Classroom Talk
Winter 2002 Archive
Sometimes we have a game. Sometimes the game's "got us." Posted by John on March 20, 2002 at 13:22:25:
In Reply to: Re: The so-called "Nine Moves of the Awareness Game." posted by Student John on March 18, 2002 at 18:16:03:
Hi, Folks. I'm being under the weather again, and it's getting in the way of my doing my work here. Truth is, I've been finding my Self being angry
about this. We all get angry at things that go wrong. One thing I know I can do when I'm being angry is wake up on it, from time to time during the
day, like right now . . . . . and feel it, and chaperone the tensions of it on through.
Another thing I can do (one of those little "moves" that can be tried out), I can try to see it from *the opposite side*. Maybe when I'm being held up
from getting as much coaching done as I think I ought to be doing, maybe the pauses that the over-all flow of Nature creates have their own purpose
in the balance of All things. For instance, maybe (for all I know) there's enough in what I've got posted on the bulletin board already to keep all of
you class-members busy enough for now.
Maybe it's okay that I'm slowin' down as I'm gettin' older. Maybe the Universe has space for that to fit in smoothly into the scheme of All things.
Anyway, just rambling a little with my experience here now.
The first day of Spring, and already the blossoming orange trees around me are pouring their wonderful fragrance into the winds that come roaring
through. And asthma. What a strange thing it is to have the lungs react so inhospitably to these beautiful spring aromas. Grrrrrr. Makes me angry.
And don't take that away from me, please. Don't try to tell me there's nothing to be angry about. I'm just sharing openly the who I am being today.
I'm not being angry at you.
And welcome to you, Student John. Thank you for your sensitivity in posting it that way. (I suppose I could have become "Coach John" on the
bulletin board to prevent confusion . . . . . and maybe we'll try it out that way some day, just for the fun of it, and you can just be John. But for now,
thank you for deferring to me in that alert and intelligent way. — By the way, my idea in posting "John" on the board, and "Coach" inside in the
classes, is my sense that out there "in the hall," so to speak, we are all just human beings together in the crowd . . . and in here, in the classes, I have a
particular job that I'm supposed to do. And I like to use "Coach" to remind you all that I'm not here just to be a pal to hang around with, but to be as
tough and as strict as I can be as a strong coach, in attempting to share the ideas that come to me about things that seem to me, from my experience, to
be the most worth coaching about with each of you.
>I'll often put up a score when I miss a "gimmie" putt
Yes! Good observation. Score shows up on the scoreboard not only in relating with other people, but in relating with innanimate objects in the world,
and impersonal programs, like golf. Hee-hee. When that happens to you, John, it seems like the game of golf has got *you*, so to speak, instead of the
other way around, you having a game of golf. Do you see what I mean? Maybe you can think of some ways that you could turn it around, so that
you have a game of golf when you go out and play, instead of the game of golf having you.
And the point you made is well taken. We have the same kinds of reactions with things in the world as we have with other people. Strange dog shit
on our lawn. We find our mailbox open and don't know if any mail was taken. A far-off radio is playing too loud with music we don't want to hear.
These are all "things." And we react and put score on the scoreboard. Maybe some people are behind all of these things (the dog's or the radio's
owners, for instance). But—yes, you're quite right—sometimes there's nobody else out there to "put it on"—as when you're standing on the green
and you've just blown an easy putt . . . and . . . as when I'm angry at being sick. In these times, we react and are angry at our own Selves. Or,
maybe, we are angry "at God," angry at the true nature of things . . . . . angry at the way it is, when "things go wrong."
Even though the awareness game is designed primarily for interpersonal relating between people, you are right if you've surmised that you can use
the techniques of this game with the reactions we have to inanimate objects or impersonal programs that impact in our living space. Simply go with the
odd-numbered moves on that chart, which focus on the conditioned functions of your own Self, and leave off the even-numbered moves that seek to
discover the Self of the other person. Inanimate objects and impersonal programs don't have Selves like other people do. You won't find the cup on
the 18th green has emotional feelings, nor thoughts and judgments, nor an ego of its own, nor personality types . . . as you will find these functions in
other people you are relating with, and in your own Self.
The same can be said of the wheezing of asthma. It doesn't have a Self, even as it sometimes seems to "keep coming on." Heh-heh. (And by the way,
Everybody, whenever you see me saying "Heh-heh," you can realize that I am releasing, by chuckling, a little bit of anger that I'd been holding onto
before then.).
So . . . wheezing and the game of golf are rather similar entities here, from the point of view of this game. We can acknowledge and process the
emotional reactions we have to them on through and out. We can acknowledge the thinking we do about it, and see that it's "only thinking." We can
determine "What's my big stake in this?" That's the ego's province. And—here's where the shift comes from "it having you" to "you having it"—we
can take charge of it, we can make of it something new, something different, something of our own choosing, we can invent
*our own game* with it. We can—this is what this awareness game move is called—Change-the-Mix. We can shift out of the stake that our Self has
got us stuck in, and we can invent another stake of our own free choosing. We can—intentionally!— "change-the-mix" in the way we play the game of
golf.
For instance, as an exercise, if you'd care to try this out, you can play *one round* of golf in a new way of your own making. It doesn't matter what
changes you make. But, forget about score! Can your caddy legally keep score for you? Or, don't keep score at all. There are so many ways to vary
the way you play a round of golf, I'll only mention one exercise to give you some ideas. For instance, you can just play for "the difficulty and the
beauty of it." Before each shot, wake up and mindfully assess the relative difficulty of that shot. Become very aware of this and get a clear vibe of the
sheer difficulty of it, as it lies. Appreciate that difficulty. Dig it! With each new lie, a golf course proves to show you that there are an infinite variety
of difficulties that can present. And each time as you are making the shot, get into your body, inside, and feel the dance of it, in making that shot.
Feel the beauty of it. Get into the idea of making that swing, that feelable physical dance, be beautiful.
Don't worry about where the shot falls. Score is unimportant in this exercise. Take whatever you get. Again, mindfully assess and fully appreciate
the unique difficulty of the next lie. And then concentrate, mindfully, on the beauty of the physical dance of making that next shot in the awakened
here-and-now. And so-on around the course for eighteen holes. Difficulty, beauty. Difficulty, beauty. Forget the score, and concentrate on that.
As absurd as an exercise like this might sound, in actually doing it, just to see whatever you do see, a piece of disciplined metaphysical work like this
might change your perspective enough that you would take back your own body again, recover it from the clutches of the game of golf. I've gotten
feedback that exercises of this kind have improved mindfulness students' games of tennis, golf, basketball, etc. The idea is to neutralize the things that
give you pressure when you are playing, and to focus awarely on the realities of the game and the fun of actually playing one shot at a time, rather
than on the outcomes of each shot along the way, or on the final score.
Now don't feel obligated to try this out, John. I always tell students to do any of the exercises around here that appeal to them, and don't do the
rest. So, I throw this one out to you because it just came to mind . . . for the fun of it . . . if you might like it.
Ah, there's so much to do. I'm not forgetting that I've been working on certain responses to Pauline, Deirdre, Douglas, and several others of you for
nearly two weeks now, trying to weave all that together. I'll give everything I've got to that during the rest of this week. But I do have to take a
break again, now. I do hope I'll be back here again later today, and maybe I'll post shorter postings of that all as I move along.
Coach
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