Today is October 13, 2024 I don't have a title yet for my Teisho. We'll think of one later. See what it is. But I'm going to start out by reading and summarizing a podcast by Malcolm Gladwell. Chris and I went a few weeks ago in September there to Cleveland, and on the way there, listened to a podcast, which I used for a Tay show shortly after we got back, and then on the way back to Rochester, we dipped a second time, and this one is entitled, The Big Man can't shoot, and we'll probably say more about basketball in this tay show than has ever been said in this Zendo before. So I'll try to I'll try to keep it to a minimum. The podcast, I really enjoyed it. The podcast opens up with Malcolm Gladwell saying the greatest game of basketball anyone has ever played was in Hershey, Pennsylvania on March 2, 1962 in two, and then, of course, he they start playing the play by play. I'm not going to try to do that. It was in Hershey, is that right? In her Pennsylvania, yeah, the Philadelphia Warriors that was, I believe, the team that will Chamberlain was playing for playing the New York Knicks. And Malcolm Gladwell says the star of the warriors was a man named Will Chamberlain. No doubt you've heard of him. I'm not sure how many people in this Zenda have heard of him. He was seven foot one. He weighed 275 pounds for sheer physical presence. There's probably never been anyone like wilt. There are lots of seven footers who play basketball who are basically on the court purely because they're seven feet tall. Actually, in the NBA today, if they don't have some skills, they're not going to make it. Chamberlain was amazing. Gladwell says he was as big as an oak tree and as graceful as a ballet dancer, and in that season, 1961 to 62 he averaged 50 points a game, and as Gladwell says, That record will never be broken. But this particular game, that wilt. Chamberlain scored 100 points, and there's another record that's never, ever going to be broken.
He was just on fire and but the remarkable thing that Gladwell points out is that during this game, he went to the free free throw line 32 times, took 32 shots, and he made 28 of them, which is very, very good. It's remarkably good. There are a lot of great, great shooters who can't do that well for Wilt Chamberlain, it's amazing because his average was about 40% he was a terrible free throw shooter, but during this one season, he adopted an underhanded shot at the free throw line. He was a teammate with Rick Berry, who was famous for shooting underhanded, one of the only players in professional or college basketball to shoot that way. And the two of them worked together, and Chamberlain got pretty decent. He raised his his percentage, and in this particular game, he shot 87.5% so
so in the podcast Malcolm Gladwell interviews Rick berry goes and finds him. Berry is about 72 years old now, another very big guy over seven feet and he says, Rick berry will tell you that shooting underhanded is simply a better way to make foul shots. He knows that because he's one of the greatest foul shooters of all time, maybe the greatest. And then they cut to Rick berry saying, I missed nine in one season and 10 in another during the whole season. And glenwell says. To put that in perspective, LeBron. James people maybe have heard of him, the greatest player in the current basketball generation, typically makes about 150 misses, about 150 free throws a season. Rick berry would miss nine or 10.
So they spend some time pointing out why shooting underhanded is such a better strategy. When you're at free throw line, it's just fewer moving parts. The arms are in a natural position. The ball is lofted up to the basket softly, and so even if it's not quite on target, better chance it's going to roll in is just better mechanics. And the question that we're looking at is, okay, that's a better way to shoot demonstrably. Anyone who's tried it has been able to improve their percentage. So why? Why? Why don't why doesn't anybody do that right now in professional basketball, not right now. This podcast was done a few years ago. In professional basketball, there were two people who shot underhanded. One was an American, Nigerian who from another continent, and the other was Rick Berry's son. Nobody shoots underhanded, and even will Chamberlain, who had so much success with it, gave it up, and he said in his autobiography, I felt like a sissy throwing the ball that way. You know, they, one of the people on the production team, went to the Columbia women's team and asked them, you know, well, this is, if you look like a girl shooting the shot, maybe, maybe the women would shoot it this way. And they called it a granny shot, and said, Nobody shoots that way. It's kind of mind boggling, and especially mind boggling to Rick Berry, who is just totally set on winning and does not understand why anyone would let anything else stand in the way. And he worked with a lot of different players, and even though they were successful, and they began to shoot more. None of them would do it in front of their peers, in front of an audience. In fact, Rick Barry, when his father told him he should shoot underhanded, objected. Said, I'll look like a sissy. Guys are going to make fun of me. And his father told him, Rick, if you're making them, they can't make fun of you. And he said, the first time he tried, it was at an away game somewhere in New Jersey, this is as a high school player. And he heard someone in the sand say, Barry, you look like a sissy. And then he heard the guy sitting next to him says, Yeah, but he's making them all and that was it. That was Rick Barry was sold, and he did that for his career, and he taught a number of other people the problem with a great player like Chamberlain not being able to shoot free throws is at the end of the game you want your best player in there, but if you give the ball to Chamberlain, or later in NBA history, if he gave the ball to Shaquille O'Neal, they just foul him. Somebody goes and fouls him. He tries to shoot a free throw. He misses other team gets the ball. Instead of being his team star player, at the end of the game, he becomes a liability. And it's interesting to speculate on how many championships Chamberlain would have won if he just had the wherewithal to forget about what other people thought and do what worked Barry actually worked with Shaquille O'Neal, and Shaquille finally said, Nah, I can't do it. I'm a hip hop guy. It's, it's, it's your the way you look to other people, for almost everyone, is more important than whether you succeed or fail. And as you may have surmised, we're going to generalize from from this phenomenon that Malcolm Gladwell presented so well. I
so if we look at ourselves, if we think about why we do what we do, we understand that we've sort of introjected, taken on so many of the values of people around. Us. We pick up what our parents teach us, what they show us, how they act with us. We pick stuff up from our peers. It's baked in it's baked into everything. What's important? It uh, talking about just this tendency to be unable to simply sit with ourselves and decide what we want and what we need. Our difficulty in doing that forces me. I have no choice to trot out Anthony de Mello,
this is in his book awareness, the perils and opportunities of reality says Who determines what it means to be a success. This stupid thing, the main preoccupation of society is to keep society sick. And the sooner you realize that, the better sick every one of them, they're loony. They're crazy. You became president of the lunatic asylum, and you're proud of it, even though it means nothing. Being president of a corporation has nothing to do with being a success in life. Having a lot of money has nothing to do with being a success in life. You're a success in life. When you wake up, then you don't have to apologize to anyone, you don't have to explain anything to anyone. You don't give a damn what anyone thinks about you or what anybody says about you. You have no worries. You're happy. That's what I call being a success. Having a good job or being famous or having a great reputation has absolutely nothing to do with happiness or success. It's totally irrelevant.
Our society and culture drill into our heads. People who made it made what made asses of themselves because they drained all their energy getting something that was worthless. They're frightened and confused. They're puppets like the rest. Look at them strutting across the stage. Look how upset they get if they have a stain on their shirt. Do you call that a success? Look at how frightened they are at the prospect they might not be reelected. Do you call that a success? They're controlled so manipulated. They are unhappy people. They are miserable people. They don't enjoy life. They're constantly tense and anxious. Do you call that human?
Little anecdote he throws in, did you hear about the lawyer who was presented with a plumber's Bill said to the plumber, hey, you're charging me $200 an hour. I don't make that kind of money as a lawyer. Plumber said I didn't make that kind of money when I was a lawyer either. I
uh, all of us, all of us feel those twinges of, I should have done this. I should have done that. I'm not successful enough. As people get older, a lot of times that sort of creeps in. Here I am, you know, this many years old, and maybe compare yourselves to other people that you hear about.
It's hard not to be affected by it, but if we pause and think we have a chance of understanding, know what I really need to do is be an open person. I need to be somebody who can love other people. I can be somebody who can be okay with things as they are. You just, just try it for a little while and you realize, oh, that's that's what this is about. This is why I'm here, not here to become upper middle management at Xerox, although, if you want to do that, that's fine, no problem. But we really have trouble going against the grain. Back in the 1950s there was a guy named ash Asch who did a conformity experiment, he would have people come in and they would all see a standard line and then a bunch of other lines. And the challenge was pick the one that's closest in size to the standard line. And of course, everybody but one person would be a Confederate who. The researchers, and they would all pick the wrong line, and most of the time, whoever was not in on it would end up sort of bowing to the will of the group and say, Yeah, I guess that is the closest one. It's amazing how easily we can be swayed by the opinions of others. Probably one of the reasons why America is can be so incredibly politically polarized if everybody you know supports a certain candidate, whichever one it is, it's it's on you. It's the unusual person who who can say no, that's not how I see it. No people who because of the neighborhood they live in, are afraid to put up a sign for their choice for president. Sometimes that's just fear of some sort of physical retaliation, I guess, but Yeah, seems like shouldn't be such a big deal, but it is.
So. It leads to the question of, what is it? What is it that needs to be overcome. And going back to the podcast, Gladwell takes a look at a researcher. His name is grandmavetter, who tried to just to understand the behavior of people in crowds, in mobs. You know, why do people who would never throw a brick through a window get into an angry crowd with other people throwing bricks through windows, and they pick up a brick and throw it too? And there was the understanding that people had was that they just sort of become creatures of the crowd, and they become irrational. But for granted, veteran, it was simpler than that. Everybody has a threshold. Everybody has a certain number of people doing something, and you become willing to do it. So it might be your son with three of his friends drunk at night, driving 100 miles an hour, something he would never do, but he's drunk that lowers his threshold, and he's with his three friends. It's enough. Then you have your grandmother in a crowd of people throwing bricks. It takes a lot of people, but if there's enough, your grandmother's going to chuck a brick too. It's it's alarming how susceptible we are to other people, how much we care about what other people think, and how free we feel to go against our own values when everybody else is doing it, I wonder, sometimes it's painful to think about about all the lynchings that happened in the United States. You know, it's a conflagration of hate happening there that enables people to do things. I wonder how people live with that afterwards. Maybe they're okay with it. Maybe they've got so much, so many people doing exactly what they're doing that it it seems okay. Never want to be such a person. We don't realize how difficult it is for everyone to just do what's right when the pressure is on. We know for ourselves, you know when we're feeling awkward and embarrassed and just sort of go along to get along. We understand how that happened, but we see somebody else, and it's hard to understand. Yeah, it's just like it is for me, it's that way for them. What's really hard for white people to understand is how difficult it is if you're not white, if you're different, everybody you meet is looking at you in a different way. The pressure is pretty intense, and human beings are wired to respond to that. One of the reasons for the higher levels of high blood pressure and other diseases among Black people is because they face so much more hostility.
Really, everybody, everybody you meet, the way they are. Is determined by the way their life has gone. For many people, stress inducing, right from the get go, right from the womb. Most of us in this Zendo are truly fortunate, privileged, as they say, What are you going to do with it?
It's one of the reasons why the Buddha spoke about having good spiritual friends so much easier to sit when your friend is going to sit. It's one of the reasons people come on staff. It just makes it really, really easy become sort of non negotiable. Seven o'clock got to go. It's the reason why creating a habit of sitting at a certain time can really, really be helpful and sort of support your practice. It's the reason why developing the habit of letting the mind fall silent can be so incredibly helpful, noticing, noticing when you're just sifting through thoughts And gently coming back
bell ringing in the distance
people changing their posture were here.
Usually what people do when they understand that their behavior isn't matching up with what they really want to be doing is they think it over and they make a resolution and they try to improve every every New Year's people make New Year's resolutions, and Those can be helpful. When I quit smoking, I shows you what kind of an idiot I was at the time I made a vow to the Bodhisattva canon said I will never smoke again for the rest of my life. And I did it, not sure at what cost, but there's so many things where a better approach is just to notice, notice what happens when you have that extra drink or that extra helping, or you just say, I'm tired tonight. I'm not going to sit. It's all cumulative. It all has an effect, and it takes a certain amount of willpower. But the problem with willpower is we have limited supplies. So I've read a ton of stuff about the neurology of decision making, and basically what we've all got now that we're over 25 years old, those of us who are apologize to those who aren't, what we've got is a fully formed prefrontal cortex, which is the organ in the brain that, among many other things, can tell us no, not going to do that, And that it has a certain amount of staying power, but it can't last forever. We're going to weaken sooner or later, if we're continually having to damp something down. So that's how you get the sort of phenomenon of people who are really, really disciplined, but they're not pleasant to be around, and they're judgmental of other people, because they're judging themselves to try to get themselves to do what they should do, and they're rigid, you know, you have opinions about what's good and what's bad, not really reading the room, not really feeling how things are.
It's a top down system, and it doesn't work well, there's a woman I ran across named Marion Milner. She wrote a book called A life of one's own under the pen name Joanna field, and she said this about herself. I had been continually exhorted to define my purpose in life, but I was now beginning to doubt whether life might not be too complex a thing to be kept within the bounds of a single formulated purpose, whether it would not burst its way out, or if the purpose were too strong, perhaps grow distorted like an oak whose. Has been encircled with an iron band. I began to guess that myself's need was for an equilibrium, for sun, but not too much for rain, but not always. So I began to have an idea of my life, not as the slow shaping of achievement to fill my fit my preconceived purposes, but as the gradual discovery and growth of a purpose which I did not know, I wrote it will mean walking in the fog for a bit, but it's the only way which is not a presumption, forcing the self into a theory. Even the Zen can become a theory, but at its base, at its heart, Zen, is opening up to what's there and finding our way. It's not top down. It's getting in touch with something deeper. There's a koan in the shoyuku where, comes to Dijon. And Dijon asked him, Where are you going? And he said, I'm wandering on pilgrimage. And Dijon says, What is the purpose of your pilgrimage? And faiyan says, I don't know. Dijon says, not knowing is most intimate. And according to the story, faiyan had an awakening at that point, not knowing is most intimate. We develop an ability to be okay with not knowing what we put our faith in. Our faith is in just our presence in this moment.
As we go along, we begin to see what would be good to do here. We have the wherewithal to do it. If you try to, if you try to order yourself around, you will rebel. You split yourself in two, and the part that's being ordered around isn't going to put up with it forever, or it's going to be warped. If it does, you
Anthony de Mello wrote a book which I haven't read, but it's called, seek God everywhere, reflections on the Spiritual Exercises of st Ignatius. So this was a book I think that was pointed at Catholics, but what he said is really great. He said, If you love truth, be a lover of silence. Silence like the sunlight, will illuminate you in God, forgive the God word and will deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance. In the beginning, we have to force ourselves to be silent. But then there is born something that draws us to silence. If only you practice this untold light will dawn on you in consequence, after a while, a certain sweetness is born in the heart of this exercise, and the body is drawn, almost by force, to remain in silence. This is, this is getting a taste, getting a taste for Zazen. You know, in the beginning it's tough. So many thoughts crowding into the mind. They seem so important, thoughts about how I should do this, where I'm going to get how long the round is? What's wrong with me? How are they doing? That's just so many profoundly stupid thoughts which come into the mind, and they've got hooks, because they're the things we've been thinking about our whole lives. How do I measure up? Do I fit in? Do they like me? But gradually we begun, we begin to become comfortable with letting that go. You know, there's that, that phrase Fear Of Missing Out, FOMO applies to so many things. Nobody fears missing out on silence. Though, do they? They want to see the Eclipse?
If you, if you become free of the you? Uh, urges around you. Everybody else wants to do this. Other people are doing that. They saw this show. I haven't seen it. I need to see it. Well, some of that's okay. Maybe it's enjoyable to talk over the latest happenings in succession. With your friends, but you can be perfectly okay without ever seeing it.
When you die, you're not going to be saying, Oh, I'm I wish I could have seen a full Eclipse. Not going to be saying, I wish I could have risen higher in corporate hierarchy. I wish I could have made more money. Maybe you'll say that, if you're taking care of others, and money would have helped. But mainly it comes down to relationships and to your own comfort, your own equanimity, your own ability to enjoy what's in front of you. It's helpful sometimes to think about the fact that we're going to die. The Buddha in the Dhammapada says the world does not know that we must all come to an end here. But those who know it, their quarrels cease at once. And de Mello says, anytime you think you are with anyone, or think of anyone, say to yourself, I am dying, and this person, too is dying the while to experience the truth of words you're saying. If every one of you agree to practice this bitterness will die out, Harmony will rise. We're all in the same position, fish in a pond that's drying up. It's the nature of life. I have a friend who went on a vacation after doing just an intense year of work. He was a producer, TV producer, and they were trying to set up a financial news network, and had to work 12 hour days, seven days a week. Finally got to go on vacation. Everything was done, and he immediately had a heart attack, and he was lying on the gurney, and he thought of one of his coworkers who was just a raging asshole, and he realized, I have to forgive him. And he did, and he recovered, and when he did, he went back and he told the guy, you know, I really, really hated you, but I was wrong. So proud to have a friend like that.
We're not, we're not alive to please other people.
If we, if we live, if we live right, we will please other people. But if that's our goal, if we're trying to manipulate things so they'll like us, We're not going to do a very good job. I
de Mello says, Where there is love, there are no demands, no expectations, no dependency. I do not demand that you make me happy. My happiness does not lie in you. If you were to leave me, I will not feel sorry for myself. I enjoy your company immensely, but I do not cling I enjoy it on a non clinging basis. What I really enjoy is not you. It's something that's greater than both you and me, something that I discovered, a kind of Symphony, kind of orchestra that plays one melody in your presence, but when you depart, the orchestra doesn't stop. When I meet someone else, it plays another melody, which is also very delightful. And when I'm alone, it continues to play. There's a great repertoire, and it never ceases to play. Told this story before, but one point, Roshi kapleau daughter came to Rochester to visit him, and she said, Daddy, aren't you happy to see me? He said, Yes, and I'll be happy when you go.
It's, it's, it's so clear when you look at it, it just once, once you're comfortable just being who and what you are, then you're open to everyone, then you can really give yourself. Then you're not making demands.
Demelo says you must tear away from your being, the roots of society that have penetrated to the marrow. You must drop out externally. Everything will go on as before. You will continue to be in the world, but no longer of it, and in your heart, you will now be free, at last, and utterly alone. It is only in this aloneness, this utter solitude, that dependence and desire will die and the capacity to love is born for one no longer sees others as means to satisfy, satisfy one's addiction.
When I was first, when I first stopped drinking back in 1990 going to AA, and things started changing pretty fast. I remember walking into my house in Brighton, and I would walk up the driveway, and there was this bush there. I'd walk around, and then come in the front door, and all of a sudden, I noticed and realized that every time I'd done that in the past, I'd have this sense of maybe some neighbor is watching me, sense of someone's gaze on me. And now that was gone. It was, it was surprising, very confirming later on, I was raking my front yard, and I realized I wasn't in a hurry. It's just just raking that hadn't happened before. Here I am a Zen student so many years. Of course, I'd kind of been on sabbatical for quite a while. While I was working on my drinking habit, but I this was new. It was wonderful. Really, really incentivized me. And yeah, I began, I began finding my way back to Zen practice. Had to learn to let go. Some years later, I was in a restaurant having breakfast, stood up from a table and it the supports didn't move. They were bolted into the floor, and my center of gravity ended up out past my feet. And so I did what physical objects do, which is fall to the floor. And it was, it was really interesting. I didn't even blush. It's like, full of a restaurant, and people, you know, few people looked up, nobody who took much notice of it. And it was fine, you know, oops, I fell. It's to the kind of freedom that can begin to come is,
that's when I knew. That's when, you know, yeah, this is the way I want to go. The great physicist Richard Feynman wrote a book. He entitled it, what do you care? What other people think? People who don't care what other people think, can be of tremendous benefit, ready to do what needs to be done? I
they're ready to accept people as they are.
Everything is now, just now. It's where all our work is done, all our plotting and evaluation. It's just just side trips. This moment is a gift. It's not something that we create. If you're creating it, it's no good you.
There's a Thai Forest teacher, Ajahn sumedho, says, right now, it's like this, really, that's all you need.
Can just relax, relax into the moment. It's okay to feel contentment probably the two things most important for practice, contentment and determination, willingness to steadily keep at it, willingness to let it open on its own terms, willingness to be who we are. Learn from our mistakes, willingness to let other people be who they are. So freeing to be okay with other people as they are, instead of being little tyrants.
Okay, that was a lot of basketball and a lot of Anthony de Mello, but we'll stop now and recite the four vows so.
