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Our group met two evenings ago, on Tuesday, at the conference room of a hotel, where one of our members is the general manager. It was the first time we met at this location. In the past, we’ve met in the conference rooms at a local library. The switch from a library conference room to the hotel conference room would be a good one, if we had to stick with it, which we don’t (more on that shortly).

The meeting went quite well. One thing I was quite happy about was that four of us made it – in the past, we’ve generally had either two of us sitting, or perhaps three, if our schedules fell into place correctly, all of the planets were aligned, etc. We sat for 15 minutes, took a short break and discussed a few things, then sat for another 15 minutes.

Before the other two fellows arrived, Jeff (the general manager) and I spoke about the group, where we’d like to see it move, and so on. We were in agreement that we’d like the group to meet more often for sits. In the past, we’ve been limited by the library’s rules, specifically the one which states that you can only use one of their conference rooms once a month. Being a small group and having no funds available for group stuff, we’ve thus been meeting for sits only once a month. For discussions and general get-togethers, we’ve met a bit more often, using a local café.

The hotel conference room was nice, and fine for a meditation session. The only problem with it (if one can even really classify it as a problem) is that it’s not exactly close to any of us. It’s on one of the highways heading out of town, and for the three of us who live in town, it’s about a 20 minute drive. For the other guy, who lives out of town, on the other side of it, it’s more like half an hour. Certainly, we’re not talking huge commutes, but something closer would be nice. Jeff realized this, and was nice enough to offer up his home, in town, for our meetings. Using his house, we’ll be able to meet weekly.

Before I could bring up the topic of our group actively studying Buddhism, Jeff brought it up. He thought that perhaps incorporating a brief reading into our sits would be good, maybe a sutra that we could all meditate on. I thought it sounded like a good idea. We also discussed the issue of feeling like we’re on an ocean with no guide. None of us are very advanced in our practice, which has led to us just kind of floundering about in the water, wondering where to go. Again, Jeff had a solution. Apparently he’ll be frequently going to a larger city near us in the coming months, in which there’s a long-running Buddhist study / meditation group. He’s going to see if one of their more advanced members could come down to our town occasionally, perhaps once every month or two, to have a “class” of sorts. I thought this sounded great.

I suppose I keep thinking about something Drew, my professor, told me. He told me that he read in a newspaper that four people started a small meditation / study group (I can’t recall where it was, sadly). Initially, they met where ever they could – library rooms, parks, whatever.

Fast forward two years: they now have a meditation hall, around 50 regular members, and are a non-profit organization. They have services throughout the week, regular classes, etc.

Small steps, Josh. Small steps.

~

During our break between sitting sessions, we discussed a few things:

• I commented that when I first start a sitting session, I often feel like I’m leaning – a lot. Usually, I feel like I’m leaning to the left, almost to the point of falling over. If I try to correct this posture problem, I find that I’m not leaning at all. No one else had experienced that. After 5 minutes or so, the sensation goes away. How about you folks? Are any of my readers meditators? If you are, do you often feel like you’re the Leaning Tower of Pisa?
• Chris experienced something different, but similar. He said he often feels like he’s rocking back and forth slightly. When he goes to correct it, he finds he’s not actually moving.
• We talked a bit about whether or not we keep our eyes open during meditation. Some of us do, some of us don’t (I don’t). Jeff, who keeps his eyes partially open and focuses on something about 6 feet away from him, remarked that if he isn’t diligent in being aware of what’s going on, he’ll find himself seeing all sorts of things that aren’t there. For example, he said that while looking at the carpet Tuesday night, he started seeing faces, animals, etc. in the carpet pattern. Drew, who was facing the television in the conference room, said he felt like he was watching TV, then realized that it wasn’t even on. I suppose those two experiences show what your mind will do when you try to calm it down. It’s a bit like when you’re trying to get a small child to go to sleep: they’ll do anything they can think of to stay awake. Slap themselves, babble, kick, etc.I personally keep my eyes closed because of similar issues. I don’t necessarily “see” things like that, but I do find that if my eyes are open, my eyes have a tendency to wander, seeking out objects. Before I realize it, my mind’s off in left field (or not even in the stadium anymore), thinking about something that was vaguely related to something I looked at.
• We talked briefly after the second sitting session about how odd our perception of time can be. Both sessions were 15 minutes long. The first session felt like it lasted more like 20-30 minutes; the second session felt like it lasted 5 or 10 minutes, tops. This was something that we all generally noticed. No idea why.

First of all, I’d like to say something to everyone who has started groups, led groups, etc.: you have my respect! You had quite a bit of it before, but you have even more now that I’ve tried it myself. Starting and helping lead a group is much more difficult than I ever imagined.

I had envisioned our Buddhist group meeting regularly, with an agenda – what we would discuss, what resources we would use, etc. I also envisioned regular meditation meetings.

The latter has worked out fairly well. While we don’t meet as often as some of us would like, due to variety of schedules, we were meeting about once a week, up until the end of last quarter, at which point things kind of fell to hell. (I’m trying to rectify this problem now, by the way.) Our meditation sessions would usually last about an hour, and we would mix sitting and walking meditation.

I posed the question back in December, “What’s it like to meditate with other people?” I can now answer this question. The experience is different from meditating alone. Despite the fact that all participants are sitting, mostly not moving, and being silent, one is quite aware of your fellowmeditators . Before we started meditating, I was curious as to whether or not the other people would be a distraction. On the contrary, they actually help me focus on my meditation. Why? Because I know if I stray, if I shift and fidget, or even if I just get tense, others will know, and their meditation will be affected. It’s also reassuring to have others sitting, not “doing” anything, etc. I’d love to say that I always feel like I’m doing the “right thing” when meditating at home, but I’d be lying. I think everymeditator runs into the question of, “Just what the hell am I doing, sitting here like this, counting my breaths?” When all is said and done, I enjoy our group meditation sessions a great deal; they’ve not helped me solidify my at-home practice much, but that’s not the group’s fault – it’s mine!

The other aspect of the group, which I’d hoped would grow and flourish – that of studying Buddhist thought, doctrines, etc. – hasn’t gone so well. It is certainly not a matter of outright disagreement. Our group is rather small – there are four or five “regulars”, including myself – and we all get along splendidly. The problem is instead a lack of consensus, a lack of someone going, “Okay, this is what we’re doing.” In other words, the leadership is lacking – or perhaps, one could say that the leadership is just as confused and lost as the other members of the group!

The other members of the group often look to me and my professor for guidance, because we’re the ones who started the group. But honestly, I am personally not very good at that position! Why? Because I want to please everyone. (I believe my professor suffers from this as well.) For example, we talked about studying one school of Buddhism, and then moving on to others later. Some of us wanted to study Tibetan Buddhism; others wanted to take a look into Zen Buddhism. Who should make the call on what we go for? Luckily, no “executive decisions” had to be made, because we all agreed to study Zen Buddhism. But then what? Are we just going to meet and discuss Zen Buddhism? Study a particular book? Alter our meditation practice? What aspects of Zen Buddhism are we studying? We didn’t know; we had an idea of what we wanted to do, but we didn’t know what move to make next. We knew where we wanted to go, but weren’t entirely sure about the directions on how to get there.

It would be ideal if the group as a whole could simply decide on the next move, but it’s unfortunately not that simple. Buddhist or not, we’re all individuals, and we all have different takes on things. Some of us will want to use this book; others won’t want to use any book at all; others will still have an underlying desire to look into something totally different. What does all of this lead to? Inaction. I think that since we’re all a bit confused about how to move forward, we just don’t move forward. I’m certainly not saying that I dislike our meditation meetings, or find them useless – on the contrary, as I mentioned above, I find them helpful, and I enjoy the companionship. But our study sessions, when we’re supposed to be meeting, to discuss and learn about Buddhism and our practices – these sessions have sort of been dead in the water from the get go. And for that, I feel I need to take my fair share of the blame. I don’t think I (or my professor) foresaw the problems we’d run into, and we certainly didn’t plan accordingly.

I’m not sure what to do now. Perhaps we need to have a meeting specifically to talk about where we’d all like the group to go, what we’d like to do, and how we’d like to do it. Perhaps someone – me, my professor, anyone in the group – needs to grab the reigns and say, “Alright, everyone, here’s where we’re going, and this is how we’re getting there.” I’m especially hesitant about this, though, because I don’t “own” the group; no one does. Without the members, the group wouldn’t exist. For this reason, I hate to come across as dictatorial. Perhaps I need to email a Cybermonk and ask for his guidance.

In short, the experiences with this group have taught me that it’s one thing to say, “let’s start a group to do X”, and quite another to start that group and actively lead the group to growing, flourishing, expanding. Even if all of the members like each other, get along, have similar (but not identical!) ideas about how the group should work – even if all of these factors come together (which, in our case, they have) – it’s still not easy to steer the ship out of the harbor, and head off to where you want to go. It’s quite likely that you’ll have your crew on board, with everyone scratching their heads, saying, “Um, what do we do now?”

If you’ve been in a similar situation before (or not), I’d love your comments, and any ideas you might have that would help me jump-start our group’s activity. Thanks!