A Quote by Frederick Lenz
All success in sports and athletics, from the Zen point of view, comes from the mind. No matter what kind of shape your body is in, there is disharmony in the being.
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If you have the sense of participation in sports or athletics, of being a player, then you are not really into the Zen mind. In Zen mind there is no sense of self in the play.
Sports and athletics can be a path in Zen, in concordance with daily practice of zazen meditation. You need to move with your spirit, not just with your body.
In the West, we think of sports and athletics as individual achievement, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat; it all revolves around the ego. This has nothing to do with the Zen of sports and athletics.
Zen doesn't believe in the reconciliation of opposites because from the point of view of Zen, there is no point of view.
So the most difficult thing is always to keep your beginner's mind. There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, "I know what Zen is," or "I have attained enlightenment." This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner. Be very very careful about this point. If you start to practice zazen, you will begin to appreciate your beginner's mind. It is the secret of Zen practice.
Confidence is sexy. That's what 'Sports Illustrated Swim' stands for. They have this movement where you can just be beautiful no matter what shape, what size, your height, your body type, your ethnicity.
Being a former dancer, classical dancer, it informed me as a human being just in terms of the grace I guess. Ballet is a very graceful form of art. You also become very aware of your body and your mind and your body is working in conjunction. That kind of helps you in acting as well. It's not only using your mind, it's like making your mind communicate this character into your body so that you can bring it to life and physicalize it.
It is fun to be outside; it's good to move your body and there is just a joy in sports and athletics.
It's wrong to believe that you need a certain physical body type to run. All body types can run. It's not about your legs, muscles, or cellulite. It's not about the physical side of things. If you train your brain, your body will follow. It's that simple. The hard part isn't getting your body in shape. The hard part is getting your mind in shape.
If your intent is that athletics and sports are tools or devices to reach higher levels of mind, then your workout sessions become meditation.
The study of motivation goes back to the Greeks. Their sports were essential to their education. They saw in sports the integration of body, mind and soul, the creation of beauty, the mastering of athletics, and the challenge of competition. A French sociologist points this out. "Sports," he wrote, was part of the education of the citizen. He was expected to engage in exercise for a whole series of reasons that had to do with the shaping of the citizen; the relation between moral good and physical good; and the growth of a person.
In the Zen of sports and athletics, we seek to bring discipline and control into our physical movements, but at the same time to eliminate the self that gets in the way of perfect play.
The great thing is the thing of being able to see things through many points of view. That's enlarging. I mean, it saves you from ultimately from the boredom of having one point of view, like being locked in a room with nothing but your own point of view, your own references.
Tantric Zen is for someone who is really broad-minded. It is Bodhidharma's Zen, your Zen, my Zen. Which doesn't mean I have a problem with Japanese Zen. Most Japanese Zen is minding your p's and q's.
Zen enriches no one. There is no body to be found. The birds may come and circle for a while in the place where it is thought to be. But they soon go elsewhere. When they are gone, the "nothing," the "no-body" that was there, suddenly appears. That is Zen. It was there all the time but the scavengers missed it, because it was not their kind of prey.
I have a point of view on the issues, but it's a complex point of view that really can't be summed up in a sentence or two. I'm not being intentionally vague or mushy, it's just that - in my mind - the real answer is complicated.
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