Super Bowl Sunday Discussion: Are Violent Sports Spiritual?

With the Super Bowl only one day away and hockey season in full swing, I was thinking about violent sports and their place in our lives. Do they promote violence in society? Are they a necessary outlet for spectators to release pent-up aggressions in a benign manner? Is man by nature an aggressive mammal, like lions or tigers or bears? (Oh My!)

I was at a birthday party last night in Peconic for a 12-year-old boy, the son of a friend. Also at the party was another friend, the boy's twenty-eight-year-old uncle, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq. My marine friend and the 12-year-old were engaging in some pretty physical rough-housing, enough for one of the adults at the party to say “be careful!” But to the boy and the marine it was just normal mock-aggressive play, and afterwards everybody settled down to a wonderful birthday meal around the dining room table, the boy's hyper twelve-year-old energy spent so he was now calm at the table.

What about the real physical play on the football field? So physical that multiple head injuries are finally being recognized as a major concern? As a Traumatic Brain Injury survivor myself, I am especially sensitive to any activities that might negatively impact the brain. And as a Zen Buddhist who works hard every day to promote peace in myself and others, I have to ask myself where violent sports fit in: do they promote aggression and violence? Or do they act as outlets for aggression and violence, promoting peace?

My own view is that aggression is part of the human animal, as it is a part of most mammals; we are not sloths, or...(I'm having a hard time right now thinking of other peaceful mammals; the beautiful quiet deer grazing outside my window?: The bucks will attack each other with fierce head-butting displays. The quiet racoon that sometimes shambles across the yard?: Get too close and it will scratch and bite you with a surprising ferocity.)

So better that we recognize this part of ourselves, embrace it and understand it as part of the natural order of things, part of the great perfection of the universe, and learn to channel it in positive ways.

One chapter in “Passage to Nirvana” is about this phenomenon. It’s called “Warriors: Big Men, Amen.” The essay makes thoughtful reading for this Super Bowl Sunday. I've attached a PDF of the chapter. Just click here to read it in your browser, or right-click (option-click on a Mac) to download the PDF.

And what about the spiritual view? The Zen view? The Buddhist view? (Not to be confused with players like Tim Tebow thanking God and Jesus for their success; that's a different subject.) Since I am well-known to people as a Zen student, teacher and writer, I think it's important I address this spiritual aspect of violence.

I think the best example is Tibet. While most of us think of the Dalai Lama, peaceful orange-robed monks and the mythical Shangri-La when we think of Tibetan Buddhism (a close relative to Zen and a very powerful spiritual society), the reality is much more complex. Tibet was historically a very remote, difficult place to live, with long cold winters and rough mountain terrain that bred a fiercness in the nomadic tribes who guarded Tibet from outside aggressors. Anyone who doubts this should read “Into Tibet: The CIA's First Atomic Spy and His Secret Expedition to Lhasa.” The book details how two American CIA agents secretly traveled to northwest China to get evidence of China's first nuclear bomb tests, and then fled through Tibet, where they were killed by Tibetan herdsman who cut off the American's heads, put them in their horse's saddle bags and rode to the Dalai Lama's palace where they presented him with the heads (he was not pleased).

Violence and peace. Yin and yang. Black and white. Monks and nomads. Football fields and super bowl parties. All part of the balance of our world.