Read Online Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success by Phil Jackson, Hugh Delehanty - Free Book Online

self unless you give yourself over to the power of the sacred. That means surrendering to what Sufi master Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan calls “the magical spell of unconditional love—that ecstatic embrace that bridges the separation between lover and beloved.”
    The Sufis at the Lama Foundation spent a good part of the day trying to connect with the divine through meditation, devotions, and an ecstatic form of chanting and bowing called
zikers
. Joe was attracted by the physicality of the practice, with its repetitive, dancelike movements designed to shift consciousness.
    But after taking part in the rituals for several weeks, I decided that Sufism wasn’t the right path for me. I was looking for a practice that would help me control my hyperactive mind.
    A few years later I hired Joe to help me build a new house on Flathead Lake in Montana. After completing the frame, we brought in a construction worker to help us finish the job. He’d been studying Zen at the Mount Shasta monastery in northern California and had a calm, focused manner, along with a no-nonsense approach to work. I’d been interested in learning more about Zen ever since I’d read Shunryu Suzuki’s classic,
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
. Suzuki, a Japanese teacher who played a key role in bringing Zen Buddhism to the West, talked about learning to approach each moment with a curious mind that is free of judgment. “If your mind is empty,” he writes, “it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.”
    Joe and I joined our friend’s group that summer and started sitting
zazen
—a form of meditation—with a group once a week. What appealed to me about Zen practice was its inherent simplicity. It didn’t involve chanting mantras or visualizing complex images, as had other practices I’d tried. Zen is pragmatic, down to earth, and open to exploration. It doesn’t require you to subscribe to a certain set of principles or take anything on faith; in fact, Zen encourages practitioners to question
everything
. Zen teacher Steve Hagen writes, “Buddhism is about
seeing
. It’s about knowing rather than believing or hoping or wishing. It’s also about not being afraid to examine anything and everything, including your own personal agendas.”
    Shunryu Suzuki’s instructions on how to meditate are simple:
Sit with your spine straight, your shoulders relaxed, and your chin pulled in, “as if you were supporting the sky with your head.”
Follow your breath with your mind as it moves in and out like a swinging door.
Don’t try to stop your thinking. If a thought arises, let it come, then let it go and return to watching your breath. The idea is not to try to control your mind but to let thoughts rise and fall naturally over and over again. After some practice, the thoughts will start to float by like passing clouds and their power to dominate consciousness will diminish.
    According to Suzuki, meditation helps you do things “with a quite simple, clear mind” with “no notion or shadows.” Most people have two or three ideas running in their heads whenever they do something, and that leaves “traces” of thoughts that cause confusion and are difficult to let go of. “In order not to leave any traces, when you do something,” he writes, “you should do it with your whole body and mind, you should be concentrated on what you do. You should do it completely, like a good bonfire.”
    It took me years of practice to still my busy mind, but in the process I discovered that the more aware I became of what was going on inside me, the more connected I became to the world outside. I became more patient with others and calmer under pressure—qualities that helped me immensely when I became a coach.
    Three aspects of Zen have been critical to me as a leader:
    1. GIVING UP CONTROL
    Suzuki writes, “If you want to obtain perfect calmness in your zazen,