Sacred Encounter:
The Joy of Group Meditation

Meditating in a group has great advantages over solitary practice.  Meditation, sometimes called contemplative prayer, is a practice of inner stillness and silence for cultivating tranquility and insight.  Effective meditation is liberating, but popular misconceptions lead many to experience frustration instead.  The mind has many habits inimical to meditation, some of which can be reinforced in solitary meditation.  In addition, many people find regularity in solitary practice to be unsustainable.  Group meditation eases such difficulties, offering support for the long haul, and counterbalancing our troublesome habits with healthy alternatives.

Building Community in Silence

Diverse personalities, cultures and faiths find common ground in the silence of group meditation.  In acting as one, expressing our higher selves in building purposeful spiritual community, we tap a source of empowerment and inspiration.  Those who meditate together commonly report a buoyancy that the group provides, carrying them further into meditation than they could travel alone.  Mysteriously, in the midst of nothing outwardly happening, there is a shared experience of meaningful togetherness.  Even without words or visible gestures connections happen, bonds form and relationships deepen.  As community develops within a group, its members may find their meditation expanding to a sphere larger than themselves.  Without those group experiences, solitary meditators are more likely to remain bogged down in the self-oriented fixations that cause them such difficulty.

Practicing Presence

Group meditation is a multifaceted practice of presence.   "Practicing presence" is a good definition of meditation in general, conveying the essential effort at being aware in each moment, and conveying the attitude of seeking to openly engage reality exactly as it is.   Group meditation both aids in that practice and adds dimensions of significance to the concept of presence.   When group participants practice being present to each other, the presence that they experience is a sense of being part of something larger than just an individual identity.   Mutual presence reveals Presence of Spirit teaching us how to express our innate compassion for others.   Without such experiences inviting us to step outside of our usual selves, there is a tendency to think of meditation as merely a task to perform – an unfortunate misconception that leads many to a rut of frustration and self-criticism when they fail to reach tranquility.   In group practice, the expanding Presence fills that rut, winning us over to meditation as a way of being that transcends techniques.

Experiencing Spiritual Direction

Meditation in a group provides a variety of means for receiving spiritual direction.  "Spiritual direction" is primarily an inner process that uncovers a sense of direction for the right way to follow for spiritual growth.  All effective meditation eases the process of finding spiritual direction by attuning awareness to subtle inner experiences.  Spiritual direction is also a name for a special kind of soul friendship, in which companions on the spiritual journey help each other to notice that inner sense of guidance.  Among the relationships that form in a meditation community, one often finds such spiritual friends as company.  In addition, increasing numbers of ministers practice spiritual direction professionally, trained in ways that facilitate the spiritual journey of others.  Consulting a professional spiritual director, preferably one who is also knowledgeable about meditation, can greatly support the process of finding inner guidance.  The ideal situation is to have a minister or qualified teacher as a member of the meditation group.  In each of these aspects of spiritual direction, availability of the help and perspective of others is a great benefit of group meditation.

There's no need to struggle alone in learning how to meditate.  Reach out and find others with whom to practice.  If you are lucky such a group already exists close at hand.  Often, however, there are not enough people within one's immediate community to sustain a meditation group.  But fortunately, since there's nothing to argue about in silence, meditators from different traditions and faiths can get together to support each other.  Practicing together we not only serve ourselves but truly serve the world by our example and by the contagion of our peace.  So take that common image of Buddha sitting alone under a tree and expand it into a grove with many buddhas all helping each other reach enlightenment – and then go be one of those buddhas.

Originally published in Voice of Choices, September 2003.