Explorations of mind-wandering in Ljubljana

 Last week, I taught at the TECT (Training Embodied Critical Thinking) summer school, which this year took place in Ljubljana (Slovenia). Just like last year's summer school in Iceland, it was a treat to be there. What is cool about this summer school is that it is a very interdisciplinary place where students with backgrounds ranging from architecture and design to philosophy to neuroscience to artificial intelligence get together to investigate the mind and experience. This investigation is very much grounded in the body and uses techniques such as microphenomenology, thinking at the edge, and exploring the mind through meditation.

During the summer school, I was co-teaching the track on meditation with colleagues Urban Kordes and Toma Strle, and we alternated periods of meditation with a sharing of experience during this meditation to reach a better understanding of mind-wandering. During this track, we started by practising meditation, before everyone introduced themselves, with the reasoning that by practising meditation together, you get to know each other much better than by just sharing your biography. This was proven to be indeed the case, because at the end of the week, the group naturally started to feel very connected to each other during the meditation practices, wanting to hold hands in their imagination.

Probably quite critical in this process was a mid-week excursion to explore some of the beautiful nature of Slovenia, where we wandered around in a park with beautiful caves, springs and forest. We practiced among other things a "depth walk", in which we walked around in the environment with a companion, and traced a path driven by paying attention to subtle internal cues, while at the same time we verbalized what we noticed. It is amazing how much more you notice when you walk like this! Suddenly becoming aware of angular shapes in the natural environment, the springy nature of the ground, or the play of the light. It was also very interesting to notice how this natural environment shifted our thinking patterns.

Now back to our meditation course, exploring mind-wandering in the environment of the city, we ended up with very deep discussions about what is mind-wandering, with probably the most fascinating moment being a "mind-wandering meditation", where we asked people to mind-wander, instead of meditating, and suddenly all the thoughts were gone! We also deeply went into questions of why we mind-wander, whether there is agency in mind-wandering, and how mind-wandering compares to daydreaming and other mental processes. One interesting insight that came was of the parallels between wandering the city, and wandering in our own mind in meditation, and how good that feels when we can simply wander in a non-sticky way, which is the true definition of mind-wandering according to Kalina Christoff and Zach Irving. Yet, it is not so easy to get there, but I think the practices we did during the summer school helped us to tune into that.

This brings me to the point of other practices we did during the summer school: apart from my teaching about mind-wandering and meditation, I also taught movement practices, in which we explored the body through different kinds of dance movement, to tune better into our bodies. Not only was that a great way to start a long day of discussions and thinking, but it also was so cool to bring my dance experience into work at an academic context.

In a way, the summer school was like a retreat, where I got to connect back to my embodied experience, ask big questions about my research and life in general. This is quite in line with the next #lojongchallenge slogan, number 43, which says "observe the two, even at the risk of your life". Basically the two refer here to commitments of the Buddhist teachings in general and the Lojong teachings in particular. In this case, for me the most important lesson is to not forget about the importance of and the power of meditation and tuning into experience, rather than being occupied with things that are visible from the outside, but do not lead to transformation. I myself find it particularly difficult to spend more time on meditation when I have an endless todo list (so this makes it great to have a summer school where you meditate for your job!). And yet, when I practise, I notice just how much sanity it yields, and what better way to study mind-wandering than to observe your own mind... 

Using Buddhist slogans to inspire a conducive mindset for a ballet performance

Picture by SBS foto marketing.

 In the last few days, I had the good fortune to participate in ballet performances. Finally the pandemic is allowing us to experience those again! As it turns out, the mental side of it was a pretty experiencing journey, which is also relevant to the next #lojongchallenge slogan (slogan 42) which is: whichever of the two arises, be patient. The idea of this slogan is that we constantly tend to want certain things and avoid certain other things--trying to get things we want and avoid things we do not want. I can tell you that definitely happens during a ballet performance, where there is the fear of making mistakes, or even worse, falling and injuring yourself, and the hope of shining and having a good time. Thankfully in the ballet school where I dance in Groningen, we have three shows, so when on Friday I felt quite engrossed in these thoughts about being afraid of failure and not so much able to enjoy the moment, I could play around with my mindset for the next two shows.

I realized that for me it was important to return back to my body, because our body is an anchor to experience, rather than the thinking-about-experience. What really helped me was to take time before the performance to really connect to my body by putting on my noise-cancelling headphones and doing an online class by Broche ballet. The teacher has a very calming and non-judgmental quality, really inviting dancers to inquire into their sensations and movements, rather than focusing on a correct or incorrect end-product. I also found that the beautiful music of the barre helped me to get into my happy space as well. 

View from the dressing room where I was warming up in my happy space (picture by Kelly Jennefer)

Then during the performance, I consciously practised appreciation. Rather than thinking about who was good or not good, I focused on the beauty of everyone at their own level, and consciously opening up myself to the connection with everyone who was putting together the show--in Buddhist terms: the interdependent circumstances that come together to create the performance, where everyone has their role to play (see also this quote for a beautiful description of that idea). It was amazing how much this changed my mind, because suddenly I shifted from a focus on myself to a focus on the system as a whole.

And when I was no longer overly focused on myself, I also was not drawn so much into judgments and thoughts. Because those judgments were exactly what was causing my frustration, because I started to make mistakes that I wouldn't make in class. Then the most interesting experience happened at the beginning of the last show, during a very happy tarantella dance. Somehow I sumbled over something and fell, right in the middle of the dance. Thankfully it was not a bad fall and I got up immediately and continued dancing straight away. But because now I had literally gotten back on earth, my body took over without too much jugdments and thoughts, and I enjoyed it like never before, I guess it also cannot really go down much from there! The show ended up the best one I did, simply because my mind was no longer seeking out any particular experience and rejecting others, but simply tuning in with whatever was there. In the end, I think my mindset work was almost the most fascinating part of the whole experience! 

Picture by SBS fotomarketing

In the dance where I fell flat on my face