"Let It Happen"

Listen to how D.T. Suzuki, the renowned Zen master, describes the effects of the ego-mind on archery in his foreword to Zen in the Art of Archery:

As soon as we reflect, deliberate, and conceptualize, the original unconsciousness is lost and a thought interferes. The arrow is off the string but does not fly straight to the target, nor does the target stand where it is. Calculation, which is miscalculation, sets in...

Man is a thinking reed but his great works are done when he is not calculation and thinking. "Childlikeness" has to be restored with long years of training in self-forgetfulness.

Perhaps this is why it is said that great poetry is born in silence. Great music and art are said to arise form the quiet depths of the unconscious, and true expressions of love are said to come from a source which lies beneath words and thoughts. So it is with the greatest efforts in sports; then come when the mind is as still as a glass lake.

Such moments have been called "peak performances" by the humanistic Dr. Abraham Maslow. Researching the common characteristics of persons having such experiences, he reports the following descriptive phrases. He feels more integrated, feels at one with the experience, is relatively egoless (quiet mind), fully functioning, is in the reservations, self-criticisms, brakes, ....he just is.

LET GO AND LET IT HAPPEN

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