{"id":320805,"date":"2025-04-06T14:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-06T18:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=320805"},"modified":"2026-02-11T11:59:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T16:59:12","slug":"whats-the-point-of-meditating-in-front-of-an-empty-fridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/cuba\/whats-the-point-of-meditating-in-front-of-an-empty-fridge\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s the point of meditating in front of an empty fridge?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is there anything above politics, ideologies, or religious altars? The answer may be as, if not more, disconcerting than the question.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d Juan D\u00e1vila replies simply: \u201cMeditation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

His words barely echo in the long hallway of a 19th-century Vedado mansion, which belonged to none other than Russian Nikolai Yavorsky, <\/span>Alicia Alonso<\/b><\/a>\u2019s first ballet teacher.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHere she took her first lessons,\u201d D\u00e1vila recalls, pointing to the art nouveau partitions and coffered ceiling of the house that has weathered a thousand storms.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since 2018, the place has housed the headquarters of Om Cultura y Vida, a non-governmental organization that could transition toward a Local Development Project (LDP) but is still waiting to be admitted to the Ministry of Justice\u2019s Registry of Associations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are on that path and will finally become an organization with associate membership,\u201d he predicts with unfeigned optimism.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 13th edition of the International Meditation Meeting is scheduled for April 10-13 in Havana, an initiative built by D\u00e1vila, president of the organizing committee, in the manner of an inverted pyramid. When almost everything seemed to fail, he knew how to be a visionary, laying the foundational brick on the shifting sands of reality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For this social activist, with a calm demeanor and a fragile, persuasive tone of voice that obeys the pauses dictated by reflection, the point is to defend \u201cthe spiritual dimension of the practice of meditation, beyond,\u201d he insists, \u201cthe beliefs or framework of beliefs that any of us who attend may have.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Juan
Juan D\u00e1vila (Las Villas, 1957), founder and president of Om Meditaci\u00f3n, shows some of the programs and posters for the Om Meditation Meetings. Photo: AMD.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Someone with a vocation for service<\/b><\/p>\n

With all due respect to ancestral occupations, I don\u2019t have a guru before me. Nor a shaman, an Awo, or a mystic. There is no sign in him that distances him from conventional 21st-century worldliness. Nor a pose. Perhaps I should admit that he could be a good samaritan?<\/span><\/p>\n

Without biblical frills, D\u00e1vila S\u00e1nchez (Las Villas, 1957) is a man with a vocation for service. Period. This is the definition that the last born, by Caesarean section, of a brood of 15 siblings and grandson of a patriarchal landowner, against whom he rebelled as a teenager, refusing to accept his imposed model of family governance (his three daughters were spinsters), agrees with.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe vision that led me to create Om was precisely that vision of service, because if human life were only for oneself and not for serving others, what would be the point?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Based on that principle, fifteen years ago, D\u00e1vila decided to become a spiritual entrepreneur, if that isn\u2019t an oxymoron. His life project was to extend to the community his personal experiences on meditation and its benefits for health and personal growth, already validated by several scientific subjects.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But fifteen years ago, Cuba was a less tolerant and more entrenched society than it may be today and, as a result, D\u00e1vila faced opposition, disdain, and resentment from the bureaucratic reactions. Even in circles where orthodoxy should have been struggling. \u201cI\u2019m talking about 2008 and 2009. There was a lot of resistance in the country\u2019s institutions, both scientific, cultural, and academic,\u201d he recalls.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leal, another enlightened figure<\/b><\/p>\n

There were sensibilities that understood the importance and necessity of a project like Om. Of all of them, <\/span>Dr. Eusebio Leal<\/b><\/a> (1942-2020), then the Havana historian and one of the most influential figures in national life, stands out.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was Leal who opened the first small door to addressing a community initiative where we could bring the practice of meditation closer to human well-being and health in general. We started a project we called the Meditation Home for Health and Creation, and from there a program emerged, which later became a project and then, in 2013, an association.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"In
In the Golden Hall of the Museum of the Revolution in 2016, monk Long Pi Pasura, of the Peace Revolution Foundation of Thailand. To his right, Master Juan D\u00e1vila. Photo: Courtesy of Adri\u00e1n Cabrales.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A scientifically supported organization<\/b><\/p>\n

In 2014, already with a tribe of followers, D\u00e1vila felt supported by the social scale of his endeavor and knocked on the doors of scientific institutions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe approached the Society of Neurosciences and the Center for Neurosciences and made a proposal to measure the brain\u2019s response to the practice of meditation and conscious breathing. The study established the impact both have on brain structure and the benefits they provide for human beings.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond any academic misgivings, the lack of more in-depth studies is primarily due to the lack of state-of-the-art equipment, says D\u00e1vila, who emphasizes that such research would be unthinkable without the evidence of mental well-being previously provided by Om Meditaci\u00f3n.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this sense, V\u00edctor Nu\u00f1ez\u2019s 2019 documentary, <\/span>Om, Meditaci\u00f3n en La Habana<\/span><\/i>, corroborates this assertion by recording the concurring testimony of Dr. Nibaldo Hern\u00e1ndez Mesa, president of the Cuban Society of Neurosciences (SONECUB).<\/span><\/p>\n