Street meditations in San Francisco

We can’t resist reposting this story from Wildmind, Triratna’s meditation teaching site based in New Hampshire, USA. Bodhipaksa, its founder and director, writes  - “That’s two friends of mine, Mike and Suvarnaprabha (also known as our very own Auntie Suvanna) meditating in a shop window on San Francisco’s bustling Valencia St.

“They were just two of thirty-two people from the San Francisco Buddhist Center and the wider Buddhist community who spent a couple of weekends last month meditating in public.
Suvarnaprabha said, “For me, the experience of sitting was completely different than I thought it would be. That is, I thought the ‘being looked at’ part would be more prominent. I became deeply absorbed, just hearing the sounds of the city–cars passing, high heels clicking, dogs barking, conversations… and noticing the response in my body. There was incredible peace sitting in that window, somehow interspersed with moments of fear and wonder.”

“She was also surprised by how many people thought they were statues! Check out Suvarnaprabha blog for some of the hilarious comments made by passers-by. My favorite?

“Is she breathing?”
“No, people don’t breathe when they meditate.”

Click here for Bodhipaksa's blog 'On Practice'.

San Francisco’s Daily Kos ran a story on the event entitled ‘How sitting in windows is making the planet cooler’, which ended with a beautiful poem, Keeping Quiet by Pablo Neruda. It begins -

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.


This one time upon the earth,
let's not speak any language,
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.


It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotives,
all of us would be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Find it in full on the Daily Kos blog.