Zen + Sports = ????

[spinpsychle]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

The Cubs teach you not to worry about whether your local sports team wins or loses. :wink:

I'm in Minnesota and whenever any of our prospects gets really good, they get traded away for more prospects. I learn not to attach to our players!

- Mike.

[FeMonky]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

Hey, FeMonkey...
It just dawned on me (Yes, it's taken me this long), to wonder if you were talking about The Charlestown Chiefs of SLAPSHOT fame, or others...
A silly movie with Paul Newman--he credits it (so I've read) as being the most fun he ever had making a film.

Actually, since I live in Kansas City, I was speaking of our Football Team. KC has no Hockey... We did have a bush league team, The Outlaws, for 1 season. I thought they were the best hockey team ever because once they got ahead in pts, the 2nd half was all fighting. I once saw an Outlaw player get a 7 minute penalty with only 1 minute left in play. I went to 2 home games... Then I read about how the team was being sold because, apparently, the only 2 games they won were the two I went to.

[AlanLa]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

MIke wrote:

I'm in Minnesota and whenever any of our prospects gets really good, they get traded away for more prospects. I learn not to attach to our players!

I've been thinking about this ever since you posted it, Mike. It's an interesting perspective. Sports teach us, spectators and player alike, humility. A lot of what sports is about is losing :cry: Only one team wins in each sport at the end of the season, so only that team and its fans are ultimately happy and satisfied Everyone else didn't quite hit the mark, and there's some dukka there. The Minnesota Twins have won the World Series recently, yet you focus (at least in that post) on them losing players. The Cubs can afford players but can't win a WS. Even when our team wins in some aspect, we all too often focus on what we lost, or don't have, thus dukka. But I think its good dukka in the sense it teaches us humility; we can't always get what we want, and we learn to be Ok with that and enjoy the green grass or cold ice rink, etc.

Gassho

[AlanLa]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

A little addendum: Sports teach us to enjoy the process even though we attach to the outcome. Even when it hurts because our team loses, it is fun to go to or play the game. Life lesson there I'll leave y'all to figure out, if you don't already know.

[Keishin]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

Louis mentioned hockey...
and we are approaching mid season and the olympics are coming up too

thought I'd dust off this thread an bring it back out for any wishing to add to the mix

it's fun being a fan!

[Shugen]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

College football season is over . One of the local college teams is ranked number 2 in the nation right now but I still can't seem to get too excited about it even though my father-in-law is a huge fan and has season tickets. I run kind of hot and cold with the olympics and know next to nothing about hockey (other than my 6 year old son keeps beating at the Wii version) I'll probably get a little more into basketball when the tournament comes around in March. My college football team does what it always does - not quite good enough but still pretty good.

Ron

[AlanLa]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

Ahhh, hello old zen + sports = ??? thread.

The more I practice zen the less I get riled up about sports. This past week I watched my beloved Green Bay Packers football team lose a wild game, and I was fine with it. I shrugged it off with barely a pang of suffering. And when my really and truly beloved Cubs went down to another lost season last year I had only a mild pang of suffering, but that might be because I am so used to them doing that every year. So my patience with this sort of thing is getting better, but my patience with sports commentators, ESPN in particular (because who else is there, really?), gets less. They don't do a lot of right speech sometimes. It's gets to be all pessimistic speculation and shouting insults, etc. I know it's meant to be entertainment, but sometimes I just have to tune it out.

[Hoko Steve]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

thanks for this thread! i am a big sports guy myself....and today, i suffer because of it....

it aint easy being an Arizona Cardinals fan!! :roll:

even though my teams lose, and cause a bit of suffering, i find that with practice, i see the sport itself more than the team...if that makes sense.....makes me appreciate both sides, winner or loser (though as a dodger fan, you will NEVER see me root for the giants....even though there there is no separation of dodger or giant....) or so i try and remind myself! ops:

best wishes,

steve

[Keishin]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

I just LOVE this topic Alan started quite a while back.

an interest in sports came late into my life (I was 45 or so) my son was skating roller hockey and one thing led to another, led to another...

I'd been sitting zazen about 10 years or so before the game of hockey entered my little personal world and opened up a whole new realm: a game to play on ice (obviously I didn't grow up in cold climate).

The novelty of all of it!

I fell in love, totally, completely, hopelessly....

And, I wanted to know everything I could about this new love: I took hockey I then II then hockey III classes... at one point I learned that new skates (a 50th birthday present to myself) couldn't be skated on 'right out of the box'; they needed not only to be sharpened but 'rockered' as well (rockering is done on a 9' or 12' radius--and depending on if you are a forward or play defense, you will put the flattest part forward or toward the back of the skate) As far as sharpening goes, there are standard 1/2 inch or 1/4 inch hollows (the gap between the two edges of the blade--my guess is individual players might also have their own particular, specific preferences as well...)

I never played on any team growing up--only the brief game for PE once in a while.

I had no idea the healing possible when working with a good coach as far as 'reparenting' goes. But yes, at age 47 I did have the luck of having a great coach teach a hockey class I took

It's too late tonight for me to go on longer with this topic I enjoy so much... I'll revisit it...but the novelty of all of it:
the game, playing the game, the sport in the play and the playing of the sport.
One's personal conduct: in learning the game, in learning drills involving other players, in applying what was learned in drills now involving other 'oppositional' players.

All the interconnectedness of everything to make this 'simple' activity possible.

My practice of zazen was already wrapped up in it from the get go:
I just had to overcome my prejudice that sports were 'dumb'

obviously, I did

[Rich]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

Keishin, That's wonderful that you are a hockey 'nut'. I started playing on the ponds as a child. Last year I played in my college alumni game and as the oldest player led my team to victory with 3 goals I just retired from the 35+ league and try to play twice a week with the 60+ group. How does this relate to zen practice? First, it keeps your body and mind strong and healthy. second, the just playing hockey action and the just sitting action are the same. something like that

I enjoy watching the women's teams - they seem to focus more on the interconnectedness aspect of passing and play making which I need to get better at
/Rich

[AlanLa]

Re: Zen + Sports = ????

Sports is a great teacher of zen. My latest example is Brett Favre, formerly of my beloved Green Bay Packers but these days on the hated Minnesota Vikings. Brett Favre is probably my favorite football player of all time, but now he is on my team's possibly greatest rival. So my dilemma becomes do I love him or hate him, attachment or aversion? It's sort of both, and that's where my zen practice helps me. I can root against his team yet appreciate his greatness at the same time.

Being a sports fan without zen tends to be an all or nothing experience, love 'em or hate 'em, all duality all the time, and that leads to a lot of suffering. But my zen helps me recognize there is more to appreciating sports and the people that play the games than that duality. The cliche is that it's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game, and there is some zen in that. So today I watched Brett Favre win a game for a team I hate, and I appreciated his play while letting go of the outcome. It's that old acceptance without acceptance applied to sports.