do something substantial.
DeleteThe thing about wanting to do other things is, usually the things I want to do are really not productive at all. I'll usually just scroll through subreddits or watch reaction or cooking videos on YouTube. There are sometimes days where I hate mahjong (I feel like everyone gets these now and then), and those feelings persist for a while, so I allow myself to replace Mahjong with something else that has... "impact on the future", I guess. Something where I get something to show for it, whether it's playing another game, reading a book, writing something, etc. Just not idly consuming content.
Or, if I don't want to play Mahjong, I can just work on skills (the score trainer or efficiency trainer) or review replays or something. I think following a schedule like this would be good for me overall, but I'm a hopeless girl, so it's tough...