.
There was a superb documentary on TV recently about the planning and construction of the Great Wall of China. First there was the programme about two guys riding motorbikes right across Mongolia, and then this very informative look at how the Chinese determined to prevent the Mongols from attacking and plundering Beijing and the rest of China.
It’s interesting how chains of thought originate. Thinking about the Chinese approach to warfare sent me off on a quick skim in my copy of an ancient book, Sun Tzu’s Art of War. You can read what Wikipedia says about the book at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War , but I think I’ll try to add something to the entry since it fails to emphasise the book’s roots in Taoist thought and practice. It also fails to emphasise the book’s relevance to our overall attitude and approach to life in general, even though it mentions its applicability to business and sporting environments.
In general we in the West are ignorant of Taoist thought and practice, and its importance as philosophy and spiritual guidance. We also fail to recognise that Zen developed out of not only Chinese Buddhism but also ancient Chinese Taoist thinking and beliefs. In essence Zen and Tao are identical.
Wikipedia tells us that Sun Tzu “taught that strategy was not planning in the sense of working through a to-do list, but rather that it requires quick and appropriate responses to changing conditions. Planning works in a controlled environment, but in a competitive environment, competing plans collide, creating unexpected situations.”
The essence of Zen and Taoist thought is that in order to prepare oneself for living well we need to train ourselves, through meditation and other practices, to focus our minds at all times in the present, so that we can respond “quickly and appropriately” (i.e. spontaneously) to whatever “unexpected situations” we may find ourselves in. By all means allow yourself to dream and your mind to wander, to imagine and to create, and reflect on past experiences, but the time to do that is during ‘meditation’ or during conversation with friends. But don’t engage with the world unless your mind is focused and very much in the present.
In order to combat those who would exploit us or do us harm, and in order to protect and nurture those for whom we are responsible, as would a Samurai, for example, we need to be fully aware and living in the moment, with our minds, our instincts and our intuitive faculties clear, calm and ready to respond with speed and precision. This is what people taking part in sports have come to call being “in the zone”.
It’s also what the “positive psychology” movement calls “Flow”.
[ See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology) ]
“Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by positive psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields. Colloquial terms for this or similar mental states include: to be on the ball, in the zone, or in the groove.”
Wikipedia continues with the following:
Components of flow
Csíkszentmihályi identifies the following as accompanying an experience of flow:
* Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities).
* Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
* A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
* Distorted sense of time, one's subjective experience of time is altered.
* Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
* Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
* A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
* The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
* People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.
Not all are needed for flow to be experienced.”
Wikipedia then adds:
"Religion and spirituality
Csíkszentmihályi may have been the first to describe this concept in Western psychology, but as he himself readily acknowledges he was most certainly not the first to quantify the concept of Flow or develop applications based on the concept.
For millennia, practitioners of Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Taoism have honed the discipline of overcoming the duality of self and object as a central feature of spiritual development. Eastern spiritual practitioners have developed a very thorough and holistic set of theories around overcoming duality of self and object, tested and refined through spiritual practice instead of the systematic rigor and controls of modern science.
The phrase "being at one with things" is a metaphor of Csíkszentmihályi's Flow concept. Practitioners of the varied schools of Zen Buddhism apply concepts similar to Flow to aid their mastery of art forms, including, in the case of Japanese Zen Buddhism, Aikido, Kendo and Ikebana."
In any kind of sport being “in the zone” is what ultimately matters, assuming one has already developed to a high level the skills one needs to employ in the endeavor. In cricket a batsman can’t hope to prosper unless he’s “in the zone”, and everything “flows”. A bowler can only be successful if he’s “in the zone”.
And it’s the same in life. It’s important to be driven by passion, but it’s crucial to be able to direct one’s passion and one’s instincts from a basis of quiet, calm and confident awareness of whatever situation we may find ourselves in. Gung-ho aggression will probably lead you directly into your own little Valley of Death, especially against a smart opponent, whilst the heat of the moment is not the time to be asking ourselves “what should I do here?”, either.
Instincts will basically cause us to react with “fight, flight or freeze”, and are pretty useless when what’s required is consistent application of effort and engagement in a continuing process.
Ultimately one may decide to retreat, for instance, but it’s not the same as fleeing in panic. The 33rd hexagram in the I Ching is called Retreat, and the Wilhelm translation has this to say about it:
“Retreat is not to be confused with flight. Flight means saving oneself under any circumstances, whereas retreat is a sign of strength. We must be careful not to miss the right moment while we are in full possession of power and position. Then we shall be able to interpret the signs of the time before it is too late and to prepare for provisional retreat instead of being drawn into a desperate life-and-death struggle. Thus we do not simple abandon the field to the opponent; we make it difficult for him to advance by showing perseverance in single acts of resistance. In this way we prepare, while retreating, for the counter-movement. Understanding the laws of a constructive retreat of this sort is not easy. The meaning that lies hidden in such a time is important.”
http://www2.unipr.it/~deyoung/I_Ching_Wilhelm_Translation.html
It’s not difficult to see how Sun Tzu, Lao Tzu, the Tao Te Ching, the I Ching, the Art of War, Zen and ‘positive psychology’ are connected. Neither should it be difficult to see how all of these apply to everyday life. But do we offer these insights to our pupils in schools and colleges? And if so, where’s it happening? Not in the National Curriculum, that’s for sure.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave a comment