The Vision
A weekly group meditation practice in every neighborhood, hosted in someone’s home.
The “Elevator pitch” – benefits “in a nutshell”
Regular weekly group practice supports daily individual practice of meditation and mindfulness, which supports the rise of consciousness, my main mission. These small, local groups will make it easier to participate, (saving time and fossil fuel) and help to build stronger, more resilient, neighborhoods of love and cooperation.
The Power of Exponential Growth
Raising Consciousness, Together
The rise of collective consciousness is inherently self-reinforcing. As you practice regular meditation and mindfulness, your consciousness tends to rise. When you associate with others, their level of consciousness effects your own. When it is higher it “buoys you up,” and when it is lower you are “pulled down.” It is like being below the surface in a sea of consciousness, with each of us is at equilibrium at a certain depth. Your spiritual practices help you to rise towards the surface by dropping some “weights” of negative baggage. In the same metaphor, when you make connections to the more buoyant people above you, they also help you to rise! Here are two examples of this energetic relationship, which support my understanding:
- The Transcendental Meditation movement has extensively studied and documented what some people call the “Maharishi Effect,” named after the guru that started and led that style of practice. They give convincing evidence that if even a small percentage of the population of an area meditates regularly (I don’t believe it has to be TM, as they imply) the entire population enjoys a reduction in violent crime. This is due to the positive energy of their meditation practices. They are all helping to “buoy up” everyone in the area!
- Many people have experienced a more powerful, deeper meditation when in the company of monks and nuns, as compared to a group practice with local “householders.” This is further evidence of the power of each person’s energy to positively affect those around them.
For me, this energetic relationship is huge motivator of my devotion to my contemplative practices. I want my energetic contribution to the world to buoy up more people than I pull down! Now I’m launching a new, self-reinforcing system of growth, to rapidly increase the number of people meditating every day, around the world. With your help, we can make it exponential!
Networks of Neighborhood Meditation Groups
The best way for the number of neighborhood meditation groups to grow exponentially, is for each group to commit to helping two or more additional groups form and thrive. If each of them can do that within a relatively short period of time, this new facet of the (already thriving) consciousness raising movement will rapidly grow big, and shine bright!
Release Your Fears of Sharing, to Encourage Others to Meditate
Once you started to really appreciate how your meditation practice was improving your life, naturally you were energized to share it, right? Not always, but why not?
I understand that you may be reticent to talk about your spiritual practices, for fear of being seen as “blowing your horn” or “evangelizing” your (religious) beliefs to pull people into some sort of “fringe group” or church. But meditation and mindfulness practices are no longer fringe. They have been on the covers of both Time and Scientific American magazines, and Time even published a thick, $15 cover price special edition on the subject! Meditation has never been limited to one religious tradition, they all have their own versions of meditation, silent “listening” prayer, or contemplation. All of these variations exercise your “awareness muscle” and can provide the same wonderful benefits, despite the huge range of religious beliefs that inspire them. It doesn’t matter what vocabulary you use to describe spiritual practices, they still help us to raise your consciousness. The time is riper than ever to spread the good news about meditation!
This movement isn’t about spreading religious beliefs. You will never be asked to change your beliefs to sit in silence in one of these groups. Your religious affiliations and practices will be accepted and affirmed, because everyone will leave their religious evangelism at the door when they enter! Regardless of your beliefs and traditions, you will always be welcome, as long as you want to practice some form of silent meditation together. The important thing is to appreciate the power of that shared silence.
This movement also isn’t about spreading one particular meditation technique. In silent meditation, you can hold your own intentions for your body/mind, whether that be awareness of the breath, thinking a silent mantra, scanning your body to release tensions, or whatever. As long as your practice can be done in silence, it will be compatible and supportive of the rest of the group.
Why “Closest Friends and Neighbors?”
Would you encourage your closest friends, whos’ physical health is suffering from inactivity, to get out and exercise more regularly? Would you consider inviting them to go for a walk with you? Practicing meditation is just as important. Your “fat brain” (no offense, we all have one) can often work against you, unless you practice awareness and better yet, work to reduce your identification with it’s wild antics! It is a proven, scientific fact that practicing meditation regularly is good for you in so many ways. Even western doctors are now recommending meditation to their patients. Exercising your awareness is as important as exercising your body, and you can do both at the same time through mindfulness!
So the first people you can consider asking to join your group in a weekly meditation practice are your closest friends. Some of them may not meditate yet, and others may appreciate the opportunity to practice together for the first time (many start on their own these days using apps and on-line guided resources). They may not live in your neighborhood, but that is more than okay! Once they start to sit with you, or commit to doing same, their participation will enable you can ask some of your neighbors if they would like to join your group, because even if just one other friend has agreed, two people still count as a group!
I’ve created many resources, available through this site to support you in the process of inspiring your friends and neighbors to give meditation a chance. But the most important asset you have is yourself and your relationships to them. If they appreciate you, they are more likely to want to follow your lead in this way. It’s not about “selling” anything, really. It’s just sharing your fruits of practice and pointing them to the resources you think they would find most compelling. I will work with you along the way, then you will work with the hosts that you help get started, and together we will create the resources and techniques that work best!
I’m writing this in the middle of the COVID-19 human health crisis. Most Americans are staying home and keeping their social distance. Is this bad timing for this launch? Actually, not really! The current situation has many advantages, too!
- Many people can’t work or have lost their jobs, so they have more time and flexibility to start a new practice.
- The stresses and fears of this time may be enough to inspire new people to meditate, to better cope with their situations.
- People’s routines may be disrupted, so fitting something new in actually could be easier because they are already forced to be flexible as they adjust to new realities.
- Even people who are working from home have had their commute time cut to zero, possibly freeing time for practice.
- Spouses of regular practitioners of meditation who have not “gotten into it” yet, may find the stresses of these times sufficiently motivating to finally join their spouse in practice.
- Many people are craving “face time” even if it is just on-line, because they are so isolated much of the time. For them some of the sessions could be mainly social, just starting with a 5 minute meditation to improve the quality of your time together.
- Parents of children who are home all the time because their school is canceled, naturally need a break from home schooling, so they can continue to be the “best versions of themselves” for their children. Starting a new practice could be a reason the rest of the family will understand and appreciate to get that quiet time.
- Children can practice mindfulness too, and David will be to creating on-line classes and practice sessions for them soon!
Of course, the group meditation sessions will all have to be done via zoom or some other on-line video platform for now. But this challenge has it’s own “silver lining” as well! When friends that live across the country join in on-line, they can be encouraged to start looking for their own closest friends and neighbors, to start a group that will be able to practice together in-person when that becomes possible. We may find that this advantage is so important, that we continue to invite people to join in on-line at times, even if only one or two people video into an existing in-person group practice!
Perhaps the most significant draw-back of having to “meet” on-line is not making that energetic connection we feel when we are practicing together. However, you can still be energetically supported during your group practice, if a reiki II or higher trained person is available, anywhere in the world, to send you and your group distance reiki to arrive during your meditation. I’m happy to provide this service as much as I can and will also work to help find a network of reiki practitioners that we can call on to help in this way. There are a lot of reiki trained people in the world!
More Supportive Details and Tools to Come
I will be developing more guidelines and “best practice” steps to recommend to hosts, both to build your own group and help to start others. The goal of all the suggestions will be to make them as easy for anyone to follow as possible, be they an extrovert or introvert, lucid speaker or quiet and shy, rich or low budget, meditation beginner or experienced.
To rapidly grow our network of supportive neighborhood meditation groups, the process must as duplicate-able as possible. Because every group must succeed in launching at least two other groups for our network to grow exponentially. As I mention in my mission statement, most of the destructive and dangerous trends that we need to address are exponential, so we must do everything we can to raise consciousness exponentially too!