Read Online Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success by Phil Jackson, Hugh Delehanty - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Phil Jackson, Hugh Delehanty
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Business & Economics, Coaching, Sports & Recreation, Sports, Leadership, Basketball
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you should not be bothered by the various images you find in your mind. Let them come and let them go. Then they will be under control.”
The best way to control people, he adds, is to give them a lot of room and encourage them to be mischievous, then watch them. “To ignore them is not good; that is the worst policy,” he writes. “The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them, just to watch them, without trying to control them.”
This piece of advice came in handy later when I was dealing with Dennis Rodman.
2. TRUSTING THE MOMENT
Most of us spend the bulk of our time caught up in thoughts of the past or the future—which can be dangerous if your job is winning basketball games. Basketball takes place at such a lightning pace that it’s easy to make mistakes and get obsessed with what just happened or what might happen next, which distracts you from the only thing that really matters—
this
very moment.
Practicing Zen not only helped me become more acutely aware of what was happening in the present moment but also slowed down my experience of time because it diminished my tendency to rush into the future or get lost in the past. Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh talks about “dwelling happily in the present moment,” because that’s where everything you need is available. “Life can be found only in the present moment,” he writes. “The past is gone, and the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.”
3. LIVING WITH COMPASSION
One aspect of Buddhism that I found to be especially compelling was the teachings on compassion. The Buddha was known as the “compassionate one,” and according to religion scholars, his moral teachings bear a close resemblance to those of Jesus, who told his followers at the Last Supper: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” In a similar vein, the Buddha said, “Just as a mother would protect her only child at the risk of her own life, even so, cultivate a boundless heart towards all beings. Let your thoughts of boundless love pervade the whole world.”
In the Buddhist view, the best way to cultivate compassion is to be fully present in the moment. “To meditate,” said the Buddha, “is to listen with a receptive heart.” In her book
Start Where You Are
, Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron contends that meditation practice blurs the traditional boundaries between self and others. “What you do for yourself—any gesture of kindness, any gesture of gentleness, any gesture of honesty and clear seeing toward yourself—will affect how you experience the world,” she writes. “What you do for yourself, you’re doing for others, and what you do for others, you’re doing for yourself.”
This idea would later become a key building block in my work as a coach.
—
In the meantime I still had a job to do as a player.
In the 1971–72 season Red Holzman, who was then general manager as well as head coach, made a number of moves that transformed the Knicks. First he traded Cazzie Russell to the San Francisco Warriors for Jerry Lucas, a strong, active big man who had a good twenty-five-foot shot but could also handle powerful centers like Dave Cowens and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Next, Red shipped Mike Riordan and Dave Stallworth to Baltimore for Earl “the Pearl” Monroe, probably the most creative ball handler in the game at that time. Red also drafted Dean “the Dream” Meminger, a quick, long-legged guard from Marquette who was a terror on defense.
With this new infusion of talent, we morphed into a more versatile team than we’d ever been before. We had more size and depth, a broader array of scoring options than the 1969–70 team, plus the perfect blend of individual skill and team consciousness. Some of us worried that Monroe might try to
The best way to control people, he adds, is to give them a lot of room and encourage them to be mischievous, then watch them. “To ignore them is not good; that is the worst policy,” he writes. “The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them, just to watch them, without trying to control them.”
This piece of advice came in handy later when I was dealing with Dennis Rodman.
2. TRUSTING THE MOMENT
Most of us spend the bulk of our time caught up in thoughts of the past or the future—which can be dangerous if your job is winning basketball games. Basketball takes place at such a lightning pace that it’s easy to make mistakes and get obsessed with what just happened or what might happen next, which distracts you from the only thing that really matters—
this
very moment.
Practicing Zen not only helped me become more acutely aware of what was happening in the present moment but also slowed down my experience of time because it diminished my tendency to rush into the future or get lost in the past. Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh talks about “dwelling happily in the present moment,” because that’s where everything you need is available. “Life can be found only in the present moment,” he writes. “The past is gone, and the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.”
3. LIVING WITH COMPASSION
One aspect of Buddhism that I found to be especially compelling was the teachings on compassion. The Buddha was known as the “compassionate one,” and according to religion scholars, his moral teachings bear a close resemblance to those of Jesus, who told his followers at the Last Supper: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” In a similar vein, the Buddha said, “Just as a mother would protect her only child at the risk of her own life, even so, cultivate a boundless heart towards all beings. Let your thoughts of boundless love pervade the whole world.”
In the Buddhist view, the best way to cultivate compassion is to be fully present in the moment. “To meditate,” said the Buddha, “is to listen with a receptive heart.” In her book
Start Where You Are
, Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron contends that meditation practice blurs the traditional boundaries between self and others. “What you do for yourself—any gesture of kindness, any gesture of gentleness, any gesture of honesty and clear seeing toward yourself—will affect how you experience the world,” she writes. “What you do for yourself, you’re doing for others, and what you do for others, you’re doing for yourself.”
This idea would later become a key building block in my work as a coach.
—
In the meantime I still had a job to do as a player.
In the 1971–72 season Red Holzman, who was then general manager as well as head coach, made a number of moves that transformed the Knicks. First he traded Cazzie Russell to the San Francisco Warriors for Jerry Lucas, a strong, active big man who had a good twenty-five-foot shot but could also handle powerful centers like Dave Cowens and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Next, Red shipped Mike Riordan and Dave Stallworth to Baltimore for Earl “the Pearl” Monroe, probably the most creative ball handler in the game at that time. Red also drafted Dean “the Dream” Meminger, a quick, long-legged guard from Marquette who was a terror on defense.
With this new infusion of talent, we morphed into a more versatile team than we’d ever been before. We had more size and depth, a broader array of scoring options than the 1969–70 team, plus the perfect blend of individual skill and team consciousness. Some of us worried that Monroe might try to
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