Matt Thornton: Aliveness, awakening, & the athlete's doorway

[YODA]

A small Piece from the upcoming SBGi book

Aliveness, awakening, & the athlete's doorway

One of the subjects that comes up most consistently when I give seminars is the topic of peak mental performance. In modern day athletic jargon the word usually referred to is the 'zone'. A state best described as bliss, and a level of consciousness, which operates at a far more efficient rate then the normal everyday thinking mind.

Here is a very good brief explanation of the Athletic peak experience often called the 'Zone' taken from a recent article by Andrew Cooper.

"Athletes are reluctant to talk about it, but profound experiences are common on the field of play. "The zone is the essence of the athletic experience," says former NFLer Dave Meggyesy, "and those moments of going beyond yourself are the underlying allure of sport."

Right away, you could see the streak was over. As he turned and headed back upcourt, Michael Jordan looked over at network announcer Magic Johnson and shrugged, as if to say, "It's beyond me. It's just happening by itself!"

The zone is the essence and pinnacle of the athletic experience, for it reveals that, at their root, sports are a theater for enacting the drama of self-transcendence. Athletes and fans alike, focused as we so often are on the game of winning and losing, miss the deeper significance that is right before our eyes. But in the zone, the extraordinary capacities that lie within each individual are made manifest. To grasp this hidden dimension is to transform the very meaning of athletic play.

Perhaps because moments in the zone are too compelling, too uncanny, too verging on the mystical, most athletes and sports journalists have been reluctant to address the experience in depth."

One of the key points to pay attention to in that paragraph is this one:

"The zone is the essence and pinnacle of the athletic experience, for it reveals that, at their root, sports are a theater for enacting the drama of self-transcendence. Athletes and fans alike, focused as we so often are on the game of winning and losing, miss the deeper significance that is right before our eyes" And as Dave Meggyesy stated, "those moments of going beyond yourself are the underlying allure of sport."

In other words, the peak experience that can be entered into through the gate of athletics is not just a happy side effect of playing a game; it is rather the only real point of the game itself.

An examination of what a peak experience aka: the athletic "zone", is really about begins within your own mind.
Most everyone reading this article at this time has competed in some sort of athletic event. From the time we are children we are taught to play games of an athletic nature. The true meaning of which is often forgoten at a conscious level on those that demand the events be played, but the experience itself is recognized to be worthy of passing on to future generations. Beyond those experiences many of you reading this have also experienced the intense levels of consciousness that are demanded within the realm of one on one combat sports.

In all of the above cases if you play the game long enough you begin to realize you will sometimes have fantastic days, days where every movement seems perfect, and your body seems relaxed, strong, and energized. And more often then not, all of us have also experienced the opposite. Days where we play our worst, and where we can't seem to accomplish anything. Where we feel tense, weak, and tired. As this occurs any athlete who takes his play seriously in terms of performance will begin to eventually question himself as to why they have these great days, and these bad days. Is it diet, is it rest, is it intensity or effort? All these questions roll by.

And then one day the athlete experiences the temporary state of bliss known as the "zone". A state the late-great psychologist Abraham Maslow would have called a "Peak Experience". The level of performance has never been higher, the body never felt better, the mind never felt clearer. An overall feeling of bliss, a natural body high, and a state of alertness far beyond what one normally recognizes becomes manifest. The body seems to be operating in a state of complete autopilot, and the observer, the mind, seems only a relaxed watcher. We realize that conscious thoughts are not the doer. Indeed the mind is absent of thought, rolling in a state of complete joy it simply observes everything being done perfectly, and holds no fear in that moment that it could possibly go otherwise.

And then as one is naturally thrown by such an experience, the mind questions where it came from. In the past we wondered if it was diet, sleep, effort, energy, etc. But now we have tasted a state that is far beyond our usual good day, and we are forced to recognize beyond a shadow of any doubt the self evident truth that what we call the 'zone' is actually a state of mind, or state of consciousness, and it is at that level that everything changes. The body, the performance, the consequential actions, and the result, all follow only when that consciousness has tuned into that higher state.

For anyone who has truly experienced that level of the athletic zone, the above written paragraph is not theory, but rather fact.

Now that the experience has been had, ( always past tense as thought cannot have an experience of the present moment. Thought can only imagine the past ), the image and impression of that state of consciousness is left with the athlete.

From here a crossroads is met, and a crucial decision is made. Does one simply ignore such an experience, or does one seek it out again, time after time. Each time with increasing degrees of challenges associated with it's ability to emerge.

If the athlete chooses to seek the experience out, and is brave enough to weather the self doubts, fears, and temptations that arise so strongly when you engage in any form of introspective journeys, then the athlete will have begun the most important process of his or her life.
The process is one of self discovery, and regardless of how it makes itself know, through art, music, relationships, sports, regardless of the infinite paths that lead to self inquiry, once it begins the most dramatic transformations of life, self, and world are possible.

The reason for this is that self-inquiry is a path of thought. A path, which eventually reaches the inevitable conclusion that, the problem was the attention given to thought itself.

The veil of illusion, Maya, Samsara, hell, the world of a tormented mind unable to rest in quiet peace, that torment, that suffering is seen for exactly what it is, as an almost exclusive product of domesticated human thought.

Have you ever sat for several days in a room quietly by yourself? Without newspapers, without television, without the radio, with no outside intrusions?

Very few people can do this for an hour, let alone a few days.

Most people find themselves hopelessly drawn to distractions such as television, radio, conversation, interaction, anything to create environmental noise which can drown out that little voice in the head. That voice which is self critical, worries about issues that are not present in the moment of now, worries about issues it has no control over. That voice that makes judgments of others, and creates beliefs and opinions on nearly every subject it acknowledges. That voice which is the cause of all psychological anxiety, fear, desire, despair, regret, guilt, resentment, jealousy, bitterness, hatred, and all forms of psychological pain and suffering. That voice of worries and busy thought, demands our attention and needs to aquire pain and turmoil.

Jesus spoke of this same worried mind in the book of Luke.

Then Jesus said to his disciples: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? "Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. - Luke 12

In an effort to relief this human condition which is a result of typical human thought, thought born from environmental conditioning and genetic disposition, people engage in all forms of behaviors, and indulge in all forms of addictions. The athlete may engage in any and all of these, as they now embark on a search for methods to regain such peak experiences, and explanations of its real nature.
The key difference now between the athlete who has experienced the zone for themselves, and the average human, is that the athlete now has reached a point of conscious awareness as to the nature of thought, and the bliss and extreme Aliveness that can arrive when in a state of no thought, or no-mind. The fear of loss of self, death, or possession, is thrown permanently aside and seen for the human superstitions based on fear that they are.

In addition the nature of suffering, and its connection to thought has become clear and evident to this person.

If this athlete continues to engage in this self inquiry long enough to realize beyond room for doubt that the above two statements are true, that the state of a silent, peacefull, calm mind, is indeed always a more alert, intelligent, and loving level of awareness then it's chattering-desiring counter part can ever be; Then they will then be far more likely to avoid the pitfalls of those ignorant on the subject and who blindly seek relief from the chattering monkey mind in all the wrong areas.

-Matt Thornton
www.straightblastgym.com