The Mindful Athlete: Secrets to Pure Performance by George Mumford, is a lot like 10% Happier by Dan Harris — and not just because both authors invested years of their lives in self-destructive drug use, not just because both have produced quasi-autobiographies laden with celebrity name-dropping, and not just because both are frustratingly-disorganized in explaining meditation. Mumford and Harris are also alike in their genuinely sincere, hopeful, enthusiastic evangelism for excellent ideas about self-actualization. Both write reasonably well, or perhaps both have strong collaborators and editors. That's ok.

In the foreword to Mindful Athlete somebody named Phil Jackson (ok, he's a celebrity basketball coach whom some of us had never heard of) concludes his comments with:

A lot of athletes think that the trick to getting better is just to work harder. But there is a great power in non-action and non-thinking. The hardest thing, after all the work and all the time spent on training and technique, is just being fully present in the moment. Time after time, team after team, I have seen athletes transform and have seen championships saved by players who believed in Mumford's one-mind, one-breath efforts.

That's an excellent synopsis. Yes, it includes the result-oriented Utilitarian motive for Attention, as does Mumford throughout his book. But maybe that's ok, if one doesn't cling to it. Similarly, Mumford's list of "Five SuperPowers" — mindfulness, concentration, insight, diligence, trust — is a bit messy but good-spirited. That's ok. His book's layout — large print, lots of whitespace, lengthy quotations — tries to conceal its brevity. That's ok.

And if The Mindful Athlete introduces more people to some concepts from Zen Buddhism? Well, that's ok too!

^z - 2015-06-11