I love baseball. Now that the World Series is almost over and baseball season is coming to an end, I’ve been thinking about how the game of baseball is like life. Baseball is a great analogy for life: long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of excitement, you know the game will end but you don’t know exactly when, you can succeed both individually and as part of a team, and most of all, in the words of the great baseball philosopher Yogi Berra: “It ain’t over till it’s over!”
I also think that batting in baseball is a good analogy for mindfulness. Here’s why:
Meditation is to mindfulness as batting practice is to hitting
Major league baseball players take batting practice, either in the batting cage or on the field before the game, as a regular part of their daily routine. They practice batting regularly to prepare themselves for the game where they face live balls in live situations. Players also work on physical conditioning and visualization to improve their ability to perform at the plate. Similarly, meditation is a period of intensive focus and concentration that conditions your ability to practice these steps out in the real world. You can certainly practice mindfulness without practicing meditation, but by practicing meditation you’ll better be able to perform mindfulness. For tips on starting a meditation practice, read this.
30% is a great average
Because batting is such a difficult athletic feat, a “good” batter is one who hits 3 out of every 10 pitches that they are thrown. Being present and in the moment is not easy to do, especially in our culture riddled with distractions and interruptions. Although you may not succeed at being truly mindful all the time or every time you attempt to do so, the most important thing is that you stick with it and continue to practice and continue to try, whenever and wherever the opportunity arises. If you can truly be mindful one-third of the time – you should consider yourself a major-league mindfulness hitter!
Watch your stance
One of the most important aspects of good hitting starts with a proper batting stance. A hitter must be properly positioned – balanced and comfortable, and ready to swing, or not, in the blink of an eye. This translates to the concept of embodiment in relation to mindfulness. Embodiment can be understood as the tangible, physical expression of one’s mental and emotional state of being. The more you can be aware of embodiment, that is, how you express yourself physically in response to your thoughts and emotions, the more truly mindful you will be.
Keep your eye on the ball and the mind on the breath
When a batter is at the plate, the one and only thing he is focusing on is the ball. When practicing mindfulness, it is important to choose a focus of concentration to maintain and return to as the mind naturally wanders. The most readily available point of focus is the breath – because it is always there – readily available and easy to find. Keep your mind on the breath, and return to it again and again and again. This is where mindfulness begins – again and again and again.
You can become a major-league mindfulness practitioner by using some of the tools of major-league baseball players: practice, realistic expectations, embodiment, and focus. Utilizing these tools you will soon be hitting it out of the park, mindfully!