Natalia here, reflecting on collective practices... and the healing and awakening potentials I discovered through my first experience with Social Meditation.
I discovered the practice of Social Meditation almost by accident. I had recently moved to Portland and was looking for a meditation community and place to make new friends who shared an interest in meditation, personal growth, spiritual practice and cultivating greater awareness and positive contribution to our communities.
Social Meditation popped up on a local Buddhist center calendar and was listed as hosted by the Young Meditators Group, promising to be a chance to meet like minded people and find a supportive space to strengthen my daily meditation practice. I figured it would be young people gathering to meditate silently together, and then maybe talking about meditation or Buddhism or something. But the practice turned out to be much more radical, provocative, and had so much more to offer.
When I arrived, we started with twenty minutes of silent sitting meditation before reconfiguring into a circle and receiving the “view” for the social meditation portion. This included three basic instructions and the general invitation to bring the same mindful presence and open awareness to our experience that we cultivate during silent meditation into the social sphere. The first instruction was for our bodies with the slogan: “good head and shoulders”, an invitation to maintain an upright, open and relaxed posture, to “generate a hollow torso” for whatever might arise to be felt fully, as well as to mirror our basic goodness and human dignity to all others in the circle.
The second instruction, “congruency of speech and listening” was for our “head-mind” and asked us to try to speak only from our direct experience in the present moment, and to avoid responding directly with advice or opinion-giving or judgments. We were also encouraged to listen fully with our entire being - and to notice any habits of aversion or grasping, while offering full awareness and acceptance to any feelings or sensations that might arise as we listen to others share, as we sit silently together, or as we speak into the space if we felt so moved. We were also encouraged to simply recognize patterns of judgment, awkwardness, discomfort, impatience, or to the experience of collective silence in a social space. We were invited to stay on the “dot” of the moment, and notice when we wanted to go off into concept, or thoughts of the future or past, returning to the now.
The final instruction was for our “heart-mind” and was an invitation to share with “vulnerability-bravery” - to allow ourselves to experience - and maybe even share - what we might not normally feel welcome or comfortable expressing or saying, to open ourselves to the painful, tender heart of the present moment. My first experience in that group was a mixture of excitement and terror. I did choose to speak, and I - as I later learned many do - spoke almost entirely of how intense, nervous and exposed I felt - sharing sensations of prickly skin, heat in my chest and neck, a sense of dread, and self-judgment of every word I spoke, and the strong desire to stop talking, run away and hide. Many others shared a range of experiences - some humorous and joyful, others painful and sad, and all incredibly relatable and inspiring.
The effect was profound: by the end of the first session, I felt a deep sense of connection, release, belonging and open-hearted joy. I felt real love and tenderness towards myself and the other beings I shared the space with. I also realized I had stumbled upon something incredibly powerful and profound: In this shared container with 40 mostly strangers we co-created a powerfully healing and beautiful space capable of holding anything that arose within and between us. We were able to connect with our authentic experience and the authentic experience of others without getting caught in our normal tendencies. We were able to prevent our normal social habits of judgment, hatred, fear, avoidance, dishonesty, or impatience from allowing ourselves and each other to show up in our complex, rich wholeness.
As I have continued practicing Social Meditation, eventually training to become a facilitator, I have experienced directly the profound power of collective practices like this to evoke a sense of wholeness and belonging, to awaken our natural capacities to heal and grow both collectively and individually, and to inspire deep and rich kinship.
Please join us this Friday for our Community Resonance Call where you are invited to share some of your own experiences with collective practices that evoke wisdom, wholeness and co-creativity!
