The Zen of Sports and Athletics
“In a Zen state of mind, you do not worry … you don’t give your thoughts to your opponent, you don’t give your power or thoughts to success or failure, you don’t care about the crowd that’s watching you or the fact that no one is watching you. There is only one thought — one feeling –and that is becoming one with the play, with the move, with the action, with the sequence, with the team.”
“So 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.… The emptiness of play — or we could call it the fullness — is when there is no self present. There is no one playing; there is only play itself taking place, perfect fluid motion.”
“A person who practices sports and athletics, who is able to stop their thoughts during the play and allow the universe to spill through them, is capable of great magic.” Rama – Dr. Frederick Lenz
The Zen of Sports and Athletics is talk 16 of 18 in the Zen Tapes series.