Throw Away the Scorecard

Book Group

Upcoming Events:

• Dena Evans and I will be offering another Tuesday Zoom inquiry group (10-11:30 am Pacific time) that will run from July 7th-28th. While we’ll be drawing as we have in previous groups from some of the wonderful work of Peter Brown, we will also be using as our inquiry jumping off point, other writings as well including our own.

Just email me (john@johnastin.com) if you’d like more info or to sign up (no cost, donations welcome).

THROW AWAY THE SCORECARD

There’s a part of us that is subtly (or maybe not so subtly) looking over our shoulders, checking to see how we’re fairing, how we’re feeling—”Am I doing okay? “Am I experiencing what I want to be experiencing or what I imagine I should be experiencing?”

We’re a bit like those judges at the Olympics, holding up our cards, rating our experiences. Maybe we see ourselves as spiritual seekers, chasing after whatever lofty states or insights or realizations we’re chasing after. Or maybe we’re just seeking to feel a little better or suffer a little less in our lives. In either case, we’re poised at the ready, scorecards in hand, assessing how we’re doing according to whatever evaluative metric we may be using.

Particularly if we’re spiritual seekers, our scorecards might look something like this: “How aware am I? How mindful am I being? How in touch with presence am I? Have I gotten caught up in some web of thinking or imagining again? Am I fully open and receptive to what is, or am I in resistance to what’s arising? Am I awake to the here-and-now or am I lost in some time-traveling daydream…?”

But here’s a thought—how about we just throw the whole damn scorecard away? Imagine that! Imagine not always checking in on yourself to see how you are faring? What if you relaxed all the cataloguing, all the evaluating, all the self-assessment and self-measurement, even if for an instant? What if you threw away all the assumptions about what you should be experiencing, and instead, simply experienced whatever you were experiencing which you can’t stop doing anyway!

Try it right now, try to stop the flow of experience. It’s not possible, is it? What’s here is here before we can even have any say in the matter. Experience arrives unbidden, without warning. And then it departs before we can say a single thing about it. You see, the whole scorekeeping thing—it’s always late to the party, this assessment of experience always a fraction behind reality for the second we give some thought, feeling or sensation a score, that experience is no longer present, passing away in the very instant of its arising.

So, throw away the scorecards, just for a moment, and see what that’s like. Can you feel the relief of not having to make this experience other than it is, which as it turns out, you can’t even do anyway?