Practices briefly put

Practices have two dimensions (at least):

1) The cultivation of a kind of awareness and orientation (which are not the same, but belong to the same category I believe)

2) The expansion, deepening, of that with which one engages. If one thinks that what one is working with remains the same, if one does not receive the expansion of the material at-hand, then one is missing out on growth, and one is silently dismissing the stunning riches of whatever one is turned towards.