Staying insightful, playful, and alert, by Rohan Gunatillake
Meditative Story
WaitWhat
4.6 • 3.2K Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2024
⏱️ 16 minutes
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Summary
This April Fool’s Day, Rohan embraces the sense of play that exists in all of us, designing a unique meditation to foster a feeling of alertness on this day of pranks. He then invites you to take on the mantle of the wise fool, that all-seeing court jester who upends convention and ensures that we all see the world through a brighter lens.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today we have a solo meditation for you, based on one of my favorite days of the year, |
| 0:06.0 | which explores the value of learning through playfulness. |
| 0:15.0 | My father's birthday was April the first. |
| 0:18.0 | So that day always had a double meaning for me when I was growing up. |
| 0:23.8 | I celebrated the man and father, of course, but given that the first of April is known as April |
| 0:29.0 | Fool's Day around the world, I also loved commemorating the art of the prank. |
| 0:36.9 | Having over the years dug into the history of April Fool's Day, there were many varied |
| 0:41.2 | accounts claiming to be its origin, which I guess is rather fitting. |
| 0:47.5 | One of my favourites is that back in the 1500s, the calendar would change not on January |
| 0:52.5 | 1st, but April 1 1st. And people who had |
| 0:56.4 | unrealised it would be called April fools. And in France they'd be called April's fish, |
| 1:02.6 | and little fish, paper, or otherwise, would be tagged onto their backs without their knowing. |
| 1:08.7 | So that to this day, a prank is called a poisson or fish |
| 1:12.1 | d'avril. And apparently in Scotland, where I am, used to be a two-day affair, such is our |
| 1:19.1 | love of a festival. And I find it endlessly interesting that this tradition of trickery has lasted |
| 1:25.3 | so long. So with that on our mind, |
| 1:28.8 | I thought April Fool's Day would make a fun theme to explore in our meditation together. |
| 1:34.5 | The heart of April Fool's Day is the prank. |
| 1:38.7 | And the heart of the prank is creating a situation for someone, an illusion, |
| 1:44.1 | a reality that is so compelling, they believe it to be |
| 1:47.8 | true. And then, in the height of it all, the illusion gets exposed for what it is. There's a lot of fun |
| 1:56.0 | being the creator of the prank, but sometimes it's not much fun being the dupe. |
... |
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