Anyone interested in doing social (ping pong) noting?

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Simon T, modified 6 Years ago at 6/17/18 11:00 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/17/18 11:00 PM

Anyone interested in doing social (ping pong) noting?

Posts: 383 Join Date: 9/13/11 Recent Posts
I'm looking for pals interested in doing social noting. You can e-mail me at "simontanguayemoticonhotmail.com", as I don't check this forum so often.  For those who don't know what it is, it is a form of Mahasi noting practice that is done with a parter. This was imagined a while ago by Kenneth Folk:

http://kennethfolkdharma.com/2018/03/the-pop-noting-protocol/
In a world where everyone is connected, there isn’t enough connection. You can ride your Facebook feed all day long and still go to bed feeling lonely and isolated. Even in-the-flesh face time with friends and family can leave us wanting, each of us caught up in our own internal drama, talking at each other about our stories, never truly sharing our experience or feeling completely understood. We need a way to feel more connected.Social noting offers a window into another human’s moment-by-moment experience, sharing and receiving in a profoundly intimate but non-threatening way. Social noting builds on an ancient Buddhist mindfulness (satipatthana) technique, making it interactive. Two (or more) people can call out their experience together, back and forth, ping pong style (or around a circle), using simple, one-word labels for experience as it arises. “Seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, thinking, fear, joy, loneliness, love, anger, connection, itching, tingling, burning, pressure, lightness, heaviness, anxiety, hope”… all of these experiences can be shared with another human being as they occur, two people becoming one, simultaneously witnessing and normalizing each others’ experience. Social noting is the closest thing we have to Mr. Spock’s Vulcan mind meld from the original Star Trek television show. But social noting doesn’t feel kooky or even invasive; it just feels great.The Pop-noting ProtocolThe pop-noting protocol is a way to make social noting between two people seamless. “Pop”-noting refers to the way you pop in and out of the session, giving it a clear beginning and ending. It goes like this:1)  Two people agree to spend a specific amount of time noting together, back and forth, ping pong style. This initial arrangement can be made by text chat. The time period can be whatever both people agree upon. Twenty minutes is a good number, but it could be ten or even five minutes.2) The noting itself takes place by voice, either on the telephone, Skype, or some other voice chat platform. Video is optional, but not necessary. It is understood that this call is exclusively for the purpose of noting together; there will be no ordinary conversation, and when the agreed-upon time has ended, both people will say goodbye and hang up. This agreement to just note, without chitchat, and to promptly end the call when the timer ends, is what makes the pop-noting protocol work. If the call is open-ended, it may never happen. In other words, if I ask you for a telephone call but don’t specify a purpose or put a time limit on it, you may not be willing or able to take my call. You know that we will start talking, get carried away, and spend an hour together. But you don’t have an hour. You have a life, a job, a career, a family. So, you postpone the call. This is why for pop-noting to succeed it’s essential to agree upon a time limit, set a timer, and stick to it, ending the call promptly when the timer goes off. In this way, there will be many more opportunities for connection than there would be without such a disciplined structure. Nothing is lost here, we can always chitchat another time; remember, this is a connection we were not going to make otherwise.My challenge to the pragmatic dharma community: I’d like to see some kind of realtime clearing house that each of us could could monitor to find partners for ad hoc pop-noting sessions. It might be a message board, a dedicated feed on a social site, or one of the new social apps. I can also imagine a way for people to post recordings of their sessions so newbies could more easily learn the techniques.For several years, I’ve fantasized about some way to coordinate noting sessions with people from our community on a moment’s notice. This is something I would personally take advantage of because the deep human connection of social noting helps to keep me sane. I also think the benefit to individuals and society at large could be enormous if more people knew the social noting technique and could find noting partners in realtime.


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Simon T, modified 6 Years ago at 7/10/18 10:38 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 7/10/18 10:38 AM

RE: Anyone interested in doing social (ping pong) noting?

Posts: 383 Join Date: 9/13/11 Recent Posts
Bump in case there is interest. 
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Dada Kind, modified 6 Years ago at 7/10/18 1:36 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 7/10/18 1:36 PM

RE: Anyone interested in doing social (ping pong) noting?

Posts: 633 Join Date: 11/15/13 Recent Posts
Hey, do you have some kind of link to a theory about why this might be a useful thing to do? It's not clear to me from that article (or totally clear from my intuition). Maybe with this knowledge someone might be interested
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Simon T, modified 6 Years ago at 7/10/18 2:47 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 7/10/18 2:47 PM

RE: Anyone interested in doing social (ping pong) noting?

Posts: 383 Join Date: 9/13/11 Recent Posts
Best way to know is to try it for yourself. You can contact me if you want to give it a go. There is an added dimension when we are noting with someone. There is a social interaction, all sort of emotions you wouldn't get alone. For me, it's both fun and effective. We used to have an iPhone app, Buddha Pong, that Kenneth had imagined. The cost of maintenance where too much so it was pulled.
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Dada Kind, modified 6 Years ago at 7/10/18 3:53 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 7/10/18 3:53 PM

RE: Anyone interested in doing social (ping pong) noting?

Posts: 633 Join Date: 11/15/13 Recent Posts
Sorry I prefer informed consent emoticon

Yeah, what you said makes sense with my intuition about it. I just wanted to express that more people might be interested if they understood the motivation. Some people are probably reading thinking, "wtf why would I do that"
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Chris M, modified 6 Years ago at 7/10/18 4:07 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 7/10/18 4:04 PM

RE: Anyone interested in doing social (ping pong) noting?

Posts: 5488 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
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Ben V, modified 6 Years ago at 7/10/18 6:51 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 7/10/18 6:51 PM

RE: Anyone interested in doing social (ping pong) noting?

Posts: 420 Join Date: 3/3/15 Recent Posts
From personal experience having done it many many times I can say it is very effective to develop continuity of mindfulness. In fact the first time I tried it I was impressed with the level of concentration it quickly brought me to. I think the reason it works is because when you hear the other person note, you have to note something and therefore have no time to mind-wander too much.
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Simon T, modified 6 Years ago at 7/11/18 6:18 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 7/11/18 6:18 AM

RE: Anyone interested in doing social (ping pong) noting?

Posts: 383 Join Date: 9/13/11 Recent Posts
Do you still practice it? Any interest in doing it again?
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Ben V, modified 6 Years ago at 7/11/18 7:05 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 7/11/18 7:05 AM

RE: Anyone interested in doing social (ping pong) noting?

Posts: 420 Join Date: 3/3/15 Recent Posts
I have a partner I had been doing it every Thursday for a couple of years but he's been unavailable for months now. Sometimes I do it with my 8-year old daughter. In any case, sure we can do it. I usually do it on skype. I have lots of availabilities this afternoon and tomorrow, actually. You can PM me. 
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Simon T, modified 6 Years ago at 7/11/18 11:02 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 7/11/18 11:02 AM

RE: Anyone interested in doing social (ping pong) noting?

Posts: 383 Join Date: 9/13/11 Recent Posts
PM message don't work for me. Send me an e-mail at simontanguay at hotmail.com. We will take it from there. 

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