Drukpa Kunley, called “the divine madman”

Perhaps one of the most underrated tools for a Mindfulness teacher is the power of Storytelling. Because when one is teaching meditation, one is trying to convey, through technical language something that resist being reduced to language above and beyond the usual resistance.

Let’s take something more socially common: the experience of falling in love.
Now, I don’t know about you, gentle reader, but when I was young, falling in love was this experience which was at the same time ill-defined and omnipresent, specially going into my teen years. On one hand, it seemed to be the expected thing to do: young people FELL IN LOVE in capitals, reshaping their world invariably for the better. On the other hand, the…let’s call them symptoms, were…worrying. Fluttering butterflies? Pulse Racing? Shortness of Breath? Was that a pleasant, life-affirming sensation or a stroke?

But with time and patience, one learns to recognize the signals and that they’re exaggerated for dramatic purposes. The same happens with meditation: its a lot of complex signals and experiences, which lack a common language that helps mediate and articulate them.

There’s a short anecdote about Borges, the great lover of language. He travels to Japan and meets a living Buddha (I.e. someone who was recognized to be enlightened). So Borges, the consummate writer and poet asks him to describe enlightenment and the monk says the worst thing possible to him: he cannot. He can talk about enlightenment with another Buddha, who will understand him…but not with Borges.

This, of course, drives the great master of language mad and is probably one of his greatest regrets into old age. But this points out to a great problem with language: we need some kind of bridge, beyond the structures of syntax and grammar, that allows experience to be shared.

Stories are that bridge.

Think back to your teen years. Where there stories about falling in love? Anecdotes from an elder sibling, jests between friends, little talks? If you were in a school, or in a less than totally dysfunctional family, there probably were.

We lack that kind of everyday storytelling with meditation: we usually approach it in a more formal framework. And I think that this hurts our ability to integrate it. That’s why stories can help bridge that gap, create a way for experience to be communicated. Be it the bizarre antics of Drukpa Kunley, the story on how Ganesh became elephant headed or a more down to earth story on how we began to meditate in response to a situation, I think that Storytelling is the tool that will help more Mindfulness teachers to communicate.

What are your favorite meditation stories?

So…we’ve just finished the #M10D Challenge. This was an exponential challenge, beyond the #M6D by leaps and bounds. And it was incredible! We had people from Japan to the Aleutians, from Sweden to the southern Patagonia here in Argentina. But I also learn a lot about organizing it, and how it differs from the basic #M6D, so I thought that I would put this learning in writing. In case that this is the first article that you read about it, I suggest that you go to the brief explanation that I’ve posted here or to my Youtube channel for more in depth coverage. Also, you might want to refresh the previous Marathons based on #M6D. Also, just for fun, I’m including our playlist at the Present Show

So, first, let’s do an unorthodox retro. Let’s first focus on what has continued and what has changed between the other massive Meditation Marathons that we’ve done, #M6D and this #M10D.

What has remained the same

• The way to practice: you can follow up on your own or do it on a group
• The format: a series of timed meditations, through a series of pre-defined days
• The ways of contact: vía either mail, Facebook, twitter, Instagram or forum (if at IBM)
• The main distribution of people who sign up vs people who do all the practices (which are about a 4-6% of the total signers)

What has changed

• First of all, the number of people who signed up has been much higher than before (8.453 total) from a more diverse range of timezones and countries
• Instead of a single meditation and instruction, we had four different meditations across the ten days
• Daily webcasts so people can join and practice online with us
• More focus on production values: each meditation had a custom-designed flyer, a video in several languages and also audio

So, having said that, let’s go on the Bad, the Good and What We should Try Next

The Bad

• This was, actually, exhausting. Even with a small group of people helping me, the sheer volume of mails and questions meant that I spent about 3-4 hours more per day that I had planned, so the last days I was running basically on empty.
• The lack of segmentation that this meditation presupposes had an advantage: large number of signers. But it also made upkeep  very time consuming, since it means that every meditation should at least be recorded, edited, exported, etc…at least four times.
• A running issue through all Meditative Marathons and also Workshops is the low adhesion to the habit of Mindfulness, usually less than 10%. This is an improvement from the usual rates of 1-2% adhesion bandied about, but still, need improving.

The Good

• Great response from everyone who wrote about the meditations and the way they ramped up on complexity.
• A lot of good questions and follow up, which allows me to fine tune the next iteration
• It was super fun to be in a lot of live shows at the internet.

What should we try in the next iteration

• Having an established group of helpers who’ve had gone through the #M10D. So, basically, I need to come up with an M10D Facilitator Training
• I need to work on something that helps to keep up the commitment
• Also, I need to segment the way of getting the practices, so instead of producing a meditation in various languages across various media, I can cut the workload. For that and the previous point, I think that an app should be the way to go. I’ll think about it.
• As the last point: we’ve already got sponsorship from programs and corporations. I think we need to get serious and start talking government and education sponsorship and overview.

So…those are my points for the M10D. As you can see, they suggest a roadmap for what remains of the year. What do you think of it? Have I missed something?

F

(on the last day of #M6D, teaching Mindfulness in Mar del Plata)

I apologize for being so late to post updates. I was coordinating the second # M6D, a meditative marathon that was quite global: people from Alaska to Japan participated, with a lot of people from the Middle East and Europe (it is amazing to me that so many people from India, the country that formalized the meditation and where the Buddha arose look for an Argentinian proposal to meditate … but well, nobody is a prophet in his own land, I think).

The truth is that it was a fantastic experience: everyone was very nice and very open. I learned a lot: the participants shared with me from apps to music. I answered a thousand questions: I received a thousand pieces of advice and constructive criticism. Although it was a super-exhausting week, it was a very satisfying experience for me.

But what I remember the most from the week is the willingness of the participants to put their body into the practice: almost nobody left, once it started. And this led me to think: Why are there so many people who would like to meditate but in practice, cannot do it? I think it’s partly because they think it’s difficult or expensive.

Meditating is as difficult or easy as we want … as long as we understand what we want.

Are we looking for a simple and effective relaxation after an overwhelming working day? Well, one can quickly learn a relaxation technique or follow it in an app.
Do we want to be patient and peaceful in the face of a tense situation? It probably takes more time and requires the guidance of someone who has already gone through this.
Do we want to use meditation to enter into lucid dreams? This takes a lot more practice

Therefore, it can not be said in brief that meditation is easy. It depends a lot on what we want to achieve. But … but, but, but … to begin to meditate and see its minor benefits (creativity, greater relaxation and less stress) does not require so much effort and has no cost.

That’s why, as a way to encourage meditation, I have a proposal for you: from here to the end of the year (that is, in 12 days) I would love to propose that you take as first action when getting up or last before going to bed (choose depending of habits and possibilities) taking 12 minutes per day to meditate. How do we meditate? The way you want. We can recite mantras, do Shamatha or Shikitanza, Meditate in Karuna or just sit still. Each one of us can choose the meditation, each one can change day by day. The important thing is to choose to finish the year as a meditator.

If you do choose it, write to fedeandino@ganapati.com.ar and tell them how are you doing!

F

There is one constant thing that unites good, solid Branding with Storytelling and with those methods that focus on making things memorable, like the method of loci: a good, visual, concrete image.
Let’s think of the great stories that we almost all of us share:

• Cinderella: the crystal slipper
• Red Riding Hood: the big, bad wolf
• The legend of King Arthur: a hand on a lake, holding Excalibur

And so on…a great story creates a great image which takes a weight of it’s own.

For me, one of the great grandmasters of the art “Painting pictures with words” is President Trump. Now, I’m not evaluating his political acumen (or lack thereof, depending on your point of view) but for me it´s remarkable how he manages, with a very simple, non-poetic vocabulary, to convey lasting images to illustrate his point.

For example, another, more polished politician might say “we need to review the criteria for validating background checks in viable immigration policies” as a way of saying that they want to reduce the flow of immigration to the U.S. Now, I almost fell asleep typing those words; political language being what it is, works for making the intentions of the speaker more veiled or more transparent, to a very select few people. If one’s not a dealmaker, the nuances of the language will provide tiresome.

Contrast this with

I WILL BUILD A WALL AND MAKE MEXICO PAY FOR IT ALL

(see? It even rhymes)

It paints a picture of a big, sturdy wall, around the south border of the US. Now, it this feasible? No, probably not. But it doesn’t matter: it has brought the point across that Trump is hard on illegal immigration and will probably stay on our minds long after any phrase by the other runners for the 2016 election has vanished.

Now, let me reiterate: I’m not saying that one has to copy Trump or admire him in any other way but the one that relates to branding and storytelling. I find him a very clever Brander, and a good Storyteller, but that’s on a technical level.

And on that level: what we can do to paint pictures with words, like him?

Enter Mindfulness.

Mindfulness is a tool. Not just for Stress-reducing (though, it is great at it) or for greater resilience (also, great at it) but for creativity. Let’s make a five minute meditation, called the Cloud Meditation, into an experience of Branding and Storytelling.

1. Sit relaxed, on a comfortable seat or in a mat
2. Close your eyes.
3. Let any sound or feeling permeate you and do not hang to anything that comes to mind.
4. After a couple of breaths, imagine that with each inbreath, you draw pure, clear, cool air which starts to fill you
5. With each outbreath you expel a dark, warm, sticky air, which is your impurities
6. Continue for some breaths until you’re filled with the cool, clear air
7. Now the cool clear air starts to accumulate in the crown of your head and comes out of your nostrils and ears like little puffs of smoke. Those puffs accumulate into a thought cloud, like this 
8. Now, we will work on the cloud with a cycle of three breaths. Start thinking on a story or in something you want to brand
9. With the first breath, let an image of that story or product come into being, in the cloud. It doesn’t have to be very detailed. It even can be in black and white. Just let it come
10. Second breath: really, really look at it, see how it makes you feel.
11. Third breath: let it go, vanishing into the cloud
12. Now we start again
13. Do not do this for less that 10 images (which is 30 breaths). Do not get hung up on the images: they will come and go. Wait till you find and image that really, really grabs you.
14. If an image vanishes and then comes back…as long as in the third breath it vanishes again, it is within the technique. Often after a longer period of visualizations, some start to repeat: it is a good sign that the image has special weight.
15. When you want to stop, just let the cloud vanish and go back in your own body. Take three breaths and feel your body from head to toe, and open your eyes.

That’s all the work that you have to do.

So…I’d like to offer you a small challenge. Can you send me an image for a product or a commonly known story with this method? I can’t reward you with nothing but a post here…but I’d love to see your word paintings.

• Elisa Gugliel
• Mario Sebastián Miño
• Guillermo Cárdenas
• Ana Silvia Karacic
• Alicia Griselda Tegaldi
• María Silvente
• María Álvarez
• Lionel Rábago
• Gisella Diana Kohan

They have shown great spirit and dedication.

¡Congratulations!

On Saturday, we have a new edition of the Level 1 Workshop for Ganapati: Urban Meditation.

And on Sunday, we start the first #Meditation #Marathon #M6D