Deep Play and Spirituality
Absorption, Non-Attachment and Transcendence
Play is an important part of the human repertoire. Child play is a dress rehearsal for adult behaviour. Adults play in rituals and relationships. One engages in simple play for diversion, mock play for learning or therapy; deep play however, engages the divine; it comes closest to what may be called a spiritual experience.
Diane Ackerman in Deep Play (New York: Vintage Books, 1999), calls such creative engagement "a form of meditation favored especially by westerners”(194) — the ability to meditate in motion. Like running that triggers the sacred experience, deep play can rightly be called spirituality in action. Its hallmarks are absorption, non-attachment and transcendence.
Deep Play and Absorption
What differentiates deep play from simple play is the intensity of the engagement.
Deep players retreat from the world to pursue their “craft,” be it writing, painting, mountain climbing or golf. The activity is characterized by an extended period of intense absorption, a state often described as “reverie.” There is no sense of time, as though one is insulated from the laws of the material world.
Moreover, in the process of absorption, one finds mental focus, alertness, even the ability to ignore pain, hunger or physical discomfort — a situation closely akin to self-hypnosis. Mihaly Csikczentmihaly calls it the “flow,” emphasizing that the experience is intrinsically rewarding because it is the activity itself, not its extrinsic compensation, that constitutes the goal of the pursuit.
Deep Play and Non-Attachment
In this state of flow, the deep player becomes detached from a fixed sense of self and from material things. Buddhists call this state non-attachment and describe it as a total acceptance of what is such that the desire for possession of self, others or things is dissolved.
Ultimately, non-attachment is the ability to see everything in a state of flux. Paradoxically, this ability emerges from an intense focus on one’s activity. In meditation, focusing on a mantra or candle flame releases the self. In deep play, intense focus on one’s creative pursuit brings the same result.
Deep Play and Transcendence
Intense pursuit of one’s passion ultimately brings transcendence or release from the confines of the ego. This release is manifested in a form of self-transcendence.
Deep players are not externally motivated or even goal-directed; they are motivated by internal growth, the actualization of themselves and their potential. Transcendence is the process of growing to one’s potential, ultimately moving beyond the ego towards a connection larger than the self. This connection often takes the form of service — helping others move towards their potential. Self-transcendence brings with it an acceptance of all that exists and a deep resonance with whatever life brings in all its manifestation.
Ultimately, deep play is an attitude one cultivates with grace and an open mind. It is a form of spirituality deeply in tune with sacred traditions: an honoring of the self and sacred time in order to move beyond the self.
Deep Play is a Spiritual Experience
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