Daily Life Practice

Daily Life Practice

Daily Life Practice is a structured training to deal with emotional problems ranging from sadness, depression, anxiety, anger and stress to facing the challenges that prevent us from performing to the best of our ability. Daily Life Practice was developed by psychiatrist Clive Sherlock in 1978 based on his medical and psychological background and Zen Buddhist training.

Introduction
Daily Life Practice is based on a structured training programme under the guidance of a teacher, rather than a treatment requiring drug or psychological therapy. It can be likened to training for sports, the performing arts or the professions, in that it trains people to behave and perform well even in the presence of unwanted or upsetting emotions and thoughts. The training in Daily Life Practice develops inner strength, which leads to an ‘increased capacity for coping with mood states’ and a fading of ‘persistent, worrying thoughts’ and so to peace of mind and a happier life.
History
Daily Life Practice is the product of Sherlock’s grounding in medicine and psychology together with Zen practice, which emphasizes meditation. Sherlock trained for twenty-five years under the Zen teacher Venerable Myokyo-ni. The seeds of Daily Life Practice were planted during his postgraduate studies at Oxford University when he realised that the visceral presence of emotion in the body was unrecognised in western science, medicine and psychology. He met this aspect of emotion through Zen practice and realised its central and vital role in causing emotional problems, such as doubt, guilt, depression, anxiety, anger and stress. He also recognised its role in hampering high performance in the arts (such as dance, music, theatre), in athletics, the military and the professions (such as medicine, law and teaching).
Emotion was not the only crucial causal factor missing in western culture: Zen taught him what delusion was and its fundamental role in causing emotional problems. Delusion in this context is not being fully aware of and not accepting how life actually is. In practice this means not accepting that we cannot always have what we like. He realised that this leads us astray because we become upset when disappointed, frustrated, annoyed, frightened or sad. Our normal reactions to our upset blinker us and lead us down the slippery slope to depression, anxiety, anger and stress.
His first trial of Daily Life Practice was with a woman who had not responded to any of the treatments in the Oxford hospital for anxiety, panic, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and depression. Initially he got her to keep to a simple routine through the day and to attend to the ordinary physical activities at home and when feeling particularly anxious to exercise fairly vigorously. Gradually he added more to the practice for her. Within a few weeks she was able to function normally and felt in control of herself again. She has continued to live day-to-day in the focussed way of Daily Life Practice with tolerance and patience and has remained well ever since. As with Zen, and indeed with all Buddhist practice, the day-to-day practical training is the foundation for meditation.
Daily Life Practice approach
The roots of Daily Life Practice lie in Zen Buddhism, which is in accord with contemporary science, indeed researchers in neuroscience have recently become interested in Buddhist meditation and have found unexpected positive results. Like Zen, Daily Life Practice deals directly with emotion as a visceral energy that drives speech, action and thought. This distinguishes Daily Life Practice from western understanding and ways of dealing with emotional problems (such as depression, anxiety, anger and stress). Working with emotion as a visceral energy or force is fundamental to understanding the causes of emotional problems and therefore to dealing with them. Why, for example, what we say, do and think is out of character and unreasonable when we are upset. To realise that we are taken over by underlying emotion not only explains why we behave and think as we do, it also gives us the possibility of doing something fundamental about it. Paying attention to what we think keeps us in thought, which, when upset, is an effect (symptom) of the underlying emotion. And so thinking about our problems or changing what we think about them does not address the cause. Daily Life Practice turns the attention away from what is happening in the head towards what is happening in the ‘heart’ and the ‘guts’ (as in a ‘broken heart’ and a ‘gut feeling’) and to our behaviour based on this. This makes each and every one of us responsible for our behaviour and its consequences and maintains our dignity.
Daily Life Practice is therefore a self-discipline to contain the emotion in the body and not let it drive us blindly in what we say, do and think. The initial effects of this discipline appear almost immediately and make it possible to start to learn to meditate. Meditation is part of the day-to-day practice; these two aspects of practice complement and reinforce each other as inner strength, clarity and peace of mind grow.

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