| | Short version: come beta test this super cool app for social noting and help us build community around it. (Sorry, Android users, it's only iOS for now.)
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id897707690?mt=8
Instructions: download the free app from the link above or search for Buddha Pong in the app store. Buddha Pong works on iPhone or iPad, but for the App Store search, be sure to search for "iPhone apps only." This happens by default on your iPhone, but your iPad will search for iPad apps and give you a blank search result until you change it to "search for iPhone apps" in the upper left of your screen.
Once you have it up and running and have signed in with Facebook, hit the "Connect" button on the Connect tab. This will send a push notification to anyone who has enabled "I'm available" on their Me tab.
When someone else shows up, you'll hear a chime. Begin noting immediately. No chit-chat or nervous giggling necessary. Most people who are using the app at this stage already know the ping pong noting technique. If you don't know how to do it, tap the word "LEARN" in the middle of the connect screen.
Have fun!
Post your questions and suggestions on this thread. Very excited to hear from you. For a more detailed understanding of the evolution of the technique and the Buddha Pong app, please read on...
The setup: what is ping pong noting and why is it important?
A few years ago while teaching Mahasi-style mental noting vipassana during a Skype session, I had an epiphany. For some years, I had been in the habit of asking a student to note aloud for a few minutes during a coaching session so I could hear exactly what they were noting and offer suggestions in real time. I would also demonstrate the technique for students by noting aloud in a continuous, real time stream of my own experience, noting once every couple of seconds. On this particular day in '07 or '08, it occured to me that we could this one step further; I suggested to the student, "You do one, I'll do one. Ping pong style."
So we did. It was easy. I monitored my experience in real time, and reported with a one-word label. "Itching," I said.
"Hearing," said the student.
"Interest," I said.
"Curiosity," she replied. We bounced this back and forth, about one note every two or three seconds.
Ping pong noting was a hit. I started teaching it to all my students. They loved it and so did I. To get a real time window into the experience of another human is a precious gift because
1) It normalizes human behavior. (To hear someone else report fear, shame, self-loathing, envy, guilt, or anxiety, is such a relief. "Oh, you mean I'm not the only one? Phew!")
2) It gives the noter an outlet for feelings that might otherwise go unexpressed forever, all in real time.
3) It's the most powerful tool I've ever encountered for teaching the Mahasi noting technique of vipassana meditation, as it allows the teacher to hear the student's technique as it's happening and offer immediate feedback on how to improve the technique. Compare this to the less efficient but more commonly used method of asking a student to report what happened during his or her last meditation session and asking whether he or she remembered to note it.
4) The feedback loop is very tight. Both meditators stay on task because the act of verbalizing what you are noticing as you are noticing it proves that you are doing it. The ping pong-style interaction makes it impossible to drift very far or for very long; you are accountable to the other person to say something within two or three seconds in order to pass the baton back to them. Compare this to silent noting, where it's easy to forget to note for long periods of time, often resulting in daydreaming or the dreaded "pleasant hypnogogic state" (aka dull, drifty dozing) that my teacher used to warn about.
5) It builds community. It's really sweet to hear the voices of your friends, loved ones, and community members. Humans are said to be the most social of animals on Earth (other than insects); we need to be with each other and we get emotionally and physically sick without lots of human interaction. Solo mediation, while well known to be valuable in so many ways, can be socially isolating. I know this first hand, having spent many years in self-imposed exile while meditating. Social meditation is a natural antidote to meditation-induced loneliness.
6) It's a way to be safe and intimate at the same time. You share your most intimate experience, one word at at time, but you don't have to share anything you don't want to share.
7) Ping pong noting provides a container that allows you to stay in touch with people you care about but wouldn't otherwise talk to regularly because of time constraints. I have a dear friend in L.A. who I've been meaning to catch up with. But I know catching up will take a couple of hours. I never seem to have so much time in a chunk. So I postpone the call. For years. The more I kick the can down the road, the less likely I am to call, because the volume of stuff we have to catch up on keeps growing. Sad, but true. But if we agree in advance on a ten-minute social noting session on a countdown timer, I can hear her voice, connect with her emotionally, and not feel any obligation to go beyond ten minutes. I don't get to hear the content of her thoughts, but sometimes that's OK, and it's more about the sharing and intimate connection without all the content. Super cool!
8) Last on this list, but most important of all from a Buddhist perspective, is that social noting is an extremely efficient way to practice Mahasi noting. Solo Mahasi noting, as originally taught in Burma beginning in the 1950s and now all over the world, is a powerful way to objectify experience. (To objectify something is to take it as the object of attention.) Anything taken as object is intuitively understood to be "not me" or "not I." This seems to be an observable law of human experience; I can never be what I am looking at, because if there is an "I", it must always the be one who is looking. And since everything in experience can be objectified, it turns out that this "I" can never be found. Seeing this again and again and letting the implications of this unfindable "I" sink in over a lifetime, are the very essence of the understandings targeted by Buddism. Objectification of experience leads to Buddhist awakening and Mahasi noting is a great leap forward in the technology of objectification compared to silent meditation without noting, which does not come with a built-in feedback loop.
In my observation, social noting is Mahasi noting turbo-charged. Speaking the note aloud ensures that you are objectifying your experience one phenomenon at a time, and being accountable to another human being keeps you on task throughout the entire session. Ten minutes of ping pong noting is ten minutes of nearly 100% efficient noting. Compare this to silent noting, where it is not unusual for an hourlong session to have so many periods of drifting and wool-gathering that you might be lucky to get five or ten minutes of clear noting during the entire hour.
Buddha Pong, the app
So, social noting is da bomb, but there haven't been many opportunities to do it. No way to find other people who want to do it, and no structured way to make the connection. Until now! I've spent about three years working with some really smart and creative folks to research, design, and build a mobile app that finds someone around the world who wants to note with you. Then it facilitates the audio connection and gives you a container for the session, automatically starting a ten-minute countdown timer. When the timer hits zero, it automatically ends the connection. You can do as many for as few ten minute sessions as you want to, but there is no expectation to do more than one, and no way to do a session longer than ten minutes.
Scroll back up to the top of this page for the link to the mobile app (sorry, iOS only), and brief instructions.
Can't wait to note with you on Buddha Pong! We (the team of developers, designers, advisors, and funders who all worked very hard together to build the Buddha Pong app) are committed to improving the experience and building a community of people who want to note together, so please post your questions, comments, testimonials, and suggestions on this thread.
On a personal note, I love this app. I use it almost every day, often multiple times a day. I would use it even more often if I could. This post is one of the first public announcements of the launch. So far there aren't enough people using Buddha Pong for me to find a partner every time I open it. I'm hoping to eventually have enough users for critical mass, so there will be someone on the other end for everyone to note with a partner any time of the day or night, covering all the time zones. Super excited about that. We already have regular users in Australia, Italy, Canada, England, and the US, and occasional users from many other countries around the world. More coming every day.
Buddha Pong is still in beta testing mode, so please forgive us as we work out the bugs. It works pretty well, but there are still crashes and glitches from time to time, and it will take us some time to track them all down and fix them.
Tips and Tricks:
Be bold. Tap the Connect button to invite others to note with you. This will send out a push notification to a bunch of people. Don't just lurk and hope something will happen; no one will know you are there unless you tap the Connect button. It's especially important in these early stages that you take the initiative to hook up with people rather than just lurking. Once you have a couple of sessions under your belt, you'll see how easy and non-threatening it is and your confidence will grow.
Be patient once you tap the Connect button. It takes a half-minute or so to hook people up, so don't back out too soon thinking the connection has failed. If you do, you and your potential partner will just end up chasing each other around the app without every hooking up.
Be available. Go to your Me tab and make sure your "Available" button is toggled on. Otherwise, you won't get the push notifications when other people want to note, and you won't hook up with anyone. Later, when we have critical mass, this won't matter so much because there will always be someone somewhere in the world who wants to note. For now, we keep the network alive with push notifications.
Ask for help. If you hook up with me, Scott, Abre, or Vincent, you can ask for help at the beginning of the session. Just say "I'm new, can you please teach me the technique?" We'll be happy to get you up to speed. You'll be surprised at how easy it is to learn and how powerful it is for both beginners and advanced meditators. |