Meditations Archive


Steal These Meditation Ideas

Part of the CEC’s mission is to inspire people around the world to create their own quirky, self-lead meditation communities. To that end, we’d like to share these short descriptions practices we’ve lead over the years.

 

 


Hey Bag Head! What’s my Body’s Language?

TEACHER: Jeff Warren
THEME: Hey Bag Head! What’s my Body’s Language?
MEDITATION: Feel flow
GROUP PRACTICE: Most of us walk around with no sense whatsoever of the chemical energetic signature we’ve giving off.

So let’s find out. What do people notice about you, and you about them? Can you play with that signal? Maybe there are clues in the body. For this one I would like people to put bags over their heads so no one can tell who is who. Then we’ll walk around without speaking and see what our bodies say to each other. It will be fun. I’ll play a waltz. Bring a bag, with air holes. Seriously.

The Beat that My Heart Skipped

TEACHER: Jeff Warren and James
THEME: The Beat that My Heart Skipped
MEDITATION: Feelings and Sounds
GROUP PRACTICE: James is putting together a mini-DJ set for this one

We’ll work with different sounds and tones and tunes and see if we can notice how they impact our inner-verse, how we are played by the music even as we play the music. Shinzen calls this “trigger practice.” We call it listening to a good mixed tape with a bunch of neurotically observant meditator pals.

The Arrow and the River

TEACHER: Jeff Warren
THEME: The Arrow and the River
MEDITATION: Old School Vipassana Noting, with two main flavors: contentment and agitation;
GROUP PRACTICE: Pop Noting

Been meaning to bring back this popular social technique for a while. Partner noting ping-pong style, we’ll scour our insides and afterward have a group powwow about the possible differences between stressful agitation and healthy motivation.

The Universe Licks My Face Like a Golden Retriever and I Like It

TEACHER: Nadia
THEME: The Universe Licks My Face Like a Golden Retriever and I Like It
MEDITATION: Receiving practice

Our crack team of cooks spent the day baking for this one – for real – all in the service of service, of activating your taste buds and maybe also your greed, for this will be an exploration of giving, and getting, and sometimes, not getting. And, maybe, getting smacked by a pie right in the face.

Being Awesome

TEACHER: Jeff Warren
THEME
: Being Awesome
MEDITATION: The Grounded Body
GROUP PRACTICE: I am The Shit practice

Basically we’ll get into small groups and interact and, as we do, each of us tries heartbreakingly hard to be and act in a way that we imagine our best selves to be. We make it really obvious to ourselves, which is kind of hilarious, and then we talk about what we learned and why the other person’s best self was less good. And then we’ll fight and notice our manic grandiosity and whoever gets the conch is the next President.