Focus on This Play, This Moment: Advice from a Japanese Baseball Team

This morning, while surfing the Internet, I followed a tweet to a Japanese baseball team's new logo.

The slogan Focus on this play, this moment!! has been met with sniggers from baseball fans that, besides being put off by the double exclamation points, find it entirely uninspiring. They would prefer a more result-oriented slogan; one fan suggested Focus on the Victory another Destroy the Giants. Their reactions are familiar to those of us who have been in the mindfulness community for a while and reflect a common misunderstanding of the present moment (or now) as it relates to meditation training.

Many assume that focusing on the here and now means ignoring the past and the future, but that's not the way it works. Everything that leads up to this very moment is part of now. Our goals, expectations and fears about the future are also part of now. For instance, I could no more dislodge my childhood from the person typing this post than I could dislodge my bones from my body. My past experience influences what I'm writing now. What I hope will (or will not) happen in the future, also influences what's happening right now. Don't get me wrong, I'm not thinking about the past or the future as I type, nor will I think about the past or the future as I meditate later this morning, but that doesn't mean past experience and future expectations don't influence my present moment experience. I don't need to be thinking about something for it to inform my perspective.

I work primarily with children and teens who intuitively understand that the past, present and future are naturally interwoven. Middle and high school kids in particular tend to have a clear sense of the likely effect what they're doing now will have on what will happen next -- both present action and future expectations relate to what they've said or done before. They understand that if there is a test coming up (in the future) it is important to study (now), and they know how to study (now) because they have studied for many, many other tests throughout their school career (in the past). They don't need to think about this sequence; they know it because by the time kids hit high school most have learned the hard way that actions have consequences. They understand if they don't study their notes from yesterday's class tonight, they are likely to bomb tomorrow's exam. This integration of past and future into present moment experience may not be something kids give much thought to, but it nonetheless informs much of what they do and say.

A misunderstanding of the concept of now can be a slippery slope that quickly leads to a nihilistic take on mindfulness practice. If you view what's happening in the present moment as separate from past and future experience, figuring that what you say or do makes little difference is an understandable conclusion. Understandable, but completely at odds with two basic foundations of mindfulness practice -- that all actions have consequences (interdependence) and that everything changes (impermanence). But, if you adopt a worldview that is informed by an understanding of interdependence and impermanence, your perspective shifts. Here's what you realize: the opposite is true and absolutely every moment matters.

Remember the slogan of the Japanese baseball team - Focus on this play, this moment? Look at it like this: each play represents the juncture of present-moment awareness (what's happening now), with wisdom gleaned the hard way (from past games and training), and the players' determination to put all of their effort into this single moment hoping to win the game. They're hoping for the win -- they've worked hard for it - but not so busy chasing after a goal that they miss out on the invigorating experience of playing the game.

For more about mindful awareness for children and families visit Mindful Mom and join the InnerKids online community.

Comments

[GrainOSand]

I am appreciative of effort to shed light on what it means to be rooted in the moment. It is an observable tendency of some to confuse or belittle the meaning of such an approach. That is understandable and (obviously) necessary in a world of opposing and complimentary forces.

Some will realize the way and become strict adherents, other will realize the way and become sometime adherents, and still others will hear tell of the way and laugh and ridicule. It if it were not the way, it would not be so.

The light of love threads all seams to bind the many into one fabric of life. If love is the central component...then the peripheral past and future will also...be informed by (consist of) love. Impermanence, what is the highest position one can have for that which changes? Perhaps it is a calm readiness in the moment for whatever ensues, a sensitivity and capability allowing one to detect and appropriately respond to the subtle shift of a changing wind. The past informs detection in the moment (the present) of the possibility of change, a past spent mastering preparedness in the moment.

In baseball terms this means batting practice, strength training, fundamentals absorption, and all other activities towards mastery of baseball in each and every moment. Such an approach leads to preparedness (as a batter) for bases loaded, three runs down, two outs, three balls, and two strikes type moments. Love revealed/examined in the moment.

[Susan Kaiser Greenland - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you GrainOSand for your focus on love - especially when working with kids and families - when love informs the practice, everything else has a way of falling into place.

[GrainOSand]

I am of the opinion that a guide for children should foster a love of self and others in the moment such that any past setback does not daunt continued movement in the now...towards whatever future. When children do not conceive of or find love in their daily existence some begin the journey down a path of stagnating regret -- regret about the past and fear of the future due to the uncertainty that lack of preparation or paralyzing and devastating emotional luggage of a loveless past can present in the moment. Love is freedom to move forward. Love is freedom to keep trying, to keep going. Love inspires. Love is a rock to stand on in the moment when all around you is the raging sea. It keeps you afloat when all other buoys fail.

Regards and thanks for your service to children and families. Now more than ever such effort is crucial as the individual family and the individual is under attack in various ways. I am a proponent of calling for a state of the American family assessment and resulting program designed to address identified stress points, to strengthen individual families, and to stimulate all American families towards positive existence, functioning, and growth -- spiritually, intellectually, and as citizens of a larger American family and indeed, a larger world family. After all, America (the world) is comprised of families of individuals. Nurture the individual and the family -- thereby strengthen America (the world). Idealism notwithstanding.

[ShinjiIkari]

Yakyuu (Japanese baseball) is a somewhat different animal over there, with major emphasis on the fundamentals (some years ago SI basically said Ichiro had the best hand-eye coordination in the game). The slogan reminds me of an old Japanese saying: "One time, one meeting." For further insights into Japan's take on the game, read "You Gotta Have Wa" and "The Samurai Way of Baseball", both by Robert Whiting.

[Susan Kaiser Greenland - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks for the book recommendations ShinjiIkari, and for sharing the old Japanese saying "One time, one meeting." It reminds me of the traditional instruction: "When you walk, just walk, when you eat, just eat . . . "

[Citizen54]

The slogan makes excellent baseball advice, and I suspect some major league managers would agree with that approach. In fact, many baseball fans have heard managers yell out similar words. I'm no philosopher, but it seems baseball is very much about the moment. Some pitchers talk about getting into a mindset or zone, and Seattle Mariners star player Ichiru commented recently about being at the plate and "trying to think of nothing."