Resistance is Futile...

During the past two weeks, the relentless heat of March in Thailand been happily punctuated by the occasional, and much appreciated, thunderstorm. The rain lashes down in huge torrents, often accompanied by rumbling thunder and sheet lightning. Experiencing such a downpour in itself is a pleasure in this climate and, barring dangers of the electrical nature, it is actually quite enjoyable to wander along the street and allow yourself to be well and truly soaked in such a way. Within the hour the rain will be gone again and you will find your clothes drying quickly as the sun resumes its normal intensity.

In this country the heat is more or less continuous and one needs to be aware of the constant threat of de-hydration. Luckily the distractions of flaneurial lifestyle tend to take care of any dangers of that sort; here in Kanchanaburi there is a wide choice of cafes and eateries for one to retire to should one feel the need. There are also the pleasures of cartons of frozen latte to be indulged in, perhaps one of the most quenching of drinks, although maybe not the most healthy. Many roadside retailers offer this option.

To survive and even thrive in such heat one needs to adopt a certain attitude, to be capable of a certain resignation, or even surrender, to the inevitable. Wasting energy wishing things were somehow different just leaves you even more frustrated. Resistance is futile, as famously pointed out during a famous sci-fi series of recent times. This attitude can be useful to adopt in many areas of life and it is very much part of the culture in many Eastern countries, particularly those which have adopted Buddhism as their national religion or where that spiritual discipline exerts a strong influence. In the West, on the contrary, we are often exhorted to 'fight the good fight' and to give battle to all manner of things that we disapprove of. The symbolism involved, even the language itself, is that of war. We feel we have to 'struggle to survive' every day, or we are told that we need to 'overcome our weaknesses'. These pervasive uses of language often affect us without our even realising. We live in cultures where these pugilistic assumptions come built in.

The Thais, on the contrary, do not feel the need to spend their whole lives struggling, to waste energy complaining about the inevitable. This attitude can be very frustrating when one is first exposed to it. Coming from the West, or even as in my case, via the frenetic anthill that is China, there is a 'things need to be done and done now' assumption in our interactions. To come from this into a culture of acceptance, of surrender to the inevitable, can come as something of a culture shock to many.

Our predominant and pervasive state of being in the West seems to be that of being continuously wound up about one thing or another. We are worried about our jobs, our pensions, our families, the state of the world and the other people on the road who always seem to be intent on cutting us up and rendering our journeys as frustrating as possible... and that is just the phenomena we perceive as outside of ourselves. On the inside there is the constant dialogue, the shoulds and the shouldn'ts, the musts and the mustn'ts... worrying about the things that went wrong in the past or those that might go wrong in the future. Even worrying about ourselves and who or how we are.

It is tempting may think of this as a modern problem but it has plagued humanity for thousands of years. About two and a half millennia ago a wandering ascetic by the name of Siddhartha Gautama understood this as the human condition and decided that he wanted to find a way, or a path, around it. In order to do so he resolved to sit and meditate beneath a bodhi tree and not stop until he had found the solution to the problem. According to legend, he meditated for forty days and forty nights before the solution was clear to him. After his enlightenment, Siddhartha Gautama became known as the Buddha, or 'the Awakened One'. So began the practice of Buddhism.

For those of us in the West used to having our religions defined by theology and by faith, Buddhism comes as something of a challenge. In fact, many would not consider it a religion at all. Certainly the Buddha made no claims to Godlike status although many followers since have chosen to deify him. He himself said little on the issue believing it to be irrelevant to his teachings. He was far more interested in the practice of these ideas than in theological discussion. In this sense, Buddhism is more a philosophy, or even a form of psychology, than a religion. In essence, one can be adopt Buddhist practices without contradicting one's own religious beliefs in the slightest. A Christian employing these techniques is likely to end up a better Christian, a Jew a better Jew, a Hindu likewise.

At base, Buddhism is concerned with following a path that enables us to escape our essentially self-inflicted sufferings. It does this by getting us to follow ethical and disciplinary practices that aim to allow us to achieve a sense of space between our selves and the thoughts, emotions and concerns that monopolise our minds. Perhaps the most basic practice of all, and one which has been explored very thoroughly in Buddhism, is that of meditation.

Now, there are many, many different techniques of meditation taught within Buddhism and within other spiritual schools; far, far too many for an article such as this to go into in any depth. For the sake of simplicity I will refer to just two of the main practices: Anapanasati and Vipanassana.

Anapanasati may sound like a starter that you might order in an Italian restaurant but it has, in fact, little to do with Mediterranean cuisine. It is perhaps the most basic of meditation technique and is often used to help beginners at the start of their practice. In itself, anapanasati has many forms but they all revolve around the idea of paying attention to the breath. The breath was chosen as a focus in this way because it is always available to us. Perhaps the simplest technique within these forms is where one is encouraged to focus on the sensation of the breath at the tip of the nose; focus on the breath going in; focus on the gap as the breath changes direction; focus on the breath going out. That's it! It really is that simple. At the start you may wish to do this for 15 minutes or so. You can count if you wish, one as the breath goes in, two as it goes out. Or even countdown from ten to one with each cycle of breathing. It really doesn't matter too much which form you adopt but what does matter is building the ability to keep the mind focussed on a single point.

Anapanasati can be thought of as the mental equivalent of callisthenics, or basic exercises for the mind. You are simply building up the ability to stay with a single idea. Sound simple? Try it for 15 minutes and see how often your mind wanders off in that time. You may well be surprised. When it does wander though, as it inevitably will, don't scold yourself or become frustrated. This is where the attitude of acceptance comes in. You simply accept the fact that it has wandered and gently return your focus to your breathing. There is no 'fighting the good fight' here, no struggling with yourself, just acceptance, gentleness, and determination. When you first start this practice do not be surprised if your mind wanders dozens of times during that quarter of an hour but, over time, and much like physical exercise, you will gradually find that you are able to maintain that focus more and more as your powers of concentration grow. As they do so you may also begin to notice a certain peacefulness coming over your mind and your attitudes generally.

If Anapanasati is the beginner's exercise in meditation and concentration then Vipanassana can be thought of as the ideal technique for the more advanced. Having said that, it is still remarkable simple in concept and execution. Vipanassana, in the ancient Sankskit, actually means to see things as they really are. In that sense, it is perhaps one of the most profound of meditation practices. It is a process of self-observation and a realisation of the gap between awareness and the things that pass through awareness. Essentially, with this process, one becomes aware that thoughts come and thoughts go but awareness remains. Emotions come and emotions go, but awareness remains. All sort of mental activity comes and goes again, but that essential level of awareness remains. You learn, over time, to stop identifying yourself with the passing thoughts, the passing emotions and the passing mental activity and instead identify with that inner awareness; that which remains whether particular thoughts, emotions or mental activity are there or not. We tend to believe that we are our concerns, our worries, our fears. Using Vipanassana allows the practitioner the inner space and calmness to realise that we are not these things. They are just passing phenomena. They come, they go again; that essential awareness that we are at a deeper level remains.

Many Thais are taught these practices in monasteries and temples throughout the land. Some may spend many months in the practice, some even years. They then take these trainings and attitudes back to their local communities. Perhaps this is another reason why Thailand is known as 'the land of smiles'. People here are generally not 'wound up' the way that we so often are in Europe and America. They have a certain lightness of being that allows them to deal with the demands of life with an enviable equanimity. Many Westerners come to learn these techniques and spend weeks in retreats. Some of these retreats are of the silent variety. The would be practitioner is not allowed to communicate with others on the course, not even through gesture. It is that this outer quietness will reflect, eventually, on the inside. Often they will come out of the training profoundly changed. Their troubles may not have disappeared but how they respond to them has changed fundamentally.

To have this freedom from the need to control, to comment (internally or externally), to react to the passing problems and troubles we all have to face on a regular basis, is a liberation indeed. When one meets people who have just been through such a training one is often struck by the peacefulness and the quietness that emanates from them. They seem to feel no need to be anything other than what they already and truly are. An effortless, an ease, a calmness seems to pervade all they do and their every expression.

Some lucky souls seem to have this inner peace quite naturally. Somehow they escaped the need for self criticism and self correction that so many of us feel. No one ever taught them to be that way and it sometimes comes as a surprise to them when they learn of the struggles that the rest of us routinely go through.

 I remember years ago reading of the great golfer, Sam Snead, known for the beautiful fluidity of his golf swing (and for being an all-round pleasant individual). He was once asked by a coach what he thought about when he swung. The coach was interested in how he could use the great golfer's mental approach and technical understanding to improve his student's game. Snead looked at the man quizzically for a couple of seconds and then reflected on the question for a while longer. Finally, after considering his answer for quite some time, Snead looked back to the coach and simply replied: “Nothing – nothing at all.”

Methinks me thinks too much....

A bright and early start for this week's submission. It is just a few minutes past eight on a pleasantly sunny morning on the rural outskirts of Kanchanaburi. I find myself sitting outside my room at the Morning Guest House sitting at an old wooden table and sipping a rather pleasant banana shake whilst listening to the sounds of what seems to be a huge variety of ornithological life going on around me. There are the ubiquitous cock's crowing, at least four or five of them, struggling with each other for dominance. One of the main weapons employed in this struggle seems to be just how loud and just how long they can keep crowing. This particular battle has been going on since the first sign of light in the Eastern skies. The smaller birds chirp merrily whilst a couple of much larger creatures are whooping in a very melodious manner from the tops of the palms. Various others add to this post-dawn chorus; listening out in this moment I can distinguish at least eight different types of calls. Like most of Thailand, once you escape the dominance of humanity, this place teems with life.

There seems to be but one other person apart from myself out and about at this hour of the morning. Generally speaking, Thailand is quite literally a sleepy place, maybe because of the constancy of the heat. Most of the shops and cafes in the local area will not open until sometime between ten and eleven in the morning. Even then one is likely to be faced with somewhat sleepy staff who would rather still be tucked up in their beds or hammocks than serving customers. The one person who is about is the old dear who runs this place. If one were to hazard a guess at her age it would be somewhere in the region of eighty. At full height one would estimate her to be around five feet tall but it is a long time since she stood that straight. She speaks not a word of English despite running this guest house for many years (she even gets a mention on tripadvisor.com) but, despite this, still manages to communicate very clearly through a mixture of gestures and smiles. In point of fact, that seems to be her dominant expression, she smiles a kindly smile constantly. One sees her happily working around the place from early in the morning until late at night busying herself with all manner of chores.

Having finished sweeping the paths she now stands at a table with a pestle and mortar beating the mixture in the bowl to an almost liquefied pulp. For a person of her advanced years her hands move very quickly, very skilfully. There is a steady and rhythmic sound to her movements, clearly practised for many a long year. She whips the mixture into a consistency without the need to think, collecting the various stray parts and adding them into the consistent paste that she is creating.

For me, it is always a joy to see such skills displayed. Often I find myself amazed at just how skilful people often are when they don't put their mind to it. By this I mean when they don't actually think consciously about what it is they are doing. If one takes one's times to observe day-to-day life as a flaneur should, one cannot help but see skilful displays of this type constantly.

I have a good friend of many years standing, let's call him Chris for want of a better name, who I used to share a love of golf with many years ago in the days when I used to enjoy that challenging game. Chris was, as the expression has it, a 'natural'. He would be chatting happily one second and turning around to hit the ball the next. Almost invariably in those days he would hit a decent shot, sometimes even a remarkably good one. Not for him all this business of pre-shot routines, half a dozen practice swings, settling into a stances and an almost pregnant pause whilst one awaits the moment to actually hit the ball, No, not for my friend. His whole routine consisted of walking up to the ball, looking at the target, and hitting it.

In later years Chris started to think about his golf. Some well intentioned soul told him that he swung the club back too low and deep. This was meant to help but, from that moment on, he started to think consciously about what he was doing. Unfortunately, Chris' conscious mind was nowhere near as good at swinging a club as his unconscious mind. He had learnt his golf as a child simply by watching good golfers play on the television and had modelled what he did quite unconsciously on such fine exemplars as Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and, his personal favourite, Severiano Ballesteros.

This method of copying a role model is the way that many children learn. The human brain even has special cells developed precisely for this purpose. Known as 'mirror neurons' they enable the child, and the adult who is sufficiently open, to simply observe, learn and replicate. Unfortunately, the way that we are taught to learn though rational, conscious-level analysis, tends to trample all over this very natural way of acquiring new skills.

A quick demonstration may be in order at this point. As children we learnt to talk and walk and all manner of other useful skills that we do not need to think about at all, we simply do them. Now, for the sake of interest, try getting up and walking slowly across the room thinking about how you put one foot in front of the other, the way you transfer your weight, the way you move your ankle joint, which part of the foot you take-off from, which part you land on, how much you flex your knees, and so on. Something that was perfectly simple suddenly becomes horrendously complicated. A skill that was entirely natural to you suddenly becomes stiff and awkward. In sports, and in many other areas of life, this interference in a naturally learnt process is known as paralysis by analysis, and for good reason. With a little analysis we can turn even the simplest of skills into something horrendously complex.

Imagine, if you will, trying to learn a new skill; we can use table tennis as an example. How many books would you have to read on the subject, how much analysis would be necessary, to be as effective in learning the skill as half an hour hitting balls back and forth on the table?

In recent years several of the more ground-breaking sports coaches have realised the limitations of trying to learn or perform actions by logical analysis. This may well have started with W. Timothy Gallwey back in the 1970's when he wrote 'The Inner Game of Tennis'. He took several poor players who had been trying to learn the game for years and, in a matter of a few weeks, turned them into far, far better players who did not need to think (well, not consciously at least) in order to display their skill. He developed a methodology whereby the conscious mind of the player would be focussed on some simple aspect, say the sound of the strings contacting the ball or watching its seam in flight, whilst simply allowing the part of the mind that learns these things well to work it out for itself. The purpose of focussing the conscious mind by such means was simply to get it out of the way and thus allow those innate learning abilities that we all have to do their work.

Another coach who has taken up this theme in recent years is the American Garrett Kramer. In 2012 he penned another paradigm shifting work that he aptly named 'Stillpower'. He chose this title as a counterbalance to the ubiquitous idea of willpower; the notion that we must try hard to achieve results. Willpower has its uses, indeed it is a fine quality to possess in many areas of life. Unfortunately, the learning and displaying of skills requiring co-ordination is not usually one of them. Instead of helping in such areas it more often hinders – often in these situations the harder we try the worse we get.

This point was beautifully illustrated in the Tom Cruise film 'The Last Samurai'. Generally speaking, I am not really a Tom Cruise fan, but I have to admit that he has made a few really excellent movies. 'The Last Samurai' is one such. There is a scene in which he tries and tries to master the art of Japanese style swordplay but is continually defeated in practice. No matter how hard he tries the result seems to be the same. Then a young Japanese boy points out the root of the problem:

The Japanese, often through the medium of Zen Buddhism, have long been aware of this problem. There is an expression oft quoted in this regard: 'Zen mind, beginner's mind'. This means a mind purified of too many thoughts, of too much analysis and experience, a mind free to perceive clearly, not having to filter events and things through what it thinks it knows.

The game of golf perhaps yields the most obvious examples of situations where over-thinking can block a player's natural abilities. Unlike many other games where the flow of the action can carry a player through, golf offers ample opportunity between shots to have a good, long and often destructive think. 
In 1970 the amiable Doug Sanders was faced with a three foot putt on the 18th at Saint Andrews to win The Championship. After looking at the line of the putt from several angles he stood over the ball... and stood...and stood. Even the BBC commentator of the time, the venerable Henry Longhurst, could not help himself and exclaimed 'for heaven's sake, hit it man!' He did, eventually, and he missed.

Nineteen years later, at the Masters in Augusta, Georgia, an even shorter putt was missed by the unfortunately named Scott Hoch. Unfortunate because the pronunciation of Hoch rhymes perfectly with the word 'choke'. Ever since the otherwise talented and successful PGA golfer has gone by the the nickname of 'Hoch the choke!'

Back at the guest house my octogenarian hostess still effortlessly beats away at another bowl of grains and seeds, smiling benignly as she does so. She seems blissfully unaware that at her age this is supposed to be hard work. If someone had pointed this out to her she may by now be huffing and puffing (it is around 30C here at the moment). Happily ignorant of her supposed limitations though, she continues contently in her self-appointed tasks.

To finish on a simple, but hopefully clear note. I think this by now rather wordy essay can be best summed up in just three short words from Nike, the winged Greek goddess of victory:

 Just do it!