Zen + Sports = ????

[AlanLa]

I am a big Chicago Cubs fan. There is no better training in suffering than that :roll: . To be a Cubs fan is, truly, dukkha: expectations bumping into reality and being dissatisfied with the result. To that end, being a Cubs fan provides lots of opportunities for letting go of greed, anger and delusion. Some might say that to be an optimistic Cubs fan (deep down, we all are) is to be delusional in both a Buddhist and a psychological sense.

All the above being said as intro, I often find my biggest challenge in living an equanimous zen life is when watching sports, all sports, but especially my beloved, but always failing, Cubs. I know others have their own sports examples. I guess my point, if I have one, is that I am trying to learn how to approach sports fan(aticism) from a zen perspective. When cheering, cheer? When booing, boo? What about right speech to that umpire than just missed a call that cost us a game? What about right thought to that million dollar player that just went 0 for the series?

To me, this feels like zen's last frontier.

[Dosho]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

Hey Alan,

As a Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots fan my entire life I can definitely relate to this and was actually already thinking about the themes you wrote on the other night as the Sox went up 2-0 on the Angels.

First of all, as Yogi famously said, "It ain't over 'til it's over" and the 2004 ALCS certainly proved that.

Second and more importantly, after having now won two titles in 3 years and looking good this year I have found that many have become smug about the team. For me, it made me realize how much I used their lack of success in the postseason as a crutch for all that seemed to go badly in my life. There is a separation between that and when things truly went bad in my life...it was more the mundane things that never seemed to go my way. But, when they won it occured to me that while I still had a certain level of intensity it wasn't quite the same.

Actually, the Patriots are a much better example. For my entire youth they were absolutely terrible. 1-15 nearly every season but still I cheered. And just a couple weeks ago as they were getting beat badly by the Dolphins the fans actually booed them! I was beside myself with how ungrateful they seemed and whether your team is good or just good at being bad, we can get lost in our fandom. The point? Each is suffering and when we choose to let go it begins to fall away.

Now, that's easy for me to say perhaps since I'm not a Cubs fan, but the attachment to sports can be a very trying thing. I actually used to wince before every pitch in the postseason and now I just watch and see what happens. So, I'm fairly certain that actually winning taught me the lessons I mentioned above and as a result wouldn't dream of telling you how you should look at it. I just know I probably would have be a lot better off if I'd just let that tension go a long time in the past.

Anyway, good luck and I still hope to see you guys in the World Series.

Gassho,
Scott

[AlanLa]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

Thanks Scott. I used to have great empathy for Red Sox fans, but now they inhabit a world I have little knowledge of and can only imagine; they have become foreigners.

I don't want this to be about the Cubs. Rather, they are a perfect analogy/metaphor regarding attachment, and irrational attachment at that, to suffering, among other things. But it seems in the world of sports we often allow ourselves this irrationality. The gentlest among us go crazy at their son's soccer game. The meekest and quietest get drunk and belligerent at the football game. Soccer hooligans that are otherwise fine upstanding citizens. Etc. And we as a society tend to understand and somehow allow it at some level, even encourage it on many levels. I struggle with this. It is as if I put my Buddhism aside when the Cubs playoff game comes on, and then I pick it back up after the game. I am not some hooligan, but the precepts go out the window when my sports teams are on or I am there in person watching them. (Actually, my Buddhism helps, and I am much better than I used to be). Buddhism and sports fandom seem like two separate worlds in many ways, yet I know this can't be true. It's like to be a Buddhist sports fan is oxymoronic, or maybe it's just a koan.

I am wondering how other Buddhist sports fans handle this, because at some level sports aren't as fun if I lose that passion, or learn how to just let go of that passion after the moment. It makes it almost impossible to talk to fellow sports fans that are not Buddhist, so I hold onto it for social reasons.

It is all complicated and multi-layered, hence this thread.

[Aswini]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

This is a tough one. I used to be a big fan of the wallabies in my teens (australia's rugby union team). As a Wallabies fans it is routine, even an item of faith to some extent to hate the all blacks (the new zealand team). Now in terms of hate i mean a friendly rivalry but one where each country claims they are better than the other country, like Canada Vs USA in ice hockey.

So I used to really passionate around game time, I could not stand losing to the All Blacks or England. After a few years of practice, I am still passionate but not to the degree i was before, because you realise it's just a game.

I'm also a fan of Arsenal and to a lesser extent Nottingham Forest. Being an arsenal fan, it is very much a matter of faith to hate man utd and their fans (some of whom are good friends of mine).

I think unless you are a football hooligan or one of those crazy parents at their childs weekend sports games, then it is not too bad. It is alarming to see your reactions come game time, but mine have mellowed somewhat, so I don't see any harm in it. I'm now more keen that my team plays well as opposed to being passionate of about how they fare.

[AlanLa]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

Yes, "hate" is a word we careless throw around in sports. It's rooted in our passions for our teams. To lose that seems Buddhist, somehow, but it is that passion that makes us enjoy sports in the first place. In terms of the Heart Sutra, sports are so meaningless (empty) yet we attach such great meaning and emotion (form) to them.

The Cubs lost in the playoffs again, and I am sick and heartbroken. Yet I knew this was coming, saw it clearly, and I can't wait for next year in case maybe it will be better. Isn't there a definition of insanity in here somewhere :? .

[Martin]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

My football (soccer, to those in the US) team is Norwich City, who managed to snatch another defeat from the jaws of victory on Saturday. No "Canaries" fan ever needs to be reminded that life entails suffering.

And yet, when we watch our team play, and become so absorbed in the moment that there's no separate us, just the crowd, the goal being scored and the elation in that moment, is that not a kind of samadhi too?

When the opposition score the winning goal in the last minute because our goalkeeper and last defender collide for no reason that, of course, is not samadhi, that's just ****.

Gassho

Martin

[Keishin]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

Hockey is Holy
is a folder on my computer for all things hockey I want to refer to quickly--Anaheim Ducks, and Calgary Flames for example.

I came to the world of sports (which exclusively includes hockey, hockey and hockey), at age 47.
Prior to that, sports==(all of them--including hockey) did not exist for me.
I knew that other people liked them, but, for the life of me, couldn't see why.

I'm sorry I am not able to post the response I would like to at this point, (I just got home and Ducks and Canucks are tied at 1 apiece and they are 4 minutes into the second period--it's 'only' an exhibition game, but it is still hockey...) so I will just say for now:

Hello to all sports fans posting here.

[Nagaruda]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

I've been playing the goaltender position in ice hockey for about 11 years now (got a late start as an adult). I can honestly say it's one of the most "samsara is nirvana / nirvana is samsara" experiences I've had relating to sport.

As Hall of Famer goalie Jacques Plante said:

"How would you like a job where, every time you make a mistake, a big red light goes on and 18000 people boo?"

To get enjoyment out of such a proposition you have to be the sort of sportsperson (or human) who enjoys the logic of the unwinnable game, the sort of temperment that enjoys the nuances of failure and can look at every moment of a game with the expectation of immanent threat. When I look down the ice at play in the opposite zone I often think of the idea that all the world is a burning house.

Laugh if you will but there it is. I'd say golf is a close runner for sports pursuits that approach well with the Sukkha of Dukkha

Nags

[Keishin]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

Hello Nags!

A shirt I once saw: Front: "Behind every great goalie there is....."

back: ...nothing."


Proves it--hockey is as buddhist as a sport can get!


(tied at 3, end of the 2nd period--trying to download a media player so I can listen to it live....not working...oh well...)

[AlanLa]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

Nags said:

I've been playing the goaltender position in ice hockey for about 11 years now

I think playing a sport is different that being a spectator. Having played a sport also, I think, makes you a different kind of spectator, even more involved and attached, or so has been my observation. Having not played much sports, I am not very familiar with the experience personally.

Martin said:

And yet, when we watch our team play, and become so absorbed in the moment that there's no separate us, just the crowd, the goal being scored and the elation in that moment, is that not a kind of samadhi too?

When the opposition score the winning goal in the last minute because our goalkeeper and last defender collide for no reason that, of course, is not samadhi, that's just ****.

I want to agree with you, Martin, but isn’t zen about being open to the good and the “****” as you so eloquently put it. And herein lies the problem: we attach to the samadhi (winning) and are averse to the **** (losing). I think it is entirely fitting to be a sports fan as a Buddhist, but to be a team fan seems problematic, because to be a fan of a team means to be attached to the good and averse to the bad. But to be just a sports fan is to just be open to the beauty of the game (process) regardless of any outcome. Yes, even the beauty of hockey (huh?).

Does being a Buddhist (your team here) fan mean to accept the sadness and the anger when they lose? Seems like yes, but does that also mean to accept the losing? By definition, you can’t be a fan and accept losing, or at least not a good fan.

Being a fan of a team is entirely empty, purely the product of environment and thoughts, upbringing, etc. OK, that’s easy enough to understand, but to just drop that fan-ness like any other thought is hard to do, and any “true” fan doesn’t want to. Why is it easier to drop the idea of a self than it is to drop the idea of a (your team here) self? That’s the question I am asking myself.

One last thought: Sports seems the ultimate dualism; us against them, do or die, win or lose, etc. Zen is about getting past dualism. OH, I think maybe I just got it!

[Keishin]

Zen + Sports = ???

Ah ha!

I'm back with some random thoughts here: sports (well HOCKEY) and zen buddhism, two of my most favorite things in this life! The joy, the pleasure of them!

I haven't been able to go ice skating for a couple of years now, but when I would go to a public skating session, sometimes I would see a game in progress. And I have gone to a rink specifically for the purpose of trying to catch some game, any game on the ice. When I come across a game in progress I usually root for the underdog (the team which appears to be losing)--because, it is not possible to watch for any period of time without taking sides. I actually have watched portions of games and had no side to take-- and it is a very different experience.
The game (all games) can't be played unless there are two teams. There is no hockey if there is only one team--even when team's practice, they have to split up into two for a scrimmage after drills are done.
The beauty of hockey (and there is so much really exquisitely beautiful about it--starting with the ice and then the blue and red lines and the red circles and the face off dots...., just the ice alone involves a wealth of expertise--how cold it is, what the mineral content is to regulate just how hard it is). I love winter and I love the cold, and I love wearing sweaters...but I live in Southern California, so hockey rinks (ice rinks) are a place where winter is 'kept as a pet' as it were.
My most favorite hockey to watch is AAA minors 18 and under or 16 and under. Watching these young men--they still don't have their adult bodies yet--(this would be similar to watching young women gymnasts)--only for a brief period of time can the sport be played at this particular level: it is so fast, it flows like a force of nature: it is following a logic known as 'the game' and if you know the game you can follow the logic: you give yourself over to what you see in front of you, and what you anticipate will follow. What is taking place, where hockey is concerned, is at a speed where thought is too slow. Players cannot be thinking. I'm not saying there is no thought process involved, but it isn't thought as I know it: the beautifully executed moves take place because of practice practice practice, and there are many many parts of the game: there is the neutral ice breakout, there is the defensive zone, the offensive zone: where you are on the ice is a different game. If you are playing in the middle period (there are 3 20 minute periods of a hockey game) the goalies switch ends and now your bench is farthest from your goal. There are differences in the look and feel of the game as it is played different nights with the same teams or between different teams--sometimes the game is all about pick and shovel work--the puck is being held up and frozen along the boards by players and others have to come and dig the puck out and get it moving--the whole game feels like it's stuck along the boards. Other games are wide open skating, with amazing jaw dropping heart stopping drop passes and wrap around the net, badda bing, badda boom...
One of the best ways to understand it is to slow it way down. In my case, that was learning to play it myself, which meant I had to learn to skate, and so I took hockey 1, hockey 2 and hockey 3 classes, another way is to watch really young children (pee wees) play a game. To see them struggle to try to get into the right position, and try to pass the puck up to someone closer to the blue line (to get a 'quick up' instead of bringing the puck up all the way by themself) is so wonderful--because it gives an opportunity to see hockey at the speed of thought--which is hockey in a slower motion.
NHL level is something else entirely.
I for one wish there were more amateurs engaged in sports. We all could use some time in play. Maybe if more of us wanted to play together we'd invent some whole new games with who knows what kinds of rules...

(Murderball, by the way is a film I should add to my movie list on the other thread).

Play is the perfect place to take our competitiveness and our goal seekingness and let it have fun, full throttle.

Who could possibly 'hate' the other team? There would be no game without them! Every time I get the opportunity to see hockey--there is always great hockey being played--not always being played by 'my' team. It is just such a pleasure, even shut outs, even tied throughout and losing in a shootout. Ah, hockey, I forget everything, the rest of the world disappears and there is only the rink, the beautiful ice, and the sounds of skates and the puck...

please forgive me for stating so many obvious things and 'gushing' so much, I'm a fan!

[Dosho]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

That was as poetic as I've ever heard hockey described and you are obviously a fan of pure sport which is as good as it gets. Professional sports bring so many more issues into the fold and the only benefit to the pros I can think of is being able to identify with a larger group of people who share your passion. However, find one other interested fan at one of the games you describe and I think the feeling is an even better one.

[Keishin]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

wait, wait, there's more!

Maybe it's because at age 47 I was already 17 years into zen practice, and no doubt this has played a part in my approach to embracing sport in the particular manifestation of HOCKEY. For example, when I was (painfully) learning to skate backwards and to make transitions (forward to backward, backward to forward) I would practice in between my hockey 1 classes during public skate sessions. Well you know these can be very crowded--like skating in a school of eels-- with the infrequent child skating in the wrong direction of the flow of traffic with a look of terror on their face, without warning others (hot shots) play tag racing around other skaters as if we were trees. Well at first I found it hard to concentrate on what I needed to practice AND attend to what was happening on the ice around me: I'd get bumped or knocked down, or I' bump someone else. I rememder the time I knocked someone down (they weren't hurt--but still!) I vowed nothing I was doing was more important than not harming another skater. Some time after that I found myself skating with the whole rink. And as time went on, no matter what the conditions of the rink: I skate with everyone, with the whole ice--I'd find openings/openings would find me and I'd practice the manouver that needed that kind of space and then I'd find myself in a part thick with skaters and each would make an impression on me as I skated through.
This business of skating with the whole rink is not unlike sitting with all sentient beings when sitting in zazen.

Being on the ice is such a special privilege--well I've gone on a bit here, I'll come back later--promise!

[Jundo]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

Keishin,

How to score a point in "Zen Hockey" if there is no "goal" ?? Har har har :roll:

[Keishin]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

So Alan and other sports fans posting here:

Tomorrow the puck drops for the first official game of the season (so far it's been exhibition games for my boys, The Anaheim Ducks).
Let me tell you why I became their fan. I felt so sorry for these world class athletes, skating for a team named after a movie (The Ducks were originally called " The Mighty Ducks" after a Disney movie with that title) I felt really bad they they were a Disney owned property. While I knew it was wonderful for them to have jobs paying them to be the professionals they were...well, I became their fan.
Could never get behind the Kings, sad to say, but just couldn't and still can't although they are so far down the hole my 'root for the underdog' may now come into play and I may become a Kings fan (I wish they'd change their name to Knights--they'd have better results, I guarantee it--think about it: Knights have a quest, they go out and loyally serve their Liege, but a bunch of Kings aren't going to be able to have a coordinated effort--)

But Alan, I've digressed in my various posts and now, the eve before the season starts in earnest, I'd like to address some things you raised about a non-playing fan's use of professional sports.
I do think professional sports acts as a mode for the lancing of boils and other festering places within our psyche. As such, it has potential to be healing.
In a way similar to going to a theatrical performance and being brought to tears, to laughter, to recognition of one's own foibles and dark places--professional sports (to my way of thinking), allows another vein of emotions to be run through the viscera--as such, you get to see what's in your locker, so to speak: there isn't any culture I can think of that doesn't have some form of this kind of thing available where folks can (relatively) safely explore and express emotions unacceptable in other settings.
I would never condone such behavior at games between children's teams. Right now I'm talking about professional sports--people are paid very big money, this is a hugely different level of play. (My mind boggles just trying to grasp the enormity of it.)
At my workplace the morning after a team most people follow closely did badly the night before: it is like a morgue. Even on the drive into work the morning after--there is a somberness, quite palpable.
This is powerful stuff, the team letting 'us' down. This male stuff (I'm generalizing, but it is testosterone driven), needs a place to play itself out, needs a place to be all serious and beating its fists on its chest about it all, and needs to be sweaty and stinky and scratching its balls and tilting its head back and making a big roar. So let it!

It took me a long long time to come to terms with fighting in hockey, I'm still coming to terms with it, I'll always be coming to terms with it: I don't like it, but there it is...sometimes I understand why it happens, other times I have no clue. I don't think I have the time tonight to put my thoughts into words--it'll take too long and I have to go--sitting and then bed you know, 5:20 am comes too early!
I'll be back

But something I did want to say in response to Jundo's 'how to you score a point in Zen Hockey' remark, is that learning how to skate, and learning how to understand the game by learning how to play it is zen on skates and at public skate sessions I was doing zazen on skates.
At whatever understanding of practice we have matured to: it is with us at all times, in everything we do. You can't take it out of me. As I would take my skate bag out of the trunk of the car, as I would change into my gear, as I would do my stretches, as I would take that first lap around the freshly zamboni-ed ice...breathe in that taste of winter air I love so much--every moment sweet, sweet, sweet and who was to know when the day would come and I'd never have the chance to be on the ice again? Because I skated as if my skating days were numbered, now that several years have gone by and I haven't been on the ice--I have no regrets.
Same thing for sitting on the zafu, for doing anything, everything. This moment, the meeting of everything together, the pure nowness of now,
the sense of this while playing in scrimmage, this is zazen permeating another aspect of my life--as it does in all aspects of my life.