You may wonder why is there a picture of Michael Jordan? Well the book is written by Phil Jackson, the coach of that dream-team of basketball the Chicago Bulls. And it is about how important it is to create a bond in such teams, and to give a spiritual meaning to whatever we do in life, and how a game (this time Basketball, but I believe football is too) is more than a game, it's a representation of life itself. In general, how beliefs can lift you up. It is more than just a sports book, for sure!.
I would rate the book 3/5. It's not a gorgeous book, nevertheless it was a bunch of pretty interesting points of view and reflections. I saw myself very connected with the author (Phil Jackson) in the sense of being a person who puts a lot of pressure to himself and self-punishes a lot. I feel that way quite often, driving me to loose my peace and blur my vision.
He explains how he explored different philosophies until he felt represented and found peace with some taughts from the Buddhism, Zen, and Lakotas (native American's belief). In this sense the book has been interesting, in discovering different insights about the world and life, as well as how different philosophies and spiritual beliefs can accomplish so much in people at personal and group level.
Main lesson: Do the things for the internal rewards, not for the external ones. Give meaning to those things you do and you believe in. Accepting things as they are and not as I want them to be brings peace and joy, plus it allows to focus energies better.
My Book Underlines
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The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.
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The Associated Press reported that, in a survey of African-American children, Jordan had tied with God as the person they most admired after their parents.
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Good teams become great ones when the members trust each other enough to surrender the “me” for the “we.”
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Lesson one: Don’t let anger—or heavy objects thrown from overpasses—cloud the mind.
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Lesson two: Awareness is everything.
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Lesson three: The power of We is stronger than the power of Me.
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“Arguing isn’t where faith is. That just feeds the ego. It’s all in the doing.”
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What pollutes the mind in the Buddhist view is our desire to get life to conform to our peculiar notion of how things should be, as opposed to how they really are.
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The point of Zen practice is to make you aware of the thoughts that run your life and diminish their power over you.
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It’s not uncommon for basketball players, especially young ones, to expend a great deal of mental energy trying to be somebody they’re not.
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In Zen it is said that the gap between accepting things the way they are and wishing them to be otherwise is “the tenth of an inch of difference between heaven and hell.”
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The jobs I was best suited for (according to the career placement test I took) were: 1) housekeeper, 2) trail guide, 3) counselor, and 4) lawyer.
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FISH DON’T FLY When a fish swims in the ocean, there is no limit to the water, no matter how far it swims. When a bird flies in the sky, there is no limit to the air, no matter how far it flies. However, no fish or bird has ever left its element since the beginning.
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In other words, you can dream all you want, but, bottom line, you’ve got to work with what you’ve got. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time.
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Inevitably, paradoxically, the acceptance of boundaries and limits is the gateway to freedom.
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Seven BEING AWARE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN BEING SMART
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Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.”
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St. Augustine said, “Anger is a weed; hate is the tree.” Anger only breeds more anger and eventually fuels violence—on the streets or in professional sports.
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Bottom line: there’s no need to overpower when you can outsmart.
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“You’re not doing it for money. It may seem that way, but that’s just an external reward. You’re doing it for the internal rewards. You’re doing it for each other and the love of the game.”
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B. J. Armstrong, Jordan’s closest friend on the team, said he was worried for him because now he would have “the two scariest things in life: a lot of money and a lot of free time.”
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“You see this goblet?” Chaa asked, holding up a glass. “For me, this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on a shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that this glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.” In its simplicity this story illustrates one of the basic principles of Buddhist teachings: that impermanence is a fundamental fact of life.
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There’s no percentage in trying to push the river or speed up the harvest. The farmer who’s so eager to help his crops grow that he slips out at night and tugs on the shoots inevitably ends up going hungry.
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The best part of winning, I once heard someone say, is that it’s not losing.
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Losing is a lens through which you can see yourself more clearly and experience in the blood and the bones the transient nature of life.
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Walt Whitman got it right when he wrote, “I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.”
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Buddhism teaches us that by accepting death, you discover life. Similarly, only by acknowledging the possibility of defeat can you fully experience the joy of competition.
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obsessing about winning adds an unnecessary layer of pressure that constricts body and spirit and, ultimately, robs you of the freedom to do your best.
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That’s when you realize that basketball is a game, a journey, a dance—not a fight to the death. It’s life just as it is.
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The journey is the reward. —CHINESE SAYING
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