 everyone. It is great to see you. I think the biggest thing I've noticed about being in person is that we had to put on pants this morning. Other than that it's kind of the same right? It's great to see you all. I am very very honored to have been asked to introduce our speaker for today and to get to learn a little bit about him. I am exceptionally excited for this next part now having done that. Eduardo Haudeghi. Okay, Haudeghi. I had to learn how to say that. You should know how to say it too. It's like how to geek, he told me, without the K at the end. But my guess is if you want to learn how to like be more nerdy he can probably help us with that too. Here's a doctorate, doctor of political and social science with a specialty. His dissertation was on humor and laughter right up our alley. Yes. And he has all sorts of amazing things that you can read about in the program but just a couple of his highlights. He has taught a positive psychology course at the St. Louis University Madrid campus for a number of years. Yes. He has, let's see what else can I tell you, he has his own humor skills company called Humor Positivo which he founded in 2004. He has successfully been promoting humor at work day across Spain. So that is pretty amazing. And he also has a mindfulness school. So all things we love and I'm not going to waste any more of your time introducing him. Please welcome Eduardo Jardí. Hardly believe that I'm here. About to give a keynote speech at the applied improvisation network conference. I mean, and from some of the people that I most admire, you know, I mean what a crowd. I just was just watching you as as Victoria was leading you in this this this play. You know, you are some of the people in the world that most know how to play and it's not just that you know how to play. You're just bursting for the opportunity to play. You just can't, it's like you, look at you. You just can't wait to get to those workshops, right? It's just, yeah, I can't, I think somehow we need to like recognize this. Yeah, let's take a moment to really realize where we are. What kind of people we're with, yeah? So I thought maybe you could just for a moment, we could just stand up slowly, just mindfully, you know, just get out of your seats. That's right. You're not automatically as we always do. And just let our arms just start to ease up in the air. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we're just gonna feel the playful energy in the room. Yeah, it's like our hands are at the antenna. And can you feel like just your fingers starting to tremble and shake? Just on their own. Yes, isn't that amazing? I mean, it's just like trembling and shaking. And that was like your hands and your arms are trembling and shaking and your whole body starts to tremble and shake. Praise the sweet goddess of improv. Big round of applause. Thank you very much. Have a seat. Yeah, let's let's not do too much of that because we got off the workshop. We got to see our energy. Okay. So yeah, I have to say I was, I was a bit, you know, freaking out this week. I mean, it's amazing gift to be able to be here to talk to you. It's one of these opportunities where you're able to give back a little to people who have given so much to you. I mean, I don't know if you've been in these conferences, but what you receive here, and it's not just the people who are in this room, but it's also the people behind you. Yeah, your teachers, your mentors, your colleagues, the people you play to it since you were a kid. You know, they're all there and the people behind them and the people behind them and so on and so forth through history back through the midst of time. And even before humanity, all these animals that also play, who knows if microbes play, who knows? So this is like a, like a fellowship. You know, there's been carrying that spark of pure creativity through the ages. And here we are, we've got, you put your hands up like this, like we're carrying it right here, yeah? And we're bringing it forward. So I thought, but speaking with this crowd, feel I need to say something weighty, something, not the usual fun and games, which I talk a lot about, you know, I mean, I did my doctor, I'm human laughter, but I need to say something a bit more weighty, a bit more profound. Yeah, but where do I find it? Right? Anyway, so I went when I thought, well, maybe we need to go yet just beyond just the impromptu needs to go to like, didn't really know how to call it, but I think I'm like a kind of mystical ride. Yeah. Are you ready for that? You ready for a mystical ride? Yeah. All right. Are you ready for a mystical ride, Avila? All right. Viva la revolución. All right. Yeah. In case there's somebody who doesn't know this, whenever anybody in Spain says viva la revolución, you got to say viva, like at the top of your voice. Yeah. Viva la revolución. All right. That's it. Okay, so I do have a PowerPoint. Actually, I'm going to take a bit of a, where's my water gun? Here it is. You know how it is, especially him. Okay, so I've not seen this Avila. I thought, we've got to connect with the energy like Santa Teresa. Yeah. Santa Teresa is a great Christian mystic, very famous Christian mystic anyway. And so I thought at first I titled this, I titled this, The Mystical Heart of Improv. Yeah. That's what I really wanted to be talking about. Okay, this is really the topic of the thing. But the title, it was just something about that I wasn't convinced by, you know, it's a bit a little bit too Sunday school. I went to Sunday school, I'm a race of Catholic. I thought, so maybe this is not so inclusive, not everybody is like into that whole thing. And even to me, it was giving me a bit of the heebie-jeebies, just looking at this photograph, just like, I don't know, if I want to go down this line. So then I thought, just the heart of improv, just simplify, you know, make it more, you know, everybody understands that the heart was a little bit too cheesy. So I thought, okay, the essence of improv, which would have been perfect if this was in France, right? Lessons de l'improv, you know, it's like, in Provence, in a place like that, you're just part of it. But in Spain, it's a little bit too kind of pretentious. So I thought the nitty gritty of improv, what a great word. Yeah, the nitty gritty of improv. Except I don't know if anybody here knows this, but I googled up the origin of this term. According to some scholars, according to some scholars, not everybody, there's some debate on this, but according to some scholars, this has to do with the history of slavery in the United States, while in Europe as well, like slaves being brought over in these terrible, the worst things that human beings have done to other human beings in these holds. And like when all these people, you know, leaving these holds of what was left, that was the nitty gritty. Just like the most awful possible, like the most horrible thing you could possibly imagine. And this is exactly, you know, here, we're here with the theme of this, of this conference is from history to our story. You know, this isn't just any AIM conference, you know, you hear where we're here to talk about inclusion and diversity and social change and breaking down barriers before the revolution. All right. Okay, so I thought out with this, out with this. And yeah, I was left with this. But this is too mystic. There's two like mysterious, you can't stick with this. So I thought in the middle of a deep meditation, I have the insight I thought it's got to come up from this group. We're going to come up right here right now, we're going to come up with the title. And it's not just any we've got to film that space. Right. So just for a moment, I'm going to ask you to please, what if you like, this is like everything I say is just, you know, an invitation. So but if you like, if you want to join me in trying to figure out what we got to call this, right? I'm going to ask you to just sit like on the front of your seat rather than just like lie back on the back, just maintaining your own back. And one of these positions that's kind of expresses nobility, being like facing life. Okay, so we're sitting there, can leave your hands just like lying on your lap up, facing up, facing down. You can close your eyes if you'd like. So we're going to go inside ourselves for a few moments. And close your eyes. What do you believe in the mobile? But if you like, we're just looking down, eyes unfocused. Just for a few moments, connecting with your breathing, just observing your in breath, to breathe in, out breath, out. If you don't, you're not into observing your breathing, just observe sensations in your body, just connecting with yourself, your physical presence right here. And then I'd like you to accompany me into the inside of your mental space. And just go into your mental space. And it's like you're going to ask your own mind to come up with a sound, a word. But it's like a word that's never been uttered before. Maybe you can just start with a vowel or two, and just throw in a few consonants, but just not trying to force anything, just wanting it to arise. Just kind of float up in the middle of your mental space. And maybe these letters start to combine, these sounds, and something starts to come up. You can like play around with a little bit, just allowing it to happen. Nothing forced. Okay? Just come back to your body. You start to open up your eyes, come back to the space. And if somebody, perhaps nothing has come up, then that's fine. Or nothing that you're very proud of, and that's fine too. But if something has come up that you think could be an interesting, something interesting to slide into that space, please raise your hand. Okay? We have a few hands going up, it'll be shy, it'll be shy. That's it. Raise your hand. Okay, so I think we have some microphones around. We need to hear this word very, very well. Do you have microphones? Oh, we're improvising again. People are rushing around the room. Oh, you forgot about the microphone. Okay, never mind. Maybe you can do it without a mic. So please raise your hands again, those of you who have some ideas that could work. Yeah. The Ya Yo Bash. The Ya Yo Bash of improv. Okay, thank you. That's a great contribution. We're going to listen to another couple of possibilities. Ya Yo Bash. I'm going to write this down because it is a new word. First time it's been ever been written. Yes. The Wallah. The Wallah. Wallah. Wallah. Thank you. Oh, the accent is on the first U. Wallah. Okay, good. So we've got the Wallah. And one more. Raise your hands. Raise your hands. You have one more here. Gagats. Sorry? Gagats. Gagats. The Gagats of improv. Okay, so we've got three options now. We've got the Ya Yo, Ya Yo Bash, Ya Yo Bash of improv. Okay, we've got the U Wallah of improv. And we've got the Gagats of improv. Okay, now we're going to vote. Okay, it's got to come from the whole group. So those are basically each, you're going to think, you're going to decide now which is your favorite. I know it's a hard choice, but you're going to, each person is going to try to, you know, really say, okay, this is the one that I really want. Okay, so I'll remind you again. Ya Yo Bash, U Wallah, and Gagats. Okay, so those of you who favor Ya Yo Bash are not going to chance it with me. Okay, so Ya Yo Bash. Yeah, you got it. You got to raise your hand too. Ya Yo Bash. Ya Yo Bash. Okay, okay, we got it. Now we're going to go for U Wallah. Those of you who favor U Wallah. Okay, here we go. U Wallah, U Wallah. Great, I think U Wallah is definitely in the lead here. And now we've got, now we've got Gagats. Okay, here we go. Gagats, Gagats, Gagats. It's definitely U Wallah. Okay, so now we're all going to chant U Wallah. Okay, so U Wallah, U Wallah, U Wallah. All right, so the U Wallah it is, it's the U Wallah of improv, and that's the title of this talk. We made it. So the U Wallah of improv, so let's see what this U Wallah, what the hell is U Wallah of improv is, right? So, you know, this is something that you all know very well, but this is the U Wallah of improv, so I'm not going to tell you anything you don't know really. But it's kind of a feeling for these few years, like the mystical ride, right? So I've tried to just come up with a real U Wallah. It's like trying to concentrate as much as possible. I've come up with just four words, and I know we're going to split hairs later with debating all these last couple of days. Oh, you forgot this. You didn't say this. Okay, but more or less, you know, we pretty much agree. Okay, so first is listening. You know, you know, the powerful listening, active listening, you know, you're listening, and not just any listening, but you're listening now. Now what's going on? Love this cruise. Just thank you. Thank you so much. Listening now. Okay, not just that, but what you just did now, which is, yes and, right? It actually comes in two, but here, I'm sorry, in one, but I've split it up into two, right? So first is a yes, and that's that acceptance. Whatever comes, whatever it is, whatever. Doesn't mean you need to follow it slavishly, but you're taking it into account, right? And then you go for the end, which is, you take a decision. What are you going to do? Okay, here comes, here comes this thing, right? And so you're accepting and you bush, and you're, you know, throwing it back. So, you know, this is pretty much enough. Here's a question for you. Is this easy to do? Oh, we got somebody who's, we got, we got like the real, you know, serious, we'll be talking to you later. So this is incredibly hard. It's like human brains are not designed to do this, try to mix that for him. So on the whole, right, for most of us, you know, even the people who have been improvising for years, you still, you still got trouble following this, you know? This is hard. This is really hard, because you're trying to listen, you're trying to listen, but you're distracted all the time, all the time by stuff that's going on and by those, that mad woman in the house. This is an expression of Santa Teresa for anybody who are not, they follow Santa Teresa. The mad woman of the house is always going, it's just like independent of you, right? And so it's always going on. And so you're distracted. Now forget about it, right? It's like you're in the past or in the future. You're thinking, oh, we'll have, we'll just have an hour. You're thinking about what's coming later tomorrow or the workshops in a few minutes. Okay. And then forget about, yes, no way, Jose. No way. Your mind is just like, you know, whatever comes up is like, no way, Jose. And by the way, I think no way, Jose is definite proof that improv was invented by Spaniard centuries ago. Yeah, that's right. Jose, that was his name. Nobody knows his last name, but he was Jose. But of course, he, you know, he tried to do improv. He proposed this and everybody said, no way, Jose. So nobody pays it. He never got anywhere, didn't get off the ground. And so, you know, Canada keeps Johnson. So it is from history to our story. Okay. So Jose, we're going to be making a statue to Jose later on. And finally, there's, you know, and that's impossible because you've got your own thing going on. You know, it's like, you know, this thing is coming here and you're like, Oh, but I got my own thing going on right here. Yeah, look at this. I got this thing here. Right. So you know, I got. So this is like really hard to do. And this is why we train. You train this stuff. You got to train and train and train. And still you just, you can't follow these rules, but you continue training. And that's what we do. Right. So many of you are thinking, what the hell does this have to do with Santa Teresa, apart from, you know, the matter of the house? So it's, I mean, improv is much more fun, right? And much more active and much more seemed like it's got nothing to do with this. Of course, Christian mysticism here is very Christian mystic. It's part of something much greater to be called the temple of practice. It's like looking inward different ways of looking within and developing different aspects of yourself, versions and so on. And within this, you know, there's also become very popular in the West, not so much the Christian mysticism, but Buddhism and yoga and all these things coming from the East. And still these things look nothing like improv, apparently. But of course, what they're doing is going inside their heads. So how can we really know if it's similar or not? I want to tell you that the last time that I was here, I was in this place. Have you seen this building? It's very close to here. You can see it. Where's my water? It's far away as possible. Typical. This, as you come down, down the murallas, you come to this place to the right, you can see it's huge building. It's absolutely massive. And it's called La Universidad de la Mística. The official title is like a fetus. It's like the Centro de Estudios Santa Teresianos y San Juanianos or something like that. But it's known as the University of Mysticism. Amazing place. And it's not just, you know, Christian mystics who come. There's the yogis and there's the Buddhists and there's all kinds of people who come. And I, last time I was in Avila, I came here and I was here for like almost 10 days, I think, doing contemplative practice. And actually what I was doing really was I was learning to teach a course that you might know. It's called Mindfulness Based Trust Reduction. How many people have done MBSR? Just a few? Okay. It's very popular and it's become hugely popular. And it's the course that has popularized mindfulness and like, now it's everything. I think everybody is like meditating now. And this was developed by a man called Jean Kabat-Zinn who was actually a scientist. He was a molecular, started out as a molecular biologist. He was at MIT. He discovered Zen and thought it was wonderful. But he thought most people will never do this. You know, the people I know, the people I love, you know, they just think I'm spooky and they're not going to get into this. So he basically decided to try to come up with the Uwala. The Uwala of this, right? And get rid of all the other stuff, you know, just to get rid of most of the other stuff, right? I mean, you didn't want to throw out the baby with the bath water. It's like, but really the Uwala, really like essence of the thing. And so he developed this, this course just to try to, so this wouldn't be about like the Christian ideas or the, you know, the ideas of the Buddha or, you know, you don't have to dress in any kind of way and you're not gongs and stuff like that. It's just something that has to do with our common humanity. That's all he talked about. He talked about things that everybody understands. Things like pain, pain and joy and suffering and stress and happiness and those decisions we have to take every day, you know, and then you're born and you live and all kinds of crazy stuff happens and then you die. You know, that stuff is, you know, that's the real facts of life. It's what he calls it the full catastrophe of life that we're dealing with every day, you know. And so, yeah, the stuff that we can all share, our common humanity. By the way, you can have a look, this is an online photo exhibition by Angelica Das, which I recommend, which would be nice. And so this has been a hugely popular, as you know, there's been a lot of scientific research on this. It's a huge explosion in scientific research. When I studied psychology at university, this was like the kookiest subject in the world. Meditation, forget about it. I mean, I studied a kooky subject. I know I studied humor. People laugh at me when they heard what I was studying, but this was even kooky. You know, people were like thrown out of university for studying this kind of thing. And so now it's like an explosion. There was like 4% of people were meditating in the States in 2012. Then it was up to 217 to 14.2, which is incredible. It's like triplicating in like, you know, just five years. We don't have the latest statistic because this National Health Interview Survey will come out this year, but it's probably going to be much higher because in 2017, there were no meditation apps, no mindfulness apps. Now it's worth $1 billion. So, I mean, this is like a real big change that's going on in humanity. It's probably about time. It's probably a good service. Well, I'm hoping it's going to service well. And so what is mindfulness anyway? Many of you know, obviously, it's even been, the word has been said even this morning already before I came up here. So how many of you people actually like practice meditation, have practiced this year, let's say, this year? Okay. How many this month? How many this week? How many this morning? All right, a few. Nice. Okay. So what is this all about? What are the basic instructions? This is pretty much copied from John Kabat-Zinn, which is definition of mindfulness. So what is pay attention? He usually says on purpose. So, okay, it's like active paying attention. You know, you really bring your attention to something. Could be your breath. Could be sounds or it could be your thoughts or whatever. In the present moment, the breath is happening now without judging. This is critical. Whatever it is, you don't evaluate it. It's like whatever happens, you're not going to judge. You're open to it. You talk about this like open-hearted awareness. It's like you invited in like with hospitality, you know, bring out the welcome matters. Another phrase John Kabat-Zinn loves. And there's a final part, but this one is kind of depends. If you're like just sitting in a yoga cushion doesn't often apply, it can apply. You also take decisions when you're sitting. But mindfulness, of course, is also applied outside of the meditation cushion. So, you know, when you're washing the dishes, you just wash the dishes. You know, when you're walking, you're just walking. When you're eating, you're just eating. When you're conversing with someone, you're having a conversation, you're having a dialogue, you're there. You know, and there you're taking many, many decisions, which flow from all the rest, right? So, you know, this is exactly the same as we saw before. This is just amazing. I've been meditating for many years and this is kind of started coming to me slowly. You know, it took a while for this to click. I've been improvising and meditating at the same time. But, you know, I realized there was a connection, but it's kind of growing on me how close they actually are. And I didn't make this up, of course, because a lot of you are doing this already. I saw somebody slide before they were talking about, you know, being mindful and so on. So, but I don't know if you know this. The Tree of Contemplative Practices. I love this. Somebody came up with this. It's online. You can use this. In fact, they have a blank when you can add your own stuff as well. And they've got, you know, the movement ones, like yoga, dance, labyrinth walking, then you've got, you know, meditation, the stillness. And as you can see in the creative, whoops, I don't know what happened there. Oh, I went back, that's it. We've got improvisation right there, right? So, you're doing contemplative practice, even if you didn't meditate this morning. All right, big round of applause. Well, well, following Santa Teresa. So, you couldn't make a case to say that all improv is meditation. I didn't say this. This was David Drozalski, who said this, and he talks about improv as Buddhist theater. That's the expression he uses. He says, improv is Buddhist theater. You've got getting rid of the self, you know, you're letting, you know, allowing all this stuff to just happen without yourself in the way always, you know, with a crazy woman house. And so, I'm having a Kenny Werner, he's a jazz pianist, improviser, and also a great teacher, great master. And he's written this book called Effortless Mastery. And there's also a movie you can check out. And he starts off this, the teaching of the piano. He had lots of problems to learn. He hated piano classes. And so, he says, you start with one note, you know, and you play that one note until you're really playing the note. So, you're really there, you know, really present, and that could take hours. It's good they're weeks just to play that one note. But when you really know that you're playing that note, then you can start playing another note. With the same kind of being in the moment. That's Kenny Werner, he checked it, came out. I also saw this wonderful concept of Zemproff. Marshall Stern, Nancy Helen Walker, came up with this idea, and they've done a whole course at Second City. There's a podcast you can listen to in lots of episodes. And then there's all of you, or many of you, many of you, as I was saying. And many of you are already doing this, right? So, I mean, really happy to talk about this later. I'm sure you have many, many interesting things that we can talk about. And yeah, it would be wonderful to know. I'm sure I'm going to come across this also in the workshops. So, there's one question that some people might think is, okay, if I'm already improvising, why should I meditate? You know? Because basically, I'm here just to tell you to meditate. So, why should I meditate? I'm already on the tree of contemplative practices. I'm already doing improv. So, what's the point of you meditating? Well, you know, maybe, you know, who might have told you to meditate, really? I mean, of course. Maybe you're right. And that's your way. And that's all you need. You know, maybe that's fine. But from my experience, in fact, it really helps to, like, round out your practice. And I'll give you some reasons why. First, it allows you to train every day. And really, any time you want. You know? You don't have to be with your improv buddies. You don't have to come to the AIN, which is wonderful. But you're not able to do it all the time. And of course, now, whether you're COVID or isolated, how do you have that? How do you train this ability? Right? How do you do this? This playfulness. And so, it's a wonderful way of sharpening your listening skills. Of strengthening your presence. Of opening your heart. You know, becoming more compassionate towards yourself and to the other person who always gives you the wrong, you know, idea. And going with the flow. You know? Oosh. Getting it back. Going with the flow. And so, you could practice this really whenever you want. And so, really, you could play all the time. When I say play, it's like, this might sound a bit weird, but your life can really become a kind of adventure when you start playing mindfulness. And, yeah. It's like, even washing the dishes, which is something I hate, by the way. As soon as I start, I'm facing all the mountains of dishes and the dirt and the grime and all that kind of stuff. Ah, I get this horrible, I don't know. It's just, it's a particular thing of mine. But if you really, then just go in to say, okay, I've got my mad woman of the house is saying this is horrible, but then you really go in there and start to listen to the sound of that tinkling water and you start moving on the place. Just this plate is one plate. It's not washing the dishes, it's just this plate. And you're really there. And suddenly, and you're flowing with it, and it becomes a completely different experience or it can become. Right? So, this is really amazing aspect of this. And so, it's kind of a way of breaking down the barrier between your improv practice and the rest of your life. Anyway, this is another option. Then, of course, there's befriending stage fright, which, you know, you all have what we all have. I think, I've said some people don't. There's some people who really are born with that, I think. But if you do have stage fright, I think it's a wonderful way of, yeah, it's befriending. It's not so much getting rid of it, which is what we want. Like this morning when I was coming here just before I came in, I really wanted to get rid of my stage fright. But I can't, because that's the mad woman of the house. She's there. And she's like, you know, really taking over. You know, it's then happening inside. And so, it's kind of coming to a different relationship with your stage fright. It's there. It's there. And be friendly. It's like a different way. And then you tell me, you know, as I said, many of you probably know more about this than me. And some of you, maybe we'll see this talk, and maybe we'll start meditating. Ten years from now, hey, Ed, Eduardo, how to pee? Yeah, Eduardo, how to pee. Hey, that thing, you know, start meditating and have this great insight. I want to want to share this with you. I'd love to hear from you. So, some people will tell me, though, but Eduardo, but Eduardo, how to pee? I'm a lousy, really, really lousy meditator. Right? I've tried, I've tried, I've tried, but my, it's just as soon as I sit down, it's like my brain goes into this spin, crazy spin cycle. And it always starts going in emotions and things. And I can't sit still, my body's like moving, can't stop. And, you know, I feel your pain. I feel your pain because, in fact, what I want to, what I want to really, the biggest message I want to say today is that I'm also a really lousy meditator. I'm a really lousy meditator. I came, I sat this morning, I did my meditation. I was distracted all the time because, of course, I was thinking about discomfort I was going to get. I was rehearsing, I was rehearsing all these lines, I was thinking right now. Yeah, in fact, I've written a book. This is my new book that's coming up. My new book, it's coming out in September, here in Spain. And it's called Meditat Simitata, which means, I'm a really lousy meditator. Okay? I think this is a really important message that I haven't seen on any title in any book, and it's crucial because people get into meditation and they sit down and they see the spinning, the crazy spin cycle and then they leave because they think, I can't, but this is for me, right? And this happens to me, it happens to, you know, I'm a meditation teacher. This is very embarrassing to confess. I mean, I understand why most meditation teachers don't put it up on their websites. They just put it, it's like huge, you know, a huge tie-line, lousy meditator. But it is an important message because the mindfulness teachers that I know, the people I was training with here in Avila, they all have the same problems that I have. They sit down and they're the crazy women in the house, take so every time, every time, a hundred times during a single meditation. And so just so you know, meditation is not about being perfectly still and calm or perfect and everything that you know. It's about training, just like when you're in provides and you know how hard it is, is exactly the same. Sit down and you mind goes off someplace and just go back to breathing or whatever it is, back once and again and again and again and that's the training. It's a bit like surfing. Okay, anybody here surf? Yeah. Okay, so surfers know and people have watched surfing. I've also seen it. The surfers spend 95% of the time in the water. They're not on the, you know, the photographs, the Instagram, all that stuff. That's all, you know, oh yeah, a little on the wave and so on. 95% of the time in the water. Okay, waiting for the wave, getting up on the way, falling off and then wiping out, etc. Meditation is the same. You sit down, you fall off, fall off, fall off, fall off and you just get back up and every time you get back up, get back up, you are strengthening that attention muscle and that compassion muscle and all that stuff. Just like when you improvise. So I thought we'd do a little, are we doing for time? Horribly, but let's do a little mystical experience. Okay, so for those who meditate this morning, it's just like a little booster. Okay, for those who have never meditated, it could be a kind of just an interesting experience, a new thing. Let's see what happens. So I'm going to invite you to just again sit on the front of your seat. Okay, kind of keeping your whole back, maintaining your own back. Okay, this kind of noble posture. And again, your hands just lying on your lap, facing up or facing down. You can close your eyes or leave them half open or just kind of unfocused. And just for a few moments, just noticing what's going on right now. In terms of bodily sensations, maybe you can feel the temperature, the air on your skin. So different sensations of temperature in the parts of your body that are covered by clothing. You might notice also the sensations of your clothing, the touch of your clothing. You can hear the sound, the air con in the room. You probably also hear the mad woman in the house whispering to you, or shouting to you. You could hear my voice. And other things that are going on, maybe there's some emotional color, flavor in there. So it's just being aware of it. No need to judge the experience. No need to evaluate what's going on. It's just noticing. It's all it is, just noticing. And I'd like you to focus your attention a bit more and bring it to your breathing. Wherever it is that you feel your breathing right now, where you can feel it most clearly. Maybe it's in your belly, maybe it's in your nostrils, whatever it is that you can feel it very, very clearly. And if you don't like watching your breathing for whatever reason, there's another option as you just notice the sensations in your body. You continue with just the bodily sensations, or you can go somewhere more specific like sensations in your hands. And I'm going to call this that anchor of your attention. So we're going to go back to this anchor again and again, whether it's your breathing or some part of your body. And so you bring all of your attention to those sensations, the physical sensations in that part of your body. Whatever they are, if you're observing your breathing, you don't need to control your breathing. You breathe any which way, no need to evaluate or judge your breathing. Just trying to observe it with curiosity as if you never, never watched your breathing before. Really you haven't, because you haven't watched this of inhaling, of exhaling, whatever it is. And of course there are other phenomena. There's other things going on, you know, like the sound of the air con, my boys, there's other stuff going on. But the idea is to just try to focus the main, yeah the main focus of your attention on your energy. Everything else, you need to reject it or throw it out. It's there, you can allow it to be there. But the main focus is on your energy. Maybe at some point your attention becomes distracted, you notice you're somewhere else. Maybe, you know, the mad woman in the house is saying, but is there more of this? Or, you know, you become distracted by some physical sensation or sound. And if that happens, that's fine, that's normal. That's just the nature of your mind. That's just the way it works. It's looking for something more interesting. Think about the workshops coming up or, you know, thinking about what I was just saying five minutes ago. And when you notice that it's gone somewhere else, you just gently bring it back to your anchor. In fact, that's why we call it the anchor. And it's nice, we love the metaphor, because it's like, you know, it allows an anchor, allows the boat to go a little bit far away, to move away, but just a little bit. And as soon as you notice you come back again and again, it's like it's heathered there. It's an aid focusing your attention. Every time you're distracted, you come back. And there's no need to get frustrated. It's a bit like a puppy that runs off after a squirrel, that's its nature. And every time it runs off, hey, come back here little one. You can just pat it on the head and bring it back to your anchor. No need to get angry at the puppy. No point, actually. That's the puppy's nature. Being present and being open to whatever arises in your breathing or that part of your body that you're observing. Okay. And I'm going to ask you to bring your attention back to your body, noticing, remembering where you are. You can breathe a little bit more deeply now, a couple of times. And then mindfully start moving your fingers and your toes and you can stretch a little bit. Yeah, just a nice stretch. Whatever your body needs at this moment. You can open your eyes, come back, come front. Okay. So that was just a little mindfulness experience, a little mystical experience. Maybe not so mystical, you think, but really that's what something that is always doing. No matter what in the house you're taking over all the time, you may have noticed how many people got distracted. Okay, good. You're human beings. That's the way it is. So yeah, that's a little experience and to end by reflecting a bit on the term Buddha. Everybody knows who the Buddha was or has heard the word, has heard the name. But very few people know what Buddha actually means. I only discovered this recently and I was amazed by this. I thought I was a cultured person. I thought I knew basic things like that, that kind of stuff. Tricky or pursuit. What does Buddha mean? So it wasn't the guy's name, right? This was Siddhartha Gautama was the historical Buddha, they say, according to the legend. This was a prince who went off. He was obsessed with this idea of suffering, illness and death. He thought, I really want to escape from this suffering. How can I escape from suffering? Right? What a crazy idea. He really wanted to find a way. He was sure they had to be away. So he went off and he studied with various people and they thought he was a really good student. He followed all these meditation techniques and he came out and became really good at them, really adept. But he still wasn't able to get rid of his suffering. So eventually he said, okay, do or die. I'm going to sit under a tree and I'm not going to leave until I'm enlightened, until I'm free from suffering. So he sat under this tree, they say, for 49 days. Didn't move, just sat there meditating trying to figure it out. And eventually, supposedly, supposedly, you know, he was enlightened at the end of it. Right? So, hey, happy end of the story. And he goes off and teaches people until today. And so, yeah, people teaching people, teaching people and tell me. And, you know, going to the university and here I am. And so, this man, this man started wandering around teaching people. And one day there was this like Sadhu, it was like Indian ascetic who saw him and noticed something special in this guy. And he said, wow, there's something about it. And he just went up to him and asked him. And he just, excuse me, sir, but are you a god? That was his first question. Are you a god? The question that asked me straight off the bat, just like that, yeah? Are you a god? And the Buddha answered, yeah. And so, then he asked, you know, so are you an angel? Are you a spirit? Are you a demon? He tried various things. In other words, I'm none of those things. And so he asked, so what are you? And he answered, I, it's so simple. I am awake. That's all he was claiming to be. Just awake, you know? Not so sleepy as I used to be. I've woken up, right? So, and this is interesting because most people when they think of meditation, oh yeah, so this is, that's what it means. Buddha means one who is awake. That's it, okay? Meaning a Buddha. Now, you know, you can tribute the suit. So, it's interesting because most people when they think of meditation, they actually think it's a little bit close to sleeping. We were just doing it now. Maybe some people dozing out, especially the ones that went out last night, right? So, you're just sitting there. You, you know, you close all your senses, right? You close your eyes. You're kind of completely still. You're getting relaxed. It seems that, in fact, a lot of people meditate lying down. So, it's very similar. It's probably the most similar thing you can imagine to actually preparing for sleep, right? And a lot of people do it to get more relaxed, like mindfulness-based stress reduction. Oh, I want to reduce my stress. I want to get more relaxed, right? So, yeah, fine. Right? So, that's what you're thinking. And so, this interesting research a few years ago, Richard Davis around the early 2000s, Richard, Richard Davis in the University of Madison, Wisconsin, he brought these Tibetan really like accomplished meditating and people who have done like three, minimum three year meditation retreat, silent retreat, at least one of those. So, people have been a lot, a lot of hours of meditation and he brought them into the lab because he wanted to see what are their brains like. You know, they've been doing all this stuff. He's been doing a lot of meditation himself. He didn't tell any of his neuroscientist friends. He was a closet meditator for a few years. He was. He was. That's exactly how he describes it. He uses those terms. Because it was such a taboo subject. It was so kooky to study meditation. So, finally, he started doing, this was his first piece of research and he brought this first monk in. This is a French monk. He's called Mathieu Ricard, French monk. He was a scientist. He went to Tibet and studied the Buddhist way. And so, they asked him to meditate and the craziest thing happened. The craziest thing that this neuroscientist could not believe what they were seeing. They thought that the instruments have malfunctioned. But before I can tell you what it is, I have to tell you a little bit about brainwaves. So, there's basically four kind of waves that people talk about usually. Delta waves, which is when you're asleep. They're the slowest waves. Theta waves, when you're a little bit sleepy, you're about to fall asleep or you're just woken up, right? Then there's alpha waves when you're awake and relaxed, how you usually want to be, right? Just awake, nicely relaxed, you just bet you're awake. And then there's beta waves, which is when you're concentrated. Hopefully some of you are still concentrated at this point in the talk and are experiencing beta waves. Those are the four basic waves. But there's also gamma waves. Gamma waves are the fastest waves. They're really, really fast. But they don't happen very often. They usually appear in those moments of like, yeah, what a great... Yeah, those moments where you come up with a brilliant idea. Moments, those aha moments. That's moment of creativity, the light bulb popping off. So it's this kind of like pow moment, boom. And it lasts for a very short time. It's like less than a second usually for most people. So over the course of the day you might have a few of these or none. But it happens every once in a while. And so what happened with materiality, this is really what blew these neuroscience's minds was as soon as he started meditating, Bush gamma waves. And it just lasted for the entire meditation, which lasted, I don't know if it was half an hour or an hour or whatever it was, but it lasted even five seconds, they would be impressed. A minute they would be just flabbergasted. This went on for minutes, minutes, minutes, minutes, minutes. It just went on and on as long as he meditated. When he finished meditating, Bush went back down again. They could not believe this. And it wasn't just him. It was all of these experienced Tibetan Buddhists who came in. It's just absolutely crazy. Just from the first article that came out with this guy, with Madhya Rikad, this was like from page news and newspapers. He was on the cover of magazines, who's he's been on GQ, this guy, he was dubbed the world's happiest man because it was also another part of his brain that has to do with positive emotions that lit up. And so that was the part that people didn't care about the gamma waves. They just were interested in the happiness. So everybody wants to say happiness. So the world's happiest man. And he always says I'm not. I know other monks were much happier than I am. He always says he's not. And so he had used gamma waves on all the time. But the really amazing thing was what the scientists discovered a couple of months later. A couple of months later. They looked at the data they uncovered and they discovered that it wasn't just when he was meditating that he had gamma waves. Even before he started, he was already on gamma. It's just that there was a boost, more gamma, but he was already on gamma. So these monks, this is crazy, this is crazy. But these monks are on gamma all the time, a hundred percent of the time. And here's the really crazy part, even when they're sleeping. Wow. Yes, they're on gamma when they're sleeping. And it's crazy because the Tibetans, they actually have practices they do while they're sleeping in their dream. They have to do all this dream work. So now it kind of makes sense. So Awakening is not just a metaphor. This is a title of a scientific paper. If most of us, you know, we think we're awake because we're in alpha, beta with respect to delta, theta, then if you're on gamma, how much more awake are you? We don't know. We don't really know what's going on inside their heads. We just have this data, which doesn't really, you know, we don't really know what's happening, but it's incredible. So anyway, yeah. And if you think about it, these people who do this, you know, if you look at them, if you listen to them, if you see how they can interact with people, they are so awake. And being awake is also being playful. They're like awake and alive, just like I think improvisers are. I think there's a real, you know, the Dalai Lama would not be out of place here. We could bring them into these workshops. It'd be so much fun with a Dalai Lama. Can you imagine how much fun it would be with a Dalai Lama? The ultimate. Yeah, gamma all the time. And all these other people who came, they're all, I've met some of them. I once used the brief version because we're really not running out of time. Got to last time. You got to, I know, I'm going really the way overboard. Sorry. Just a shortened version because I once met the Dalai Lama and I asked him, I popped him the question. I asked him, what is the relation? What do you think is the relationship between humor and playfulness and laughter and spiritual practice? Yeah, the stuff that you do. And, you know, I asked him the question with like a middle of the, with the end of this talk and people all around. And, and he, he became very serious and very silent. He grabbed my hand and we're just there for like a minute or two in the presence of the Dalai Lama for a really long time. And it was like, you know, and he was like massaging my fingers too. It was a little bit like being massaged by Yoda or something. And you really like nice and mushy fingers. And he was like going like this. And so he's just reflecting for a while. And at the end he says, so I think that with the spiritual practice, you develop a great inner force. From this great inner force, come a great peace. And from this peace, I think quite naturally, come the humor and the laughter. And he slapped my face a couple of times and went out for this Tibetan bodyguards. You know, I just sat there and I have to say, later when I reflected being a humor theorist, I was a little bit disappointed. I thought he was going to give me something like deeper. But with time, I've come to understand that she really went for the uvala of the thing. That was it. It's like you develop these abilities, these skills, these things you train. You can do them on the cushion. You can do them improvising. You develop these abilities. And from there, spontaneously comes the playfulness. You're not playing all the time, but you're just flexible to whatever it is. That's just incredible. And now scientists have figured out that this really is, that's doing something. It actually makes a huge difference. So anyway, this is, thank you very much. This was the end. This is my revolution. Viva la revolución. Thank you very much.