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The Zone
The Zone is a place wear every top athlete wished to be. No one can make you or help you get there, it's down to you. It may not be surprising to some of you that it really depends on one's ability to focus, concentrate and correct timing of your breathing. You can become almost super human under those conditions. No one has found the true key to the Zone.
Below is a great example.
"Scoring in a derby is better than sex".
Manchester City winger Trevor Sinclair, who scored in the 3-1 defeat of Manchester United last weekend.
So are you thinking what I'm thinking? If any of you guy's have any serious tips on this please let me know as I can help YOU become filthy rich.
Not that you would spent the money, like me you would want to give it away....right
:thumbsup:
Below is a great example.
"Scoring in a derby is better than sex".
Manchester City winger Trevor Sinclair, who scored in the 3-1 defeat of Manchester United last weekend.
So are you thinking what I'm thinking? If any of you guy's have any serious tips on this please let me know as I can help YOU become filthy rich.
Not that you would spent the money, like me you would want to give it away....right
:thumbsup:
0
Comments
I would be very grateful to you if you would tell me more...
I could suggest that one sits every day and extends their practice into daily life. Then being in the Zone tends to happen more and more. The difficulty is that then it implies that being in the Zone is somehow a by product or is caused by sitting. It's not. I think the difference is that when we sit, we let ourselves begin to be at home as awareness, and especially if we extend our practice to the rest of our daily lives, that awareness manifests in what we do. So there is a key, but it's not a key in the sense of we do such and such, press button A and B happens. It's not mechanical like that.
"This just sitting is not a meditation technique or practice, or any thing at all. "Just sitting" is a verb rather than a noun, the dynamic activity of being fully present."
- From the Preface to 'The Art of Just Sitting' -Taigen Dan Leighton
In my peregrination through the foothills and margins of 'psychotherapeutic' techniques, I came across a wonderfully strange book. It is called Turtles All The Way Down. It was written by John Grinder and colleagues, and covers this strange, diamond-pointed attention state. It might amuse you.
"Turtles" from Amazon UK
Genryu,
Would you say that awareness manifests in what we do OR that awareness IS what we do and delusions of self merely mask this? It's not a real question just a drop in the pond...
With regards to 'the zone' I'd say that it is the state of no-self or no intention whereby, as my dharma brother says, things happen of themselves. There are extensive writings by sword masters as to the true nature of being with 'what occurs' and the 'need' (for lack of a better word) for a master to be at one with awareness.
My daily Martial arts practice is definately moving meditation. Instead of 'just sitting' I am 'just moving' - there is no goal of a 'zone like' state. I do it because I'm doing it. :wtf:
Hope I helped in some way.
I'd say that's a very real question. My take on this would be that we shouldn't get too hung up on the word awareness. When we drop self consciousness then it shines through, whether we're doing anything or not. Even when we're not doing anything though, there's always something happening, nothing really stands still. Then of course it's possible to do things without any real awareness, to be distracted, not present. That doesn't change what we are, but it wouldn't be manifesting what we are in the same way, if that makes sense.
That's the nub of this. No-self really is what we are. Awareness, No-Self or Non-Self, Anatta, Sunyata, these all just terms to point to things as they are. A chair is a chair, the sky is blue, water is wet. No big deal. When we experience something of this order for the first time though, or even the first few times, it does seem to be a big deal. Suddenly, without self consciousness, we find ourselves feeling incredible freedom, ease, fearlessness, things happen 'just right', without intention as you say, or wasted energy. That can become a trap too. Once that's tasted, we tend to separate ourselves from it by making it another state of mind that we want to get back to, that we want to experience again, and then we are furthest from it, because it cannot be produced mechanically and really isn't one state opposed to other states.
My teacher once caught me in just such a trap, that had been ongoing for a while. I found him at the foot of my bed one morning on retreat. He said gently but firmly, "You know however close you are, you won't be there when it happens. You can't experience your own death." Then he just turned and walked out of the room. That didn't immediately stop me wanting to experience it again, because I'm stubborn and ignorant and enjoy such trivial things, but it did introduce enough doubt to at least allow for the possibility of cutting through that desire and to let go of even oneness.
That's a good example. To do things just for the sake of doing them, in fact not even that, just to do whatever is required or appropriate. The difficulty with that, when one isn't doing a martial art or something that easily lends itself to such a way of being, is that without a grounded sitting practice and practice of the other aspects of the Way in our daily lives, it is rootless and if we think we are doing that, it ultimately turns into that trap again. One translation of the mantra that concludes the Heart Sutra, "Gate Gate Paragate Parasam Gate Bodhi Svaha" is:
"Going, going, going on beyond, always going on beyond, always becoming Buddha."
There is no place that awareness ends, no boundary, no end to awakening, no end to practice. If some really believe that practice is something you do away with when you 'reach the other shore', they're in for a surprise. This is the other shore!. Which gives me an excuse for one of my favorite stories, which I think is from a book entitled One Bird One Stone:
One day a young Buddhist on his journey home, came to the banks of a wide river. Staring hopelessly at the great obstacle in front of him, he pondered for hours on just how to cross such a wide barrier. Just as he was about to give up his pursuit to continue his journey he saw a great teacher on the other side of the river. The young Buddhist yells over to the teacher, "Oh wise one, can you tell me how to get to the other side of this river"?
The teacher ponders for a moment looks up and down the river and yells back, "My son, you are on the other side".
As the Sandokai, with which no doubt you are very familiar, - The Identity of Relative and Absolute puts it:
To be attached to things is illusion.
To encounter the absolute is not yet enlightenment...
Ordinary life fits the absolute as a box and its lid.
The absolute works together with the relative
like two arrows meeting in midair.
Reading words you should grasp the great reality.
Do not judge by any standards.
If you do not see the Way, you do not see it even as you walk on it.
When you walk the Way, it is not near, it is not far.
If you are deluded, you are mountains and rivers away from it.
Doing a martial art, sitting, working with a teacher, you have the opportunity to work through this and not get trapped even by oneness, even by just doing. You're most fortunate in that.
On a slightly different note, which may well be a bit of a tangent, another time on retreat, I was assigned to wash dishes with someone who was 'stuck' on mindfulness. She thought that mindfulness meant watching what you do all the time, so that when washing dishes, you try to be aware of the feel of the water on your skin, of the light as it catches the bubbles, of the sound as you carefully place each plate, each cup gently in it's place, when it's been dried. This of course is all great stuff and very poetic but it's not mindfulness. It's not 'just doing'. It's definitely not just washing dishes.
Eventually I grasped her firmly around the waist, moved her to one side, and plunged into the dishes myself. Partly that was because I knew this was what the moment required, and partly because I really really wanted a cigarette, we had about ten minutes left before the next block of sitting, and I had still to change into my robes. Sometimes things are a lot more simple than they appear, including me.
This was really where I was going with the 'question' I had...
The mantra from the Heart Sutra resonates so deeply. I always end my Zazen practice by reciting it and being with it.
I think another point you raised was also very relavant to the topic being that: most Athletes, once they experience the zone, spend the rest of their career searching for it and hence get furthur and furthur ( metaphorically speaking) from it. Of course I'm generalizing heavily!
My friend, I have another question for you - way off topic - what does 'Gen' mean? I know ryu. Just curious.:tongue2:
I'm really being insolent now aren't I?
sorry:p
You fella's have got me a little puzzled?
Are you saying that searching for the Zone is in it's self a hurdle? as in the way of you are attempting to recreate or find the route of that experience ?
Without trying to dumb down what you are talking about is there or is there not a method of finding a place where you are in the best possible place to hook up again with the Zone. I appreciate ther must be a number of metal factors in place but simply just allow yourself to be consumed be a phyical experience is no answer.
What kind of focus is there on breathing?
HH
I'd say that definitely there are things that if done consistently, you find the Zone at some point. Thinking of the Zone as the result of these things, and keeping it formost in one's mind as the reason to do these things though is something that tends to keep it from happening. And there is a difference between being fully present, without self consciousness and letting yourself simply be consumed, as you put it, by a physical experience. It's a very very subtle distinction though at times and the practice really is physical far more than mental.
The Ryu as you know means dragon and Gen in this context means subtle, hidden or mysterious, so 'Hidden or Subtle Dragon'. Of course another meaning that my teacher may have had in mind when he named me is hidden as in, 'He couldn't find it with two hands and a flash light'.
Go on....
Tell me.....
............What the heck is 'subtle' about you?!?:D
Nice. I like the hidden meaning.
Someone once gave me the name Long Ch'uan in Chinese which is another twist on the dragon theme. Ch'uan meaning source or spring.
It's a bit more relevent to my character than being named after Goliath's scurge!
My left thumb, that's about it. :thumbsup:
Sorry,
OK....
talk amongst yourselves......
What you say is Interesting....
Subtle as the dragon.
Kind of like the invisible elephant in the living room.
I would have gone with the Puff The Subtle Yet Magic Dragon
-bf