"Everything is practice"

I don't know what the soccer legend Pele meant by this quotation, but I thought it applicable to spiritual practice. It reminds me that my whole life can be my practice - that it is not just when I am sitting on my cushion meditating that "counts."
Gen-la Dekyong is always telling us that everything can teach us Dharma if we let it - all the situations we find ourselves in, the people we meet, even the "ducks on the lake," as she once said in NY.
What do I think when I see the mallards and wigeons and coots when Saradog and I go for walks at Green Lake? That I am fortunate to be human, to have a mind that is able to understand Dharma and the conditions that allow me to practice it, which sadly animals do not, this time around.
I have to say I've learned a lot from my pets, especially my former dog, Utah. He was part golden retriever and had such a good heart. When we'd go to an off-leash park so that he could run around, he'd approach other dogs, asking if they wanted to play, and approach people, as if asking if they needed to pet him so that they would feel better. If not, he would just move on. As someone who used to be scared of people and rejection, seeing this played out in front of me over and over was a teaching. He was happy either way; it was all fine; it was about what others needed, not what he wanted.
We'd gotten Utah as an older dog, and he'd had very little training. He was house-broken but didn't know what a command was. Training my mind felt very much like training Utah: It took a long time and at times seemed hopeless, but by constant repetition, not giving in, eventually we both became more disciplined - and happier for it.

When Gen-la was in Seattle, on a walk near the Temple, she said she heard a train whistle, as the tracks for the train to Vancouver run nearby, and she thought "train, train, train" (as in train your mind). Such a flexible mind to come up with that double meaning!

Pele's quote also implies that we are always trying to improve. According to karma, no action is ever wasted. Which is why even trying to meditate creates positive results in the future.

I find it helpful to think this way, because then I'm less afraid of mistakes. In practice, it's good to make mistakes and learn from them. There's a more common phrase we tend to hear associated with practice, but actually it doesn't matter if it ever "makes perfect." No one's watching. With patience in my practice, I don't have to be anxious about getting results, which is just discouraging.

Just for fun, I'm passing along this this saying from Yogi Berra I stumbled on: "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."