Who Am I?

On a whim, I bought the book Sacred Hoops by Phil Jackson at a used book store last week.  It’s an easy read.  I finished it in a couple days without pressing.  It was written between the two championship runs of the Bulls, after the season when Michael Jordan came back from retirement.

Jackson’s approach to coaching has a spiritual base.  He’s a mystical person, who has tried to find a way to translate his spirituality and mystical nature into a concrete formula that can be applied to the very practical problems of motivating and leading a basketball team.

It seems on the surface an impossible task, but his success proves it can be done.

Early in the book, Jackson writes this:

“What pollutes the mind in the Buddhist view is our desire to get life to conform to our peculiar notion of how things should be, as opposed to how they really are……..it’s…….our resistance to what’s actually happening that causes so much anguish.”

He also writes about meditation as a method for learning to stay in the current moment.  In my personal terms, I would describe this as learning to be present to God at all times.

Putting these thoughts together, I reach the conclusion that it’s impossible to be in the moment, or to be present to God, if I cannot be honest about who I am at that moment.

Then, when I began to think about who I am, I find that I really don’t know.  I definitely experience anguish, to use Phil’s word, but I can’t begin to identify why in any definitive terms.

That anguish is strongest and is centered for the most part on my “working” life.  In the current context, I use the word work specifically in reference to what I do to earn money.  This is as opposed to the general notion of “work” as a healthy human endeavor.

I find that I really have no coherent description for my work life.  I go to work every day, but I couldn’t tell you whether or not I am going to a job, whether or not I have a vocation, or why just the thought of work leaves me feeling desolate.  All these things are jumbled for me, without any clear understanding of motivations, the atmosphere which defines my work life, or the forces that leave me filled with angst from the moment I pull out of the driveway in the morning.

A couple paragraphs later, Jackson also writes this:

“The point of Zen practice is to make you aware of the thoughts that run your life and diminish their power over you.”

It’s hard to think of personal thoughts as the enemy, but that’s what’s implied here.  Because I am generally unaware of the moment I reside in, I have no control over the thoughts that occur in that moment.  They dominate me without my ever understanding that they do, and I feel anguish, angst, sadness, distress and desolation without being able to understand why.

Somehow, I need to begin to understand the forces that cause the desolation connected to my work life.

Jackson also quotes these words on happiness from the Buddha in the Dhammapada:

“If you speak and act with a pure mind, happiness will follow you, as a shadow clings to a form.”

It would seem, then, that happiness is dependent on being able to honestly answer the question,

“Who am I?”