Attention & Focus · “You Become What You Hold”
Contemplative Golf
To turn a physical skill (golf) into a contemplative discipline: by gathering body, mind, feeling, and imagination into one undivided awareness, sensing the field as a living whole, and swinging from a felt ‘true gravity’ rather than mechanical force, so that right action arises of itself.
True-gravity golf in 6 lines: Before the shot, gather body, mind, feeling, and imagination into one. Drop into your centre. Widen awareness to the whole field and feel where the shot wants to go (“true gravity”). Picture the shot, then let the picture go. Swing by letting, not forcing — quiet the controlling mind. Stay with what happens, re-gather, walk the course as one continuous meditation.
What it is
In his cult novel Golf in the Kingdom (1972), Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy gives, through the fictional Scottish pro Shivas Irons, a contemplative method that treats golf as a spiritual discipline.
The core teaching: stop forcing the ball and instead gather all of yourself — “our bodies and our minds, our feelin’s and our fantasies” — into one undivided awareness, sense the course as a single living field, and let the swing flow from “true gravity,” a felt alignment with the pull of the whole, rather than from muscular striving.
The point is not lower scores per se but a state Murphy elsewhere documented as being “in the zone”: effortless, present, whole. Though framed as fiction, it became a real practice — the Shivas Irons Society teaches it as living discipline.
It works by gathered attention (The Inner Creates the Outer), felt engagement (The Inner Creates the Outer), and imaginal sensing of the field (The Inner Creates the Outer). The same logic transfers to any skilled physical activity.
The Method
Drawn faithfully from Shivas Irons’ teachings in Part Two of Golf in the Kingdom and the Society’s practice. Use it on a range, a course, or even one shot.
- Gather yourself before the shot (“bring them all together”). Pause. Consciously collect body, mind, feeling, and imagination into one. Shivas’ refrain is to unite “our bodies and our minds, our feelin’s and our fantasies” — no part of you absent, no part fighting another.
- Feel your centre. Bring attention into the body’s centre of gravity (low in the belly/hips), the still point you swing from. Stand and let your weight settle into the ground; feel yourself hung between earth and sky.
- Sense the field as a living whole (“true gravity”). Widen awareness from the ball outward to the whole hole — the contour of the land, the wind, the green, the hole itself — as one connected field that you are inside of, not separate from. Feel the situation’s own “pull”: where the shot wants to go. Murphy/Shivas call this responsiveness to the whole true gravity.
- Picture the shot, then let it go. Vividly imagine the ball’s flight and landing as already real (The Inner Creates the Outer) — then release the picture. You are not gripping an outcome; you are setting an intention and trusting the gathered self to execute.
- Swing without striving (non-striving / wu wei). Make the swing an act of letting rather than forcing. The teaching is explicitly Taoist/Zen in spirit: effortless flow, not muscle. “Let the nothingness into yer shots” — quiet the over-controlling mind so the trained body acts cleanly.
- Stay with what actually happens. After the shot, don’t narrate or judge. Simply notice, return to centre, and gather again for the next one. Each shot is a fresh, complete act of attention.
- Walk the course as meditation. Between shots, keep the gathered, present awareness — the walk, the ground, the air — so the whole round is one continuous contemplation, not a series of anxious efforts punctuated by waiting. (Sourcing note: “true gravity,” “bring them all together,” “let the nothingness into yer shots,” and the swing-as-meditation framing are Murphy’s, voiced by Shivas Irons in Golf in the Kingdom; short phrases quoted for fidelity, the protocol faithfully distilled — Murphy wrote it as narrative dialogue, not a numbered drill. The Shivas Irons Society’s “Exploring True Gravity” work — cultivating presence, the golfer’s body, sensing the field — is its living continuation.)
Source & Lineage
Michael Murphy (b. 1930), co-founder of the Esalen Institute, wrote Golf in the Kingdom after a year at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in India (1956) sparked his interest in the parallels between athletes “in the zone” and contemplatives in samadhi.
The book modelled its teaching dialogues on Plato’s Symposium and The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. He developed the sport-as-spiritual-practice thesis empirically in In the Zone: Transcendent Experience in Sports (with Rhea White) and theoretically in The Future of the Body.
Shivas Irons’ mentor Seamus MacDuff is the source of “true gravity” within the fiction.; cf. Aurobindo. It shares DNA with Timothy Gallwey’s Inner Game, Zen archery (Herrigel’s Zen in the Art of Archery), and Murphy’s own ITP.
The Traditions' versions
Zen in the Art of Archery (Herrigel) — release the shot without “willing” it; the act performs itself. Near-identical non-striving core.
- The Inner Game of Tennis (Gallwey) — quiet “Self 1” (the judging mind), let “Self 2” (the trained body) play. Same quiet-the-controller logic.
- Taoist wu wei — effortless action aligned with the natural flow; Shivas’ teaching is explicitly Taoist in spirit.
- Mushin (Zen “no-mind”) — acting cleanly without interfering thought.
- Murphy’s ITP — the broader whole-person discipline; this is its sporting expression.
- Flow (Csikszentmihalyi) — the secular research description of the same absorbed, effortless state.
Common refinements
Trying to force the “zone.” Striving to be effortless is self-defeating (the same reversed-effort trap Coué names). You set up the conditions and allow it; you don’t will it.
- Using the imagery as outcome-gripping. Picture the shot, then release it. Clinging to the result re-engages the anxious controlling mind.
- Focusing internally on mechanics during the swing. Drill mechanics in practice; on the shot, focus externally (target, field) — that’s what the research and Shivas both prescribe.
- Mistaking the poetry for physics. Enjoy “true gravity” as a felt orientation; don’t argue it as literal force.
- Reserving it for golf. The method transfers to any skilled act — playing music, surfing, even careful manual work.
- Skipping the gather. The pause to “bring them all together” is the doorway; rushing past it loses the practice.