Out of My Mind

Trey Smith

The great masters of India and China only met mind to mind -- from the first there was never any "mind" to attain. But if you make a rationale of mindlessness, that is the same as having a certain mentality.
~ Zen Master Ying-an as quoted by Thomas Cleary in The Pocket Zen Reader ~

Back when I still retained the physical capacity to engage in such things, one of my favorite pastimes was bowling. Though no one would confuse me with a studly jock, I earned a college letter as a member of my university's then-NAIA Bowling Team. I was the 10th man on a 10-man team!

While working for the US Forest Service from 1979 - 80, I bowled in a league in Baker City, Oregon and averaged slightly more than 200 per game. When I became a social worker, I found that bowling was a great way to relieve the stress of a very stressful occupation.

At this juncture, you may be thinking to yourself, "Trey, that's great. It had never occurred to be that you were a bowling enthusiast, but what in the hell does this have to do with the quote from above?"

Patience, patience. I'm getting there. ;-)

For most people I know, the maximum number of games a person might roll in one session is 6 -- 2 series (a series being three consecutive games). We must remember, however, that I am OCD and so a typical session for me would be 15 - 24 games or 5 - 8 series!

It used to drive me crazy that I bowled far better after I had exhausted myself as opposed to when I was fresh. Back then, I could never figure out the why of this equation. Years later (and removed from the bowling scene) I came to understand.

As with most sports, a great deal of bowling has to do with one's mental attitude. Of course, you need to have the physical capability to perform the basic skills of a sport like bowling, but once you had these down pat, the real trick is not to over think or over concentrate.

When I was fresh, I tried to force my concentration into the "zone," that state of mind in which everything slows down and you feel at one with your bowling ball. Needless to say, the zone cannot be attained by force; it must develop of its own accord. The more you try to will yourself to enter it, the more you find that the door is locked!

Once I had bowled numerous games, fatigue would start to set in and my mind would begin to wander. I found it very difficult to maintain the same level of conscious focus as before and often, after berating myself for a supposed lack of proper discipline, I sort of caved in to the state of being "unfocused."

Once I gave up on the idea of being duly focused...I became duly focused! Once I gave up on the idea of controlling my mind, I went out of it and into the "zone." Without understanding it, I would develop a rhythm to my bowling that no longer necessitated consciously hitting my marks or heaving the ball down the lane with the requisite amount of spin. I bowled more by intuition and my scores would shoot up.

I would try to replicate what I thought I had learned in my previous session, but it always seemed to be of no avail. I would repeat the same mistaken process session after session after session. At that stage of my life, it never dawned on me that trying to force myself to be mindless was a certain recipe for failure. I was trying to force something to occur that only can occur when you don't try to force it!

I better understand this notion these days, but alas, I no longer possess the physical capacity to bowl.