Playfulness In Life & In Practice (Talk + Meditation)

So for today I would like to talk about playfulness and it is said to be one of the foundational attitudes of mindfulness practice.

So first I would like to take the perspective of play,

Kind of the science of play,

What it is.

And then talk a bit about what does a playful life look like.

And then I would like to give some ideas to you for what a playful mindfulness practice could look like.

Meaning how would we bring together playfulness and mindfulness,

Where do they intersect and why is this one of the foundational attitudes of this practice.

So I recently read this wonderful book called Play by Stuart Brown who is a psychologist who has spent most of his time,

Career I think,

Researching about play.

So the book is about how it shapes the brain,

How it opens the imagination and invigorates the soul,

That's the subtitle of his book.

And Brown says he actually hesitates to define play in a very strict manner because it can look very different from one person to another person.

One person might find it really playful to edit videos and another person might find it dreadful or one person might find it playful to cultivate a garden and it might be extremely boring for another person.

So actually Stuart Brown encourages us to look at our own play history and what play means for us and that's going to be a bit of what we do together today.

And he shares that actually play is a very primal activity,

It's preconscious and preverbal,

So it arises out of ancient biological structures that existed before our consciousness and before our ability to speak.

And later on I'm going to share a little bit about what play looks like in the animal kingdom which is going to give more on this insight.

But it's not this conscious decision that I'm going to play,

It's more something that happens spontaneously.

And he actually makes the point in the book that analyzing play too much takes the fun out of it,

So hopefully we will not be doing that today.

Because we don't want to take this organic experience and turn it into something super intellectual,

That's not the intention.

What I found really helpful and I think it's going to help us investigate together is he defines the properties of play.

So the first property of play is that it's purposeless,

So we do it for its own sake.

Meaning,

Playing does not have any survival value,

It doesn't help us in getting money or food,

That's actually why some people think it's a waste of time.

The second property of play is that it is voluntary,

We are not forced by duty to do it,

It's not obligatory,

We choose,

We just want to do it.

The third property of play is that it has an inherent attraction,

Meaning basically it's fun,

It feels good,

And there is psychological arousal,

There's pleasure,

So when we play it's a cure for boredom.

The fourth one is that it gives us a freedom from time,

So we lose a sense of the passage of time.

The fifth property is that we experience a diminished consciousness of self when we play,

We stop worrying about how we look,

Whether we look smart or stupid,

Or we just stop thinking about the fact that we are thinking,

We're fully in the moment,

In the zone,

And this is what psychologist Michael Sixt and Mihaly calls flow.

The sixth one is improvisational potential,

So in this way when we play we're not locked into a rigid way of doing things,

We are open to serendipity and chance,

We are willing to just let things flow,

And seemingly irrelevant elements can come into the play and bring new thoughts or sensations or insights.

And the seventh property and the last one is a continuation desire,

Meaning basically we want to keep playing,

We have a desire to keep playing because of its pleasure,

And if something threatens to stop the fun,

Stop the play,

We try to find new rules or structures that can help us keep playing.

So that's one large definition of play by looking at the different properties of it,

It's purposeless,

It's voluntary,

It has inherent attraction,

Gives us freedom from time,

Gives us diminished consciousness of self,

Has improvisational potential,

And there is a desire to continue.

Another historian of play,

Scott Albert Lee,

Thinks that when we play we actually go through a six-step process,

Which is just another angle of looking at it that I want to bring because it might be insightful.

Albert Lee thinks that when we play there's an anticipation of what will happen,

We get curious,

There might even be a little bit of anxiety.

Then there's surprise,

We have a discovery,

A new sensation,

Something shifts.

From that we have pleasure because that feels good,

It has a good feeling,

Like an unexpected twist.

Then we have some understanding,

We gain new knowledge or we synthesize two distinct things together,

Which actually brings strength because we master an experience or we go through something scary and come toward the other side of it,

We understand how the world works.

Which gives us poise because when we have a deeper understanding and when we get stronger we can be more graceful and content and happy and feel balanced in life.

So he thinks that these steps are kind of a wheel but we don't have to go through all six steps or we don't even have to go through them in this order.

It's also interesting what I learned from the book is that play is pervasive in the animal kingdom.

It used to be taught that only mammals play but scientists have changed their mind on this and have found that birds play,

Reptiles play.

One example is octopuses which are really ancient in terms of their biological existence or the evolutionary ladder.

They have developed along an ancient evolutionary line far from human beings and octopus also play.

I actually watched a really wonderful documentary recently on Netflix called My Octopus Teacher.

I highly recommend it.

There is this diver who is actually a beautiful story from a sense of playfulness as well because he describes that he is in a period of his life where he feels a bit dry,

He is crashing under the stress and pressures of his job and he takes a pause from everything.

He has an encounter with this octopus one day when he is diving and he feels a connection and he decides to go visit the same octopus for months.

They actually build a connection,

They get attuned to each other.

There is this beautiful story in this documentary of how this playfulness and activity of playing can bring so much more balance and happiness to one person's life.

There is also this wonderful bit when the diver describes one day that the octopus goes to a shallow part of the water and it is doing something with its arms and the diver cannot really understand what.

He finally understands that she is just playing with the fish.

Apparently,

To go back to play in the animal kingdom,

The scientist Stuart Brown talks about different play signals in animals.

For example,

Dogs will wag their tail and bow if they want to play with you or a bear might lie down with its belly up to signal,

I am tired,

I want to take a break from playing.

Apparently,

This is a universal sign in the animal kingdom for I need a time out.

Humans have their own play signals too,

For example,

Smiling is a signal that you are open and you are considering an interaction or a playful moment with someone else.

One of the beautiful stories in the book is about a dog breeder,

Brian Ladoon,

Who has a Canadian Eskimo sled dog.

One day,

This dog comes across a polar bear and these two animals are known to fight with each other.

The dog wags his tail and bows,

Signaling to the bear that he wants to play.

Very unexpectedly,

The bear responds and they have this beautiful 15 minutes of playing with each other.

That shocks everyone.

I think no one has seen something like this before.

After 15 minutes,

The bear wanders away,

Still hungry but seemingly satisfied by this much needed dose of fun.

Which makes the scientists ask,

What is it in this animal's nature that is so strong that overcomes hunger and overcomes our very established survival instincts?

Why do animals play?

What is useful about playing?

One major theory about why animals play is that it helps us practice skills needed in the future.

Let's say a cat or a kitten plays play fights,

Then the kitten might learn how to fight through play.

But apparently,

There is research that shows that even when animals like cats are deprived of this play fighting,

They can still hunt,

They can still fight.

And studies show what they can't do,

What they never learn to do if they don't play,

Is to socialize successfully.

Animals that miss out on an opportunity to play have an inability to clearly tell friend from enemy,

Or they don't receive social cues,

Or they can be excessively aggressive,

Or they can retreat and be excessively solitary.

So,

The conclusion is,

From an evolutionary perspective,

Play is really important because it helps us perceive the other's emotional state,

And then adopt or give an appropriate response.

And to me,

This translates a lot to what we do in mindfulness,

Right?

Because we also practice or cultivate this ability to perceive our own emotional state,

And the other's emotional state,

And then adopt and give an appropriate response.

So,

There is this intersection between playfulness and mindfulness.

And the other evolutionary answer scientists give to the question,

Why do we play,

Is that animals that play learn a lot more quickly how to navigate their world.

So,

One of the scientists mentioned in the book Bob Fagan says that in a world continuously presenting unique challenges and ambiguity,

Play prepares animals for an evolving planet.

And play has been shown to be critical for healthy brain development.

And Stuart Brown says that it seems to be one of the most advanced methods nature has invented to allow a complex brain to create itself,

Because it's directly correlated to the development of the brain's frontal cortex,

Which is the brain region responsible for what we call cognition,

Right?

Discriminating relevant information,

Organizing your own thoughts and feelings,

Planning for the future.

So,

There's a direct impact of playing into all of this.

And interestingly,

Again,

Prefrontal cortex is the same part of the brain we stimulate when we practice mindfulness.

It helps us get perspective,

It helps us bring a little bit of humor,

It helps us find some space.

So,

Again,

There is this intersection between what play and playfulness helps with and what mindfulness helps with.

And the other interesting thing is the drive to play.

We all have it.

It's like our desire for eating or sleeping or having sex.

The impulse to play is just internally generated,

It's just there.

And studies show that animals,

If they are fed and safe and rested,

They will all play spontaneously.

And when we don't play on the other side,

We can accrue a play deficit.

So,

Imagine you don't sleep much,

You would accrue a sleep deficit.

So,

In the same way we can accrue,

Studies have been shown,

A play deficit.

And when we are given a chance to play again,

Apparently,

Just like you would sleep a lot if you went through a week and you didn't sleep much,

If you go through a period of your life and you didn't play much,

Then you would want to play much more than usual.

And in human development,

In children,

There are so many ways of playing,

Such as attunement with the parent or body play,

Movement play,

Learning how to play with objects,

Learning how to imagine,

Imaginative play,

Social play,

Which is friendships and belonging,

Or rough and tumble play,

Or celebrating and ritual play,

Storytelling,

Being able to tell a narrative is also categorized as play,

Or any type of creative activity.

Stuart Brown also asked this interesting question of,

Is the universe playful?

And he makes this argument that yes,

That he believes we live actually in a playful universe,

Not only because a lot of things that we invented or we benefit from,

Like the first steam engine apparently was a toy,

The first airplane was a toy,

Apparently Darwin got curious about evolution initially through collecting some samples on a seaside where he played as a kid,

So a lot of things that beginners play can turn into something much more meaningful and impactful later on,

But Brown says that on a cosmic scale,

The formation of galaxies,

Stars and solar systems was possible because of the slight irregularities in the fabric of the universe after the Big Bang.

So even the fact that all of these galaxies or stars and solar systems exist is a function of play.

So one little other idea I want to share is around what does a playful life look like?

So,

So far this was about what is play,

And I want to talk a little bit about what does a playful life look like,

And then what does a playful practice,

Mindfulness practice look like,

And then we will go into some sharing and meditation together,

Where we get to practice these ideas.

So on the lens of a playful life,

What is really interesting is we sometimes think that the opposite of play is work,

And it is not.

The opposite of play is actually a sense of depression,

A sense of inner emptiness,

Or asking is this all to life,

Is this all that there is?

And sometimes we lose a sense of play with trauma or extreme difficulties,

Or we might have life or soul crisis,

Like we feel that we are pouring every moment of our time and every ounce of our energy into other people's expectations,

Or into meeting deadlines or into meeting demands,

And sometimes play just gets sucked out of our lives,

And so that feeling is the opposite of play.

It's not work,

And work or having a purpose is actually something that can coexist with play.

And that's also interesting because in our society we are sometimes taught that work is a serious thing,

And if we are a bit light,

If we are a bit playful,

Though we're not working enough,

And studies show that they really help each other.

For example,

In play we have a sense of newness or flow,

Or discovery or liveliness,

And then we also need on the work side a sense of purpose,

Economic stability,

Or service,

Or feeling connected and integrated into the world,

Or maybe even just feeling like we have mastered something and we are competent in something.

So there is a common ground on which work and play or purpose and play can come meet.

For example,

When we're creating something that can feel really playful and that can feel really purposeful,

And then there are these different elements in having a purpose and in being playful that the other doesn't have so much,

But they can also overlap in different times,

And they bring greater balance to our lives when we have both.

And we sometimes,

Like I was saying before,

Get pushed into this life that is very serious,

That's very success driven.

Even as we grow up into adults we are asked to put away childish things,

And actually one of the key elements of a happy life is to be a little childish,

Is to play a little bit,

Which helps us keep a sense of perspective that these things that we work for are important,

But not too important.

So this is what helps us work 40 hours a week,

Or however many hours we work,

And then at the end remember that we get to play and work is important,

But it's not too important.

And then Stuart Brown had this interesting bit about,

He was saying the paradox is that a little distance from a problem,

A sense of perspective,

A realization that it really matters little in the end,

Can be one of the most important factors in success.

And I've found this to be true in my life,

And I think this is something we also cultivate in mindfulness practice.

We know this from experience that when we grasp onto something too tightly,

Sometimes it takes away from the experience.

We don't have to do much to bring play into our lives or to be more playful,

It can come from many little things.

Play is more so a state of mind,

So watching sports or a TV show can feel playful or dreadful,

That's how we know it's more a state of mind than actually specific activities.

And sometimes going on a really good vacation where you don't feel like you're doing any chores or you have no responsibilities and you get to engage in activities you love helps us find more play in life.

There was a story of a woman in the book who began to take horseback riding classes once a week,

And that helped her find her sense of play.

So it can really be small things or big things,

But it doesn't take much to bring more play into our lives.

And then on the practice side,

So what does a playful mindfulness practice look like?

It's interesting because I certainly had this impression when I started practicing mindfulness that it's something you do in a very serious manner.

You do it even if you don't want to do it.

You sit down and meditate every day because you should or it's good for you or whatever.

And sometimes I also had experiences where I would sit down to meditate that day and it would feel dry or repetitive or empty.

And I think this is again a function of just we forget to play,

So we forget that we can play with how we find presence.

Presence itself is a really playful thing.

If you take a step back and you just even notice what happens when you tune in,

All kinds of crazy things happen,

Right?

Like these random thoughts and feelings pop up or this random sensation will pop up.

So the presence itself is playful in my opinion.

And mindfulness practice is all about finding freedom from suffering or reducing the suffering we have.

So that's one of the interesting points of playfulness is that as Stuart Brown says,

These properties of play,

The seven properties we discussed earlier,

Are the essence of freedom.

The things that most tie you down or constrain you,

They need to be practical,

They need to follow established rules,

They need to please others,

They need to make a good use of time,

So they're all wrapped up in this self-conscious guilt.

And play is something we do for its own sake,

So we don't have to wrap up our mindfulness practice in this self-conscious guilt.

It doesn't have to look like any specific thing.

If the point of it is to find freedom from suffering,

I think it's good to keep in mind how to not add more suffering or pressure to it.

So what I want to do before we go into sharing and meditation is give you some ideas.

And these are just ideas that came to me.

I'm sure if you reflect on your own,

You will find other things,

Doubtless.

So what I did is I thought about these seven properties and I asked myself,

What would the mindfulness practice look like,

If it was apparently purposeless?

So for example,

If it was purposeless,

We would instead of setting goals like I need to meditate 10 minutes a day and then beating ourselves up when we don't meditate,

We would just meditate or not meditate,

But we wouldn't feel guilty about it.

Or we would just meditate for the sake of meditating rather than having a purpose like I will meditate because it helps me sleep better.

If our meditation practice was voluntary,

Instead of meditating out of duty,

We would meditate only when we want to.

If we focused more on the inherent attraction,

Instead of doing a practice that doesn't feel good,

Let's say you come to a meditation group and the meditation practice that day is RAIN.

And RAIN just doesn't feel good for you that day.

Well,

What would you do?

You would tune out the teacher and you would just do another meditation that feels good.

And the other interesting part here is to think about,

Like I was saying before,

We can come to meditation because there is so much to notice.

Because when we meditate,

We are less bored,

We find out more about things.

Or we can choose to reflect a little bit about what feels good.

Maybe there's something that feels good during or after.

Maybe we love journaling after the meditation practice.

And then the fourth one,

Freedom from time.

This I experienced in my practice where in the beginning I would make sure I always use a meditation app and I would know how many minutes I meditated that day.

A student of mine,

A friend and a student of mine,

One day told me,

I just don't do that anymore.

I just close my eyes and I just meditate.

Who cares how many minutes I meditated that day?

And I was like,

Yeah,

That's so true.

I'm not reporting this to anyone.

No one's expecting me to tell them.

So you can close your eyes.

If it feels good,

If you're curious,

You want to know how many minutes you meditated,

You can obviously track.

But if it doesn't,

You don't have to.

You can stay with that presence for as long as it feels good.

And then diminished consciousness of self could just look like each time you worry if you're doing the practice wrong or right,

You can just choose to let go and you can just be like,

Okay,

I'm just going to follow my inner guidance or the currents of my internal world.

Improvisational potential is,

I think can be fulfilled by listening to new teachers,

Finding new practices,

Allowing ourselves to have a sense of novelty in meditation practice.

I have the words of Thich Nhat Hanh in my ears.

I think this is from his book Work,

Where he was inviting us to pee,

Basically to go to the toilet mindfully.

And I remember laughing out loud when I first read this.

And it's just so playful.

It's so improvisational.

Why wouldn't we be mindful of when we go to the toilet?

We totally could do that.

Or maybe you will discover a new meditation posture that is neither sitting nor walking nor lying.

That is just something that works for you.

And then the last one,

Continuation desire,

I think might come from tracking when your practice feels good,

When there is this organic inherent desire to continue and then following that rather than following an aspect of your practice or just your practice in general,

Because you tell yourself that you need to or you have to.

Alright,

So final thing for today is to meditate.

So we're going to meditate probably for around 20 minutes.

And for that you might sense what posture will most help you.

And you might close your eyes or lower your gaze when you are ready.

If any gentle body movements are helpful for you to relax as you come into your posture,

You may also take a minute or two for that.

You might sense into what helps you arrive,

What helps you come into an embodied presence right now.

You might be taking some deep breaths,

Relaxing any tense body parts.

Might be a quick body scan or a hard practice.

Finding your way into connecting to the present moment awareness with kindness and compassion in your heart.

And in the name of some imaginative play,

You might imagine a big lake.

And you might picture how this big body of water might have movement here and there.

There might be creatures living in it,

Just like you have thoughts and feelings.

There might be movement on the surface,

Like waves or ripples.

And you might imagine how the lake is as a general body,

Vast and calm and stable.

And so you might embody a lake.

You might imagine you are one.

And how as you sit,

There might be things that come up on the surface or things that arise.

And you continue to be present.

And maybe the attention settles and deepens.

You get more connected and more attuned.

And just like a lake would care for all the animals living in it or around it,

All the trees and plants and flowers.

You also care for anything that may be coming up,

Any thoughts,

Feelings,

Sensations.

You allow it,

You welcome it and let it belong.

And if this image of a lake doesn't feel so helpful,

You might imagine you are a big mountain up in the clouds but also rooted down to the earth.

Or you might imagine you are a big and strong tree.

So with a playful attitude,

You might look for something,

Some image that helps you connect to this presence you are cultivating.

And from here,

From this embodied presence,

You might also begin to scan your life for moments when you experienced a true sense of play.

So you might find yourself going back to your childhood,

Really young years.

Or you might be going to yesterday or a week ago.

And you might gently,

With curiosity,

Search for any moment or any memory where you were having some purposeless fun.

What you were doing felt inherently attractive.

You were doing it because it felt good.

Maybe you were experiencing a disconnection from time,

It felt flowing,

Maybe it felt improvisational,

Spontaneous.

Maybe there was this desire to continue to do it again and again.

It doesn't have to satisfy all of these criteria or properties.

You might just listen to your body.

Because as Stuart Brown says,

The body remembers what the mind has forgotten.

So for about a minute here,

You might allow these different play memories to come to the surface.

Each time,

You might pay attention to your body,

You might pay attention to the sensations that are arising.

And you might also notice what other emotions and thoughts are present.

And if as you reflect,

You experience any grief or nostalgia or frustration or maybe a sense of detachment,

It's okay,

You might see if it's possible to welcome or tolerate these emotions and to also let them belong.

So having this playful attitude of not searching for any specific memory or feeling and rather just noticing what comes up,

If anything.

And if you do remember a moment of this true play,

You might linger with this specific memory or moment.

You might prolong it,

You might let it become more intense.

You might let this emotion or sensation in the body be as big as it is,

So allowing it to take up some space.

And when you feel ready,

You can let go of this scanning,

You can let go of these memories or moments of play.

And you can come back to the presence,

You can come back to your anchor.

And for the next 5 to 8 minutes here,

You might ask yourself which practice feels good.

Now that you have,

Maybe you have this memory of a playful moment in your life,

You might ask yourself what would your meditation practice look like right now?

If you wanted to feel this way,

If you wanted to feel this sense of true play,

Maybe this means that you tune out my voice and you do your own thing,

Maybe it means you get up and put some meditation music and then sit back down again to meditate.

Maybe it is about noticing the playfulness of presence,

Just how these thoughts and feelings and sensations and emptiness is constantly interacting in a very playful way.

Maybe it is about letting yourself smile.

What does it mean for you to meditate in a playful way for the next few minutes here?

What does it mean for you to meditate in a playful way?

What does it mean for you to meditate in a playful way?

What does it mean for you to meditate in a playful way?

What does it mean for you to meditate in a playful way?

What does it mean for you to meditate in a playful way?

What does it mean for you to meditate in a playful way?

What does it mean for you to meditate in a playful way?

When you feel ready,

You can gently come back to your anchor and notice the qualities of your presence right now.

What does it mean for you to meditate in a playful way?