Positive Thought or No Thought?
“One who is at peace and is quiet, no sorrow or harm can enter; therefore his inner power remains whole and his spirit intact.” –Bruce Lee
A question worth exploring when it comes to competing in the hurdles is, what kind of frame of mind do you want to walk to the starting line with? Many sports psychologists speak of the power of positive thinking when it comes to preparing for high-pressure performance. They say that negative thoughts should be replaced by positive thoughts, that negative self-imagery should be replaced by positive self-imagery. For track races, the common advice is to see yourself pulling away from your opponents, to tell yourself you’re the best athlete in the field. And while there is much validity to this type of advice, and though plenty of athletes have benefitted from the power of positive thinking, there is another approach to competition that I would like to argue is more effective.
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The approach I’m talking about is that of emptying the mind of thought altogether. The argument here would be that any thought – positive or negative – is mental weight that you bring with you to the starting line. To truly bring out the best in yourself, an empty mind is the best. Even positive thought distracts the mind from the moment, inhibits the body from acting instinctively, by focusing the mind’s attention on words.
To empty the mind is to enter into a Zen-like state, to be in a total state of inner peace, or what martial arts master Bruce Lee referred to as a state of “repose.” While the dictionary defines repose as “a state of calm, rest, or tranquility,” what Lee is talking about goes much deeper than that. A state of repose for the competitive athlete is a state of high awareness, clarity, and focus, while simultaneously feeling quite calm and peaceful. But how does one achieve such a state? How does one empty the mind, reach a state of heightened awareness, and put total trust in the body to act instinctively?
I don’t know if that question can be answered directly. Yes, there are breathing exercises and relaxation techniques that help, and such methods have been discussed in previous articles in previous issues. But for the purposes of this article, I’d like to go in a different direction. The point is not so much to figure out how to quiet the mind, but to let go of trying to figure it out. The premise here is that the effort itself gets in the way.
To fully grasp the concept of the Empty Mind, it might be better to look outside the world of sports psychology, as this is not a topic relegated to the realm of athletics. More so, it is one of the most fundamental questions we have regarding human existence: is it possible to stop the mind from chattering? Is it possible to not think?
Twentieth century poet T.S. Eliot addresses this question in his master work entitled Four Quartets. In the section entitled “East Coker,” one of the passages reads thusly:
“I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought.”
So what’s his point? Let’s break it down. He advises himself to “wait without hope,” which goes against the mantra of positive thinking, which encourages us to be hopeful for a positive outcome. Eliot warns that hope would be “hope for the wrong thing.” The ironic point here is that hope for anything would be hope for the wrong thing, because hoping for something “good” and hoping for something “bad” not to happen are just the same thing in different words. In both cases, the hoping itself throws off your emotional balance by putting you in an anxious state of mind.
Similarly, Eliot’s advice to “wait without love” is for the same reason. Even love, as beautiful as it is, is a word, and word equates to thought, and thought distracts. It’s kind of like, you can’t really enjoy a song if you’re trying too hard to figure out what it means. The minute you hear a song and say “I love this song!”, you are compromising your own enjoyment of the song. The minute you say “What a beautiful day!” on a sunny day, you have diminished the beauty of the day. The still mind, the quiet mind, simply observes without judging, and can therefore embrace the moment fully, with a mind that is not clouded by expectations, emotions, and thoughts. So Eliot’s verse is basically saying that even “positive” thoughts are distractions, are impediments to repose.
According to Lee, a state of repose is essential. It is the starting point, the central location, so to speak, from which all action must take place. Taoists refer to this place as one’s “Chi.” Physically, it is the center of the body, just below the navel. Figuratively, it is the state of being in which the mind is still, free of thought. A distracted mind is a lost mind, and an athlete with a distracted mind will always fall short of his or her potential in a given performance. Often, disappointing performances in big meets can be attributed not to a lack of preparation, misguided training methods, or laziness, but to the fact that one’s mind is not in a state of repose when one enters the starting blocks. Any mental energy spent thinking of past failures or hoping for future successes gets in the way of pure action, or what the Taoists refer to as Wu Wei. If your mind is focused on making the finals, or finishing in the top three, or setting a personal best, or beating your rival, or keeping your trail leg tight, or getting out fast, your mind is in a state of distraction. As Eliot said, when your standing in front of the starting blocks, about to take your marks, you must wait without hope. Be still. Trust your body. This is the moment you trained it for. So trust it.
“Only in repose,” Lee says, “ can the mind begin to investigate the nature of things, empty itself of interferences, and learn not to let external triggers induce internal states of fear, anger, sorrow, and anxiety.”
To me, the time when the athlete must enter into this state of repose is during the pre-race warm-up. If you ask me, I’d say that nothing quiets the chattering mind more effectively than physical activity. A good, hard warm-up helps the athlete to focus on the now. The noise in the mind doesn’t stop because you’re trying to stop the noise, but because the movement of the body quiets the noise in and of itself. The common problem, as I see it, is that athletes are often too distracted during their warm-up, not realizing that getting their mind right is just as important as getting their body right during this crucial preparation period. During the warm-up, there should be no talking except for essential matters with essential people. There should be no socializing. There should be a total meditative focus on each action, each movement, each drill, each run-out, etc. Neither, however, should there be tension, anxiety, agitation. It is quite possible, and quite necessary, to be totally focused and totally calm. Entering the starting blocks in such a frame of mind, you will run well. For the mind that is free of fear, there is no failure.
Lee seems to taking things one step farther. He is pointing directly toward the spiritual dimensions of physical activity, of athletic competition. His message seems to be that when the mind is quiet, the spirit can now take over; it can now get behind the steering wheel and drive the car. When the spirit leads the way, a joy emerges – a thrilling, tingly feeling. You are at home in the starting blocks, and you are free of doubt. “Discard all thoughts of reward,” he urges, “all hopes of praise and fears of blame, all awareness of one’s bodily self.” And from there, trust the spirit. To discard all awareness of one’s bodily self means to trust the body completely. Don’t think about the body, don’t instruct the body, don’t remind the body of anything. Trust it. In this sense, “trust the body” and “trust the spirit” mean the same thing, because both the body and the spirit are free of thought. The body is instinctive; trust your instincts. The spirit is divine; trust your inner divinity. And when it comes to being a hurdler, there is a third dimension: trust the hurdles.
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