Are Buddhism and Competitive Athletics Compatible?

Buddhism fascinates me. I’m learning a lot about it and have developed a fledgling meditation practice. I also discovered tennis a few years ago, and watch a lot of pro matches. I’ve also taken some lessons and started playing a bit myself. Which leads me to a dilemma. Are Buddhism and competition incompatible?

 While watching the men’s final of the Australian Open between Roger Federer and Andy Murray last Sunday, this question came to a head. A lot of Buddhist teachings focus on avoiding dualistic thinking, not falling into a trap of things being this or that. Which is difficult, given our human propensity to categorize everything we encounter. So how does this jibe with competitive athletics, where you are always winning or losing?

I can’t even watch tennis without taking sides (sorry, Roger, but I was hoping for an upset this time), much less play without hoping for a certain outcome. I find it very hard to simply focus on the point or even the stroke that is happening right now, without thinking ahead to how it will affect the rest of the game. So how do the pros stay in the moment when they obviously want to win the next point, game, match and tournament?

Some seem to do it better than others; I love watching how they handle themselves on the court. Sunday’s match was a case in point. Federer—what can I say, the man is a rock of stability. No matter what is going on in the match, he shows very little emotion on any point, whether the shot was good or bad. Very occasionally you’ll see a little fist pump on a good shot, but for a bad shot the most the replay usually shows is a slow closing of both eyes, like he is closing it out of his mind. Which came first, I wonder, the Zen-like on-court serenity or his flawless playing? All bets are off after the final point, however, when Roger is famous for tears of emotion, as in last year's final.

Murray, on the other hand, had so much riding on this match, and his body language showed it. He bellowed on good points and slumped and turned away on bad shots, visibly disappointed in his playing overall.

To be fair, any player matched up against Federer is liable to be nervous, but I’ve noticed similar behavior on the ladies’ side, where things are more up in the air. One of the things I admire most about Maria Sharapova is what I heard a commentator say about her once—no matter what happened in the last point, she approaches every point fresh, as if it is the first point in the game. Even when she’s playing badly, I’ve never seen her melt down. Dinara Safina, however, disintegrates so badly when she’s losing that it’s actually painful to watch.

 In thinking on this topic I remembered Tim Gallwey’s classic book, “The Inner Game of Tennis,” which I read a couple of years ago, and pulled it off the shelf. Gallwey has some interesting thoughts on competition, which I won’t go into in depth here, but I was struck by a quote at the beginning of the book attributed only to Maharaji, who the book is also dedicated to and I assume is his spiritual teacher: “What is the real game? It is a game in which the heart is entertained, the game in which you are entertained. It is the game you will win.” What do you think, athletes? How does competition fit in with your spiritual life?

Roger Federer photo courtesy http://www.flickr.com/photos/toughlove/ / CC BY 2.0