Street Meditation
for Mandala news... 11/09/2010
The first name of this project was “public meditation”, and I think this name communicates something in itself. A public space is somewhere that is not private or personal, somewhere that is not hidden. In my experience of Buddhism, although it is not an evangelical religion, we have become apologetic of what we do and why, and I believe (as do many others) that Buddhism and its practices have a lot to offer modern society.
So that’s what I wanted to make more public: the presence of Buddhism in this city, this year, by Westerners. I wanted to communicate that meditation is not only an isolated practice; it’s not only something you do in a quiet room in order to relax and benefit yourself. Meditation can take place anywhere, anytime, in the heart of our society. Wherever and whenever it takes place - on a personal and social level it can have a positive effect.
On our first sit in the city centre, we were sat in a circle or semi-circle, facing out to the world. We were there, meditating in public, and we experienced more than we expected. We imagined that meditating in a city centre on a busy Saturday morning would be more difficult than in a quiet space. In fact, many found that the opposite was true, that it was easier to get into a deeper state of meditation and that the interactive side, like giving out fliers was more difficult.
For me, two things in particular really stood out. First, simply being on the street brought to the meditation a variety and richness we don’t usually experience. There were the sounds of people passing, the rumble of traffic and snatches of conversation; we were surrounded by the hustle and bustle of everyday life. We also really valued being able to invite people to try out meditation, in a friendly way, to show that this is a practice that anyone can take on.
So for this reason we changed the name to “street meditation” and at the next session we arranged ourselves more openly with empty seats and signs saying “try it”, “join in” and, “just sit”. Most of us meditated for short sits of 30mins while two or three others took care of the meditating people and gave out flyers and postcards featuring a short breathing exercise and a link to the website that we are building (www.buddhismtoday.co.uk).
Although some were interested we found that most people didn’t quite know how to respond to what we were doing. Children were more openly curious, asking their parents, “What are they doing? Are they sleeping?”
Street meditation is just beginning - this is a whole new world to explore and we want to continue. Please, if you want to join us and have this experience contact us on
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