Today’s episode is about as Zen as I ever get here on the show. You see, I was trying out my daughter’s Buddha Board—a drawing surface meant to promote mindfulness—and it taught me a very important lesson. [Amazon affiliate link]
Nowadays, many of us are more preoccupied with capturing the moment than we are with living it. I still struggle with this sometimes, despite trying to be more present.
That’s where the Buddha Board comes in: it’s a way to create and watch your work fade away into nothingness a few minutes later. I’ll read you some funny Amazon reviews highlighting just how troubling this concept is for some people. But, our innate aversion aside, mastering the art of letting go can be therapeutic and a major asset in business and entrepreneurship.
Listen in on this session because I want us to go through a real-time exercise on presence. This will only take a minute, but practicing mindfulness regularly can be immensely beneficial. So join me, tap into your senses, and take it all in!
SPI 678: Buddha Board
Announcer: You’re listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, a proud member of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network, a show that’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host, he doesn’t eat snacks after eight at night. Pat Flynn.
Pat Flynn: So for Christmas, my daughter got a Buddha Board. And she’s been using it, and it’s been really neat. Actually. I’ve used it a few times too. If you don’t know what a Buddha Board is, it’s this really neat drawing tablet and it’s very sort of zen in nature. It has a little bowl that comes with it where you put water, just water, that’s it. And it comes with a brush.
And you dip the brush in the water and then you kind of paint with the brush and the water on this board, and it slowly comes to life as the sort of water hydrates the materials, some sort of paper. And then it’s really neat cuz it sort of draws it, it’s not like instant like an iPad. It, it, it kind of like flows in.
You start to see the picture appear, but then after one or two minutes, the picture disappears. And it’s a blank slate again. And I was looking at it today and I was just curious because I was like, wow, you know, sometimes when drawing on this thing, I create some amazing piece and I’m like, oh snap, it’s going to disappear.
I should take a photo of it. So I can remember it, right? And it’s really interesting cuz then I, I kind of caught myself in that moment and I didn’t, because I think that’s the whole purpose of this, this product, right? It has like 7,000 or 8,000 reviews, mostly positive in fact on Amazon. And I wanted to read a couple to you that were really interesting.
One of them comes from a person named ShopGirl and the title of the review, this is a two-star review, is Your message doesn’t last long. Any message or photo will last no more than 10 to 15 minutes. It’s not true. It’s actually, unless you soak the darn thing, it’ll disappear in, you know, two to five minutes, essentially. I wish this last one to two days as I was hoping this product would be the best ever. If, if it was, if that was the case. Huge disappointment. Birthday ruined, fades too quickly. It’s, and, and, and it’s interesting cuz even in the questions area, sorry, I’m like scrolling as I’m going through this.
One of the questions, you know, how customers or soon-to-be customers can ask questions and then some customers will then answer people who’ve bought it before. One person asked, if I use a hair dryer to quicken the drying, will it hurt the board? And the answer was no. But you know, use cool instead of if of hot.
And it’s just like, wow. Like are we really in that kind of mode now in our mind and in the world where like we just can’t like do something for the sake of doing it in the moment and then just letting go of it. And I think we all know what the answer is when we are at a concert and you see literally everybody holding their phone up or you are at your kid’s recital and there’s five people with an iPhone, and then grandma with a giant iPad like blocking the site, the real life site. It’s like, hey, HD with your eyes is better, but we have to record it cuz you know, we’re never gonna look at it again. You know, half joking on all that stuff. Of course. A question that somebody asked here also is BPA, phthalates, lead, toxins and the answer is, it’s an art board, you’re not eating it.
That one was really great actually. So, I’m looking at the description of the Buddha Board, right, and write in, in bright lettering and in a very specific highlighted section of the sort of sales page on Amazon for this product is, do you wish to be more present? Then you’ll appreciate the Buddha Board. As your inky creations fade away, you’ll learn to live in the moment a wonderfully freeing experience.
At the same time, you’ll enjoy the artistic process, the sheer joy of creating beauty, and I love that description. I, I read that cuz I, again, this was all just, I was just curious about all this and I said, you know, I gotta talk about this. I gotta record and, and just talk this through because it’s, it’s just so interesting.
To A, also have caught myself in the moment, not living in the moment, but wanting to capture that moment so I could relive it later, even though I know I probably won’t even think about it. And I might graze through my photo album at one point and go, oh yeah, that’s, I remember when I painted that thing.
Wasn’t that cool. Or, I know some people I’ve stopped this behavior will paint something amazing. Take a picture of it before it disappears and share it. To get a few likes. That was me. And I remember the one moment, and I’ve talked about this on the podcast before in 2022, in April, I went to the lake that is nearby my home and I went to go fishing and it was just such a beautiful experience that I ended up taking out my phone to capture that moment and share it on Instagram.
And then I caught myself. I stopped myself before I hit send. I actually snapped a photo, wrote a caption, and was about to hit send, and then I asked myself, why am I doing this? There’s no reason for me to share this. Like, yes, it’s a beautiful moment. Yes, I’d love for other people to encourage them to go out there, but really it was more of a selfish thing, like, look at me in nature, but I put the phone away and I just was present with the lake and it was a little cold. So there was like some, it looked like mist coming off the water and some frog noises, birds, bugs, gnats flying. And it just, I was able to take that all in and not worry about this brick in my hand and what people thought about me.
And so to answer the question from Buddha Board, like, yes, I wish to be more present. And so what the Buddha Board actually I feel does, is it allows you to practice creating and letting it, letting it go, creating and letting it go and doing it just to be in that moment and to see the inky creations fade away and realize that everything is okay.
It’s amazing. And there are moments when I’m drawing on this thing and it’s like, wow, that was really cool. How did I, like that looks amazing. And then it goes away, and that’s okay. I didn’t have to capture that. I did it. I’m in the moment and then I let it fade away. And then moving on to the next thing and I might try this thing.
I mean, there’s some lessons inside of the Buddha Board about, you know, continuing to try and getting better and practicing and things sort of becoming a clean slate again so that you can rework or, you know, work on the thing that you’re practicing perhaps. But, you know, I’m not trying to draw anything in particular.
I’m just more doodling. Right, so I just thought that was really interesting because even just in the five minutes that I was reading, a lot of the reviews for this thing, people are like, I, it doesn’t last long enough. It goes away, and that’s okay. Right? We don’t have to share every single waking moment.
We don’t have to record every single thing. That being said, I did wanna share this, so I hit record and here we are. But this is a also a gentle reminder for me to be present. You know, one thing that I used to do every single day was meditate. And I was reminded today by my good friend Cliff Ravenscraft, who today was his 371st day meditating in a row.
And we were talking about win of the week in, in this mastermind group that I have called the Green Room and Cliff is in it. And he shared his wind today, which was I crossed one year straight of meditation and then Cliff being, Cliff got really deep into that. Here are the different gamma waves and other things, and, and I’m not even gonna get into it, but I, cliff is just such a fascinating person.
I, I love him. It just reminded me about presence. So what I want my editors to do, who are listening to this, is I want you to, after this sentence, add one minute of just complete silence. And for all of you who are listening after the closing remarks, after any sort of ads or anything like that, I want you to just sit present or maybe in your car or wherever you’re at on your walk.
You don’t have to stay still, but just be where you’re at and that’s it. You don’t even need to share this. You don’t even need to reply, just be where you’re at. Take it all in and notice the senses that have always been there that you just haven’t tapped into. This is about as zen as I’m gonna get here on the show, and I’m gonna leave it at that.
Be present. And my present to you is one minute of presence right after this. Thank you so much. Take care. I love y’all. See you the next one.
Thank you so much for listening to the Smart Passive Income podcast at SmartPassiveIncome.com. I’m your host, Pat Flynn. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. Our senior producer is David Grabowski, and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. The Smart Passive Income Podcast is a production of SPI Media, and a proud member of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network. Catch you next week!
