Thinking is always on the move, looking to keep itself alive through activity. Thinking about something is thought’s occupation. It is always moving and when one watches or pays attention to thought it slows down. When one gives one’s whole attention to thought it ceases. It is like when you are in a car crash and things seem to happen in slow motion. Most of us only know the release from thought through some activity, competition, or adrenaline rush. If one uses concentration to quiet thought, it is freedom from and therefore a process of exclusion. Thought doesn’t want to end, and its primary directive is to find in some religious, political, or personal belief a place where it is permanent and secure. Thought creates all kinds of beliefs and material processes because it is itself a material process.

The chemical nature of thought is moving in an irrational pattern when it is used beyond the technical boundaries of its intended function. Where human relationship is concerned thinking is a mess. It creates groups of people and the illusion that we are separate beings in separate lands. Thought has created all the psychological problems of disconnection, fear, jealousy, hatred, greed, loneliness etc. Thought also creates the external psychology that most people practice to deal with there disconnected state only inflicting more damage and disconnection.  Thought creates the problem of disconnection and then tries to be the remedy to change it. You can’t use cancer to kill a cancer without creating the same result.

Our greatest challenge as human beings is to question everything that thought creates to make us better people, more loving etc. Thought is a movement that is caught in time.  Fear, jealousy, greed, and hatred are products of time because they are things we learn. Love and compassion are not the rooted in thought. They are another movement that is truly internal. Self is fear, jealousy, greed, hatred and is put into you by others. Where these are, love and compassion are not. To love another and reject someone else is not love.
Death is the ending of self and self is terrified of it own ending.  In the ending of thought one is no longer seeing through the eyes of time and one’s own limits. Then one is free and what is free is not held in the confines of death.

Coach bri

So I impressed you. That was not my intention!

Wait. I’m not finished – there’s more! After being so upset with these people I saw that I was angry with them because their struggle was my struggle and I had separated myself from them. And, as you say, what you dislike in anyone is the self which is you. This has been the most difficult time in my life. You have turned me inside out and now I have no clue on how I should live my life.

So what you are saying, if I have understood you correctly, is you are at a place inside yourself where you feel unrest. You have got the spirit of discontent. This came to you because the conference you chose to attend had an impact on you and now you are questioning the very nature of that impact. Do I have it correctly?

Yes that is it! Exactly!

So you have come to see me because you’re upset with me?

I think so!

No, that is not good enough!

Maybe I thought that I needed to see you! Can I tell you how I feel now? When I look at you and the way you are, I feel different. I just want to cry, I feel that you love me or something because you see through me! I couldn’t hold your eyes at the conference. I felt you were emitting some kind of energy.

I am sorry but that is just your thinking brain trying to avoid the truth of the matter, and it wants to make it about me, and that is a lie! I am a human being full of flaws and so are you! We are just meeting halfway and talking openly about the facts of our lives. We are self-centered sir, both of us. This is where the change must happen. We must both be willing to talk about the facts of our self-centered, egotistical lives and see the problem in the world is us, face the challenge of change, in a way that is whole, and not another egoism.

Well that seems impossible!

This is what awakened in you after the conference, did it not? This state of the impossible task we human beings must face, if there is going to be a human race. You saw the center of your own misery and you don’t want to change, right? You love your habits, the pleasure they bring and in the same breath you hate them.

I hate what I keep doing to myself. You know some weekends I try to be alone with myself and I can’t. Last weekend I went to a pub and brought a book and read there because I just can’t take being alone. I, as you put it, poisoned myself with booze every day or smoke a joint; it is all the same – I am running.

I know! I know! This is what we have reduced life to. Acquiring things, titles, money, sex, drugs, whatever, because we can’t handle the poverty of our own condition.

And that condition is?

We are slaves to thought. Thinking is the dominant factor of our life, it rules us and it has conquered us and divided us, inside and outside!

I don’t get all that. Can you tell me more?

Only if you are really listening! Not agreeing or disagreeing – that anyone can do!

Yes I understood that at the conference! It was a shock at first, but I never listen to anyone really, just my own thinking because, as you said, I am arming my comeback. I learned that at the conference that I really don’t listen at all, not even to myself. I always want, as you said, something to strengthen my point of view. And if I disagree, my point of view is strengthened.

Yes and therefore divided from the other with their point of view. Very few people talk it out to explore, open it up and find out. All of our problems are common. We all are poisoned by the things of thought.

And they are?

You know them – you suffer as all human being do who have an egotistical self.

Well at the conference when you talked about how we are all looking for security in and about self, that rang true for me.

Much more, much much more!

Okay, what?

Are we all not suffering with greed, jealously, over indulgence in one thing or another, loneliness, fear in one form or another, demanding, power tripping, and mistreating the ones closest to us? You know all this, right?

Well that about sums it up!

So now you are lost, right? What does one do when they’re lost?

Well I guess the first thing is to find out where you are.

Yes and we know that! A flawed, contradicting, self-centered human being. Who wants to run away from the fact that their thinking has created and conditioned who they are by what they have or don’t have? Shallow, petty, demanding pleasure, intellectual or otherwise. Right? Do you see it?

Yes that is me! But I have periods of happiness, few and far between.

Happiness, or amusing yourself with pleasure?

Okay if I’m honest, pleasure, and joy once in a while.

Sorry, how do you know it is joy?

Well the best example was in the conference when you said beauty is anything, anytime where self isn’t. I have had that happen to me! Where I wasn’t all about myself and just let whatever was there be there. I wasn’t thinking a lot.

Yes in perception thought has no place! It may have a place after but not as one perceives.

I think I get that!

So you are lost and the world says don’t be! Do something, solve a problem, create a problem to solve

Yes that is me!

No, it is the condition of all of mankind – to create problems and solve them. It gives us a feeling we are progressing. Towards what?

I have no idea! I have being doing that to keep my shitty fearful life working but… I have no wisdom!

And so you are chasing after wisdom?

Well I guess I know that the last thing I am is wise!

What tells you that?

Well how can I be! Most of my discussion with you points out that I am basically irrational.

Yes and seeing that is the beginning of wisdom!

What is?

Do you see that human beings think they are rational? They are addicted to drink, smoke, sex, work, acquiring things, money, power, ambition, wanting to be envied, or rich, or famous. And the things they will do to achieve – they hurt, kill over for a flag, which is nothing but a piece of cloth that is colored! They live in fear yet they think they are rational. To see that one is irrational is the beginning of rationality. That is wise! Do you see it?

Yes I think so but language seems to be wrong or misleading.

Yes thought is never the thing it is describing. So one is lost! Be lost fully and you know where you are lost. Then from being lost, question the very direction you want to move it since it may be another irrational direction. Just be still, open, and perceive it all without choice! In that awareness there is feeling and movement, not as a causation of thought. In that movement compassion is action and its own direction, apart from the process of thinking.

Thank you so much for your time!

You must come again!

I will. Thank you!

Coach bri

The athletes arrived and we all began to debrief. The athletes first described the match and their thoughts on technical things of the game. The atmosphere in the room held many emotions and all were hiding what they really felt. They were in a space where self-deception was going to divert from the problem and render people ineffective. The chat went on for some time and everyone avoided the heart of the matter. It is amazing how clever people can avoid the real questions and what really is going on within a group of people who have no regard for their potential and living up to it.

Often athletes who have some success are the hardest to work with because they think they can win or have the recipe for winning. The fact is that there is no recipe and every journey must begin each day new and fresh and the level of commitment to what you are doing must be in place.

We put so much attention on the technical things, facilities, tools etc to get away from the fact of team building and the competitive edge. It is not natural to be competitive. It is something that is put into us. It is a ruthless thing that easily can become twisted in the sense of power over other people and situations that can breed a heightened level of superiority. This level of superiority invites fear because it forms an image of the player based on success. Any time you identify yourself with your performance in anything, you invite fear and it cripples the love of the game and destroys it. These athletes were masters at building all kinds of “off ramps” with each other and scared to really reach their potential.

The thing we fear the most is the work we must do to be an effective team. Excellence is learning all the factors that prevent you from giving your best effort. Many people dream of winning Olympic gold but only a handful have the heart to do the training to achieve it. Fewer have the insight that winning is a quest for excellence, the dismantling of their brainwashing to end all fear. Where there is fear, all love is not. Love and excellence is our natural state.

Coach bri

Yes you’re right – you might have!

No, I was the last shooter, the one who could of done it. But I didn’t. I let the team down! I stink! I don’t know why I play this game!

I thought you did because you love it!

I did. I am not fucking loving it now!

Before the game, how many times did you rehearse shooting or practice a shootout that week?

Why? What the hell is that going to do for me?

When you were given the opportunity to take the shootout, what was your thinking doing?

What kinda question is that? My thinking doing?

Yes, were you thinking?

Another stupid question. What does that mean?

Sorry, but can you give me a bit of your time now or do you want to call me later?

I was shitting my pants!!! OK?! I was scared, it was a hard game and I needed to score – I blew it.

Yes I see! Fear. What is fear?

Fuck I hate this, I can’t think right now! You give me questions I just want…?

What?

Sympathy!

Yes! Ok. Sorry, I thought I’d mistaken you for someone who loves the game rather than someone who defines themselves by it.

Thanks! Thanks a lot! You can be such a prick!

Yes! Still afraid to look are you? You make it about me! Maybe I can take the shootout for you!

Ok I get your point. Sorry! Sorry!

So you were shitting your pants were you?

No but I felt like it, my stomach was gassy and nervous. My arm felt uptight.

What happened the more you focused on the outcome of scoring? The tighter your arms and stomach felt, right?

Yes, that’s exactly it!

How was your breathing?

Shallow and short. But I have been doing what you said – focusing on the process.

No, you’ve being talking yourself into talking about process, to get an outcome, which is focusing on the outcome pretending, you’re not.

You know, I think you’re right, as crazy as that sounds. But how do you know that coach?

You said your breath was short and you had fear! If you want to score in tough situations you must be all about process. Process is mastering your breath, mastering yourself and then the situation.

How do you know I didn’t master myself?

Because you said your were shitting your pants, you were putting yourself under pressure therefore … fear. Fear is always the future! Future is outcome.
Therefore you couldn’t…

Master the situation! I get it coach. I see it!!! Now what do I do?

Nothing! Seeing is doing! If you’re really seeing!

How will I know if I really see?

That’s easy! You must come to terms with your self-centered approach to sport! You are, in those moments, an egomaniac, all about you, not the team.

Thanks coach – just say it as it is!

Deep breath in through your nose, out through you mouth. Breathe deep into your belly and as you exhale release with a sound hawwwww. Then clear your mind, positive thoughts, only on process, on what you are doing, love the pressure, love the game and shoot. What happens once you release the puck is gone forever.

You miss because:
1. The goalie is more focused that you.
2. You are identified with the outcome of your shot. You have made it personal.
3. Your breath is shallow, your thoughts bring fear, your body is tight and movement is out of rhythm, you are feeling pressure, not challenge, therefore you are at the effect of your stinking thinking.

Yes that is me! You’re right coach!

No, I’m not right – you see the truth in what I am saying, that is all. What is the purpose of your feelings?

I remember this coach – to tell me something is wrong! Right?

Partly. Feelings tell us if what we are doing now is effective or ineffective.

Oh yeah!

How do you feel now?

Better! Thanks Coach bri!

You do a sport! Never let it define you, your performance is but a mirror to see your own ego get in the way. When ego is not there you find discipline. Discipline is doing what you have to do when you have to do it.

Thanks coach!

Coach bri

Let’s say for example that an athlete needs to develop a tougher serve in order to perform at a higher level. Well, when the person goes to practice that serve in a game situation and produces a pressure situation on the other side of the net to increase their chances of winning, many athletes are afraid and don’t practice that serve in the competition phase. This is because of the immediate fear of losing the game in the future, which can be twenty seconds or ten minutes from now, and this cripples their own growth as an athlete. In order for anything to be successful, under pressure, you have to practice it in situations of low pressure as well as situations of high pressure. This I believe is the process of mental training and the integration of perfect practice makes perfect.

In order to understand this more closely, let us examine the behaviour of serving. Because all behaviours are driven by four basic components, let’s examine each one of these components separately. What is the physiology of serving? In order to have a good serve when one goes back on the line, one has to be in control of their physiology. That means that the respiration, arousal level, and heartbeat all come together and there must be a relaxed intensity within the athlete’s physiology. If their breath is too rapid it could mean that they’re overexcited and because they’re overexcited, more fatigued. They are not able to stay loose, and in control of their actions. One must be able to master their physiology, if they want to have a good serve.

The next component is feeling. Feeling is the direct relationship to how one is experiencing that life situation of competing. If the server goes back and feels very good and confident this will only help the person stay relaxed and master their physiology. They will be inspired to serve. If a person is feeling afraid, and not very good, they will be in a cycle of doubt . Since they’re in that cycle of doubt, there is a greater potential for them not to have the correct physiology in order to stay relaxed enough to make a good serve.

Now the next component is thinking. If the two components of physiology and feeling are under the athletes control, they are able to produce the right thinking in order to make an effective serve. However, if the physiology is erratic and the athlete feels poorly, then it is very hard to think clearly in order to serve or choose the type of serve needed in order to create a high level of effectiveness and put the other team in trouble.

The fourth component is the acting, completing the behaviour of serving. This serving behaviour is dependent upon the other three components acting together in a relationship to produce a quality serve. A quality serve is a serve that scores a point or puts the team in trouble and limits the other team’s opportunity to score a point or to easily defend. This is also the situation of life, in our relationships. When a change is needed, we often fear that change, because that change puts us in a horrible position. And we feel insecure. Therefore we are in the cycle of doubt. When a person in a relationship sits in the cycle of doubt, the person then is controlled by that doubt and will not think or act differently. Therefore they will never feel differently, or be calm and collected in that situation.

Anything we do, where we directly effect the outcome of the situation, adds a certain pressure. The ability to manage that pressure is the ability to deal with the four components of behaviour. The management of these four components deals directly with the process of success. Rather than the outcome of the behaviour, if we first understand and master of the process, we will create more desired outcomes.

Coachbri

Photo: Angie Shen