Meditate / Reaching Enlightenment Via Arts Or Sports?

[odefinierad]

Hi there,

I have been watching Leo's videos for a couple of months now.  Each week when I listen to the talk, a recurring question comes to my mind: is it possible to meditate or reach enlightenment via practicing music or sports?

Last year, I decided to submit to a long-standing inner urge of mine and started to learn playing the drums.  I am still doing it and enjoying it as much as when I first took drumsticks in my hands: the various coordination exercises and the opportunity to play the drum track for a song charge me completely every day (while I do not even own a drum set, I just do the practicing on speed pads -- quite enough).  Though, I often feel that they require a certain calm pace, combined with a very focused attention and letting all the thoughts in the mind go away, otherwise it immediately becomes audible.  The same feeling approaches me when I swim, where the correct pace and coordination will give you the fantastic sense of smoothly gliding right on the surface of the water -- or you will just sink or catch some water in your mouth that makes you cough and stop.

In one of his videos, Leo mentions George Leonard's book called "Mastery" that I also read.  There the author uses examples for the mastery process from sports (tennis, aikido) and music (jazz piano).  So I am pretty inclined to naively believe that they might be also a tool for enlightenment.  The only doubt in me is that Leo has never mentioned them.  Perhaps because he does not do music or sports on that level (or at all).  Well, if he does, I would definitely recommend him to use them as examples as well.

 

[Azrael]

2 hours ago, odefinierad said:

is it possible to meditate or reach enlightenment via practicing music or sports?

Great question, dude. Love your post already. And the answer to your question is: Fuck yeah!

I play the drums myself since I'm 6 years old and go swimming every week to work out, so I can somehow relate to your examples. What you start to see after meditating a while or being on a spiritual journey is that the idea of meditating - completely being with the flow of reality - can be applied in most - if not all - disciplines of life.

And especially in sports and music is it very natural - as you pointed out - to apply the phenomenon of meditation. What happens if you play the drums - and I love that - is that you completely merge with the rhythm and every sound that appears in the present moment. You need to be completely there to handle your hand-foot interplay.

As you get better playing an instrument you'll see that at some point this starts to happen for itself. That actually seems to happen with the most things that you master over time (driving the car, going, talking etc. ...). What happens here is that your "self" is taken out of the equation of handling that task with conscious thought.

Now - and you can apply the same line of argumentation I just gave to swimming or to most sports in general - does this help you with your enlightenment work or is it possible to use that as meditation?

Yes and no. It can if you want to. Start to let your intuition do it's thing and just observe what is happening. Where are these sounds - when you play the drums - coming form? Where is that rhythm you feel coming from? Where is it going to? What state seems to manifest in that situation. Where does it come from? Same with swimming.

If you start you feel into that you can make a lot of very normal things a meditation and use it for your spiritual progress or to see reality at its work. Cheers to you for that great topic

[odefinierad]

Hey,

Thanks for the reply.  In retrospective, your answer ("yes and no") is quite straightforward: of course, I should have known that :-)

I only started to play the drums about a year ago, some time before my 33rd birthday.  Although I have to confess I had previous attempts to do music, like I learned to play the (electric) guitar without a teacher and even composed songs of on my own when I was around 23, and I have been listening to music a lot since the age of 14.  I am a bit sorry that I let myself gave up on playing music back then, but c'est la vie.

Now, I started the drumming business in a school, and as far as I experienced, my progress is above average.  I believe that is due to the mindfulness I practice in the exercises, in exactly the same way as George Lenard's book suggests.  So, after digesting your answer, I might even say that the situation is actually the other way around: good performance in arts or sports may be only the by-product of mindfulness or being on the road that leads to enlightenment.

That said, I think it is perfectly reasonable that professional athletes or musicians do their job better than me, a humble but mindful amateur -- though I often see that they become spiritually depleted by the process that leads to uncontrolled consumption of drugs, beating themselves up for bad results, and such, for example.  So, on a second thought, being a rock star or winning the Olympics will not necessarily buy you harmony,  but being in harmony gives you a much more persistent, intensive feeling.