STRENGTH OF TEN TIGERS

 Here is an excerpt from THE COMPETITIVE BUDDHA, on Mindfulness practice. The book is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble for preorder...July arrival.

If you know the art of breathing you have the strength, wisdom and courage of ten tigers. The quiet, focused mind can pierce through stone.

Ancient Asian Saying

If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind, there are few.

Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Buddhist Monk

The practice of meditation, often referred to as “the still point,” is a learned skill that, when developed, can impact not just your leadership and coaching, but your entire life. It is important to know that the Buddha believes that effective mindful leadership is developed with an open heart through the practice of meditation.

Over the years, meditation has become a universal household word that when applied to sports can help you to experience a feeling of mastery and perform at your very best. Motivation, competition, training, injury recovery and focus are a few of the ways I apply meditation working with athletics. It is how we tame what the Buddha refers to as the “monkey mind.”

Phil Jackson was the master of using mindful meditation with his Bulls and Lakers teams, on his way to winning a collective 11 championship rings. In Phil’s book by the same name, ELEVEN RINGS: THE SOULD OF SUCCESS, he devotes several detailed pages on his thoughts about, and use of the meditation approach he used for his team, detailed in Shunryu Suzuki’s renowned book, ZEN MIND,BEGINNER’S MIND.

To help his players on both teams to quiet the chatter of their minds and focus on the competitive nature of the game, he introduced them to the concept of mindfulness meditation, based on a practice he learned years ago. He would get the players to sit in a room for ten or so minutes together. As I previously mentioned, he called it ‘the warrior room.” He wasn’t trying to make them Buddhist monks; it was to bring them close and bonded at the heart.

All of the athletes who took part in this voluntary exercise loved it. It was a special, unified group, who were, in the words of Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, “dwelling happily in the present moment,” with quiet, simple, and clear minds. Jackson found through such practice that when athletes marinate themselves fully in the moment, they develop a deeper, stronger awareness(mindfulness) of what’s happening right now, in the present moment. And, in Jackson’s words, this “leads to a greater sense of oneness, the essence of teamwork.”

With reference to helping his athletes foster team connection, cohesion and gain a sense of unity, Phil Jackson applauds the value of mindfulness meditation in facilitating the team’s ability to break out of their me-oriented attitudes and giving them the opportunity to consider going to a more -we-orientation.

In so doing, in his brilliant book, Jackson quotes the 13th century Buddhist priest and teacher, Nichiren:

The spirit of many in body, but one in mind, prevails among the people, they will achieve all their goals; whereas if one in body, but different in mind, they achieve nothing remarkable.

The following is an inspirational story about mindfulness meditation. During the Chinese cultural revolution during the 1960’s, Chinese pianist and composer Liu Shih-Kun was incarcerated for six years in prison, with no piano, and no paper to write on. During his incarceration he practiced his music in his head, mindfully visualizing himself playing at a high level over and over. He even composed a concerto and kept it memorized. In 1973, following his release from jail, Liu played before his peers and was deemed to be even better than before he went to prison. Thus, the power of mindfulness meditation.

And it is apparent in all sentient beings. You may have noticed that animals instinctively use a method of stillness in nature. They all meditate. Observe the heron poised motionless on one leg, the monkey climbing to the uppermost branch, the snake basking in the warmth of the summer sun, or the cat lying on a pillow, its eyes focused on a small object. Speaking of cats, I observed my cat, Simon, sitting and staring at the fireplace watching the flames dance for twenty minutes without movement. He was in the zone.

What follows in the book is the specific way I teach how to meditate and practice mindfulness each day