manny being mindful

There is a great piece in this week’s issue of The New Yorker about Manny Ramirez entitled Waiting For Manny. It was written by Ben McGrath and shines an ever-so-slim shaft of light on the enigmatic Boston slugger (I guess I have a baseball theme going here today). We’ve all heard the maxim “Manny being Manny” used to describe Ramirez’s on- and off-field antics, like always showing up late for spring training, disappearing through a doorway in left field to urinate while the game is going on, or barely jogging down the first base line when he hits into an easy groundout. Not to mention Grill-gate on eBay. For me, what shines clearly in this story is Manny’s desire to be the best hitter he can be. Perhaps the greatest hitter ever. His single-pointedness is admirable, even if he hardly ever speaks to the media, or hasn’t donated a single dime to George Washington High School in New York City, his alma mater. When the Buddha gave his first discourse to what were to become his first five disciples at the Deer Park at Sarnath, the fourth and last of the Four Noble Truths he preached was something called the Noble Eightfold Path. By following these eight steps, a monk could gain enlightenment. Four of these, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration could apply to Manny’s quest. I’m not saying Manny is an enlightened being, although he might be. Or he might be, in David Ortiz’s words, “a crazy motherfucker.” But it’s too easy to make judgments about him, or any person, really. I’m just looking for examples of mindfulness wherever I can find them. Maybe what appears as aloofness is just an intense shyness, and maybe what seems like snobbery is just a way to create the distance he needs to fulfill his dream. Maybe he doesn’t really pay attention to how many balls and strikes he has on him until he sees a pitch he can hit is because otherwise he wouldn’t hit at all. When the five monks in the deer park first saw their old friend and fellow-seeker Gautama walking towards them, they wanted to snub him because to them, he had given up practicing austerities and had instead taken the easy way out. But when he approached them, they found they couldn’t ignore him. Because he was now a fully enlightened human being, he radiated such an intense peace that they were drawn to him. Instead of ignoring him, they waited on him. Just like we do for Manny. Because he brings us joy.

baseball as conversation

Maybe I’m just feeling giddy from the Red Sox’ weekend sweep of the Yankees, so please forgive me if I go “off-topic” for a bit and talk about one of my favorite subjects. Billions of words have been written about the beautiful game of baseball, so I won’t bore you with too many more. But I just want to mention an idea I heard once that besides being a perfectly designed sport, baseball is really just one long, ever-flowing conversation. If you’ve ever played little league, you know about the incessant chatter that happens on the field. I remember especially my coach demanding that we urge on our pitcher by saying “C’mon, (fill in name here)!” over and over, even from the outfield. You could hear the chorus of the players’ voices as you crouched at your position or sat in the bleachers. Even the signs were a language all their own. My wife and I were watching a game this weekend when the third base coach from the Red Sox furiously started touching parts of his body. To an outsider, it must have looked like this man was having some sort of fit. My wife asked what this guy’s problem was. I told her he was putting on the hit-and-run, obviously. I may only be able to speak about this from a male point of view, but I think one of the reasons we love baseball so much is that it lets us take part in a conversation that was started over one hundred years ago, and will continue, a baseball fan hopes, infinitely into the future. You can hear it in the friendly exchanges of opposing players on the base paths, or in the vicious curses when a pitcher gives up a dinger. It is a conversation between coaches and players, players and fans, fathers and sons, even mothers and daughters. I’m sure Ken Burns can speak to this point more eloquently than I can, but baseball really is a national treasure, and is so interwoven into the fabric of our country, that to remove it would be like pulling on a loose string until the sweater it is attached to unravels. When you watch a game, it looks like not much is happening. But below the surface, the talk, talk, talk, (and the thinking, thinking, thinking) is happening all the time. Kind of like our minds. The Buddha taught that all is ceaseless change, that nothing permanent exists. The purpose of our life, then, is learning to accept change as the only immutable universal law. We are always changing, right down to the cellular level, right at this moment. The words spoken on the diamond at Fenway last night are gone into the ether, but the conversation continues. Right now, we are privy to these communications, and we try to cherish them while we can. But even after we are gone, the conversation will go on. Maybe it’s our words that make us immortal.