Wake up. Be ready.

I have been making preparations--securing a public meeting space, making announcements on Facebook, writing emails, inviting people, meeting with people, fielding doubts (my own and other people’s), and feeling my way toward introducing meditation to people who have never experienced it. Saturday is the first session of what a young activist has named Soulforce, an exploration of how meditation and social justice activism can work together in Portland. I will be facilitating the meeting, and Sue will join me in offering meditation instruction for beginners, if people show up, and if some who show up are beginners. There may also be seasoned meditators who come to support beginners with grounded presence. I want to be flexible about facilitating, to address the interests and needs of whoever appears, and to lay a foundation of trust and kindness on which we can build whatever it is that we can build.

I want to keep the meeting short--around an hour--and allow time for people to meet, bond, and practice sitting, standing, and walking meditation. I also want to introduce a simple form of lovingkindness meditation and invite people to think about what a public meditation for justice might look like. What they might want to be part of. What they want to stand for. If this works, we’ll meet again in two weeks and then at the end of February we will come together with a group of long-time meditators to find the way forward. 

Background: our precedent is this action of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship  (I’ve posted this link before, so if you’ve been following, no need to see it again), and this trailer for the documentary Fierce Light  (also posted before) is what I’m leaning on for inspiration.