As we are all connected to everyone and everything else, my question is about the possibility of extending mindfulness practice from the individual to the collective realm. My question is in two parts.
Firstly, can there be such a thing as group consciousness? By 'group' I'm thinking here in terms of families, neighbourhoods, teams and organisations. I believe consciousness emerges in a group around a goal [e.g. survival] and, or from a complex cultural mix of history, faith and ritual. We behave and think in ways that enable us to be accepted by our peer group but these behaviours and beliefs are usually unspoken and taken for granted [unconscious]. Extreme events such as wars, economic hardship and natural disasters can often crystalise consciousness; beliefs become conscious and explicitly espoused and one group persectutes another.
Secondly, if we assume there is such a thing as group consciousness, what practical initiatives and specific behaviours can a group adopt or implement to develop its collective consciousness. Can mindfulness truly be practiced at the group level, rather than just individuals practicing in a group? Does anyone have experience of this or know of any cases or researched examples? Thanks and kind regards.
developing group consciousness
Hi, this is Nick, with a reply for Riverman and I'm going to post this on the everyday-mindfulness forum. I'm really most comfortable with spoken word, with audio more so than text, so I'll speak this out if that's okay, then transcribe it back to the forum, then post a link to this audio. That's just my way, I hope that's all right.
Here's the link to the audio version of this post :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wnmdxh8v0tdhj4d/DV-2012-11-06-135552.m4a
So, I was really fascinated by Riverman's question about a group practice of mindfulness and the notion of group consciousness. I'm very new to the practice of mindfulness, but I have lived for several years what I would call a contemplative mode of life, so a way of life ordered around quietness and stillness, of contemplation, of emptying. I came to notice mindfulness more through a friend of mine, Paul O'Mahony, who I know through audioboo, which is a website for folks like myself who like audio, who like the spoken word, like sharing in that way. So, it's only very recently in the last few months that I've come to have a more precise idea of what mindfulness is rather than, up until recently I'd heard of it but it felt quite woolly, and a big cloud of something, but nothing very specific. But Paul's intrigued me, I become more curious, I suppose I've grounded my curiosity in the work being done at the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, the work by Mark Williams and his colleagues, and then the books that they've written. So now I do have a more precise idea of what mindfulness is, and what mindfulness practice is, and it resonates with my own journey in life, and my own living of life in this way, in this contemplative way, in this quiet, still way.
So, all that having been said, I make no authoritative claims at all, I'm just mulling on these ideas, and Riverman's questions were close to my heart in a way, I've been asking that question for several years. How does one match one's own contemplative practice, if you're an individual who lives in a contemplative way of life, what meanings does it have, is it possible for there to be meaning, collectively, when a group of people live in this way?
There are examples in human history of communal contemplative practice, that's the monastic tradition in Buddhism, in Christianity, and elsewhere. When groups of contemplatives do their conntemplative practice together that's the monastic tradition. That's where Riverman's question met my thinking on my own questions. That contemplative practice and by extension mindfulness practice is something done by individuals, in a sense within their own mental and emotional system, within their own person, but equally it is possible, what I mean to say is that's a healthy practice, that can bring health to an individual. Is it possible then, and again by extension, if a group of folks practice it and by extension they are bringing a level of health and wholeness, let's say, to their group? To use Riverman's examples of neighbourhood, workplace, organisation, it seems to me, and my thinking has been heading in this direction for several years, that if it's possible for an individual's health and wholeness to benefit from, for example, mindfulness practice, then it is also possible for the health of a group of human beings, whether that be neighbourhood, workplace, organisation, to benefit from a communal practice of Mindful meditation, for example?
I suppose I just wanted to join up those dots between my thinking and Riverman's questions, in the hope that this might dig around this thinking. My own journey with these questions, because these questions are very close to my own heart, my own living, find expression in something I've been doing the last six months or so, which is a communal practice of this kind. I'm doing it on the Internet. Essentially what it is, it's a few minutes of what mindfulness meditation would recognise as the breathing space, I'm doing it on the Internet in such a way as folks can join that space, I do it every couple of hours during the day, through a technology that Google provide, Google Plus, which allows people to join from their mobile phones, from their computers, from their laptops, from their desktop, from their tablets. It's a little bit like stepping out of your day and stepping into a room with a group of other folks who are practising a few minutes of the breathing space.
http://threeminutebreathingspace.com
I've been doing that for several months and just recently, because my own journey, as I was saying, has led me into the discovery of mindfulness, and this resonates for me, very much so, with what I'm doing, as a way in for folks I've just very recently added a narration of a guided mindfulness meditation of the three-minute breathing space. This is excerpted from a podcast provided by the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, so you'll hear Professor Mark Williams doing the short guided meditation. It's shared out from there, from the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, that podcast, under a Creative Commons Licence which allows it to be shared out in this way, and I've written to them to ask if that's okay, and I haven't heard any objection so, since it's possible under the Creative Commons License, and I've contacted them to let them know, it's under those circumstances that I've excerpted the audio.
Anyway, if you're curious about what this is beyond my somewhat muddled description, probably best just have a look. So, if you go http://threeminutebreathingspace.com you'll see the YouTube channel in which it live streams every couple of hours. At 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm and 7pm. You'll see there, coming back to Riverman's questions, an attempt to explore this possibility of group, communal practice, with mindfulness meditation.
Hope I haven't gone on too much, I was just delighted to see Riverman's question, and delighted to find this forum, so thanks Gareth again for providing this forum. I'd love to hear and engage in any dialogue around these questions which Rivermans raising and that I hope that I'm exploring with the three-minute breathing space, that I've been facilitating in this way. All good wishes.
Nick
http://nickhollowayvox.com
Here's the link to the audio version of this post :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wnmdxh8v0tdhj4d/DV-2012-11-06-135552.m4a
So, I was really fascinated by Riverman's question about a group practice of mindfulness and the notion of group consciousness. I'm very new to the practice of mindfulness, but I have lived for several years what I would call a contemplative mode of life, so a way of life ordered around quietness and stillness, of contemplation, of emptying. I came to notice mindfulness more through a friend of mine, Paul O'Mahony, who I know through audioboo, which is a website for folks like myself who like audio, who like the spoken word, like sharing in that way. So, it's only very recently in the last few months that I've come to have a more precise idea of what mindfulness is rather than, up until recently I'd heard of it but it felt quite woolly, and a big cloud of something, but nothing very specific. But Paul's intrigued me, I become more curious, I suppose I've grounded my curiosity in the work being done at the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, the work by Mark Williams and his colleagues, and then the books that they've written. So now I do have a more precise idea of what mindfulness is, and what mindfulness practice is, and it resonates with my own journey in life, and my own living of life in this way, in this contemplative way, in this quiet, still way.
So, all that having been said, I make no authoritative claims at all, I'm just mulling on these ideas, and Riverman's questions were close to my heart in a way, I've been asking that question for several years. How does one match one's own contemplative practice, if you're an individual who lives in a contemplative way of life, what meanings does it have, is it possible for there to be meaning, collectively, when a group of people live in this way?
There are examples in human history of communal contemplative practice, that's the monastic tradition in Buddhism, in Christianity, and elsewhere. When groups of contemplatives do their conntemplative practice together that's the monastic tradition. That's where Riverman's question met my thinking on my own questions. That contemplative practice and by extension mindfulness practice is something done by individuals, in a sense within their own mental and emotional system, within their own person, but equally it is possible, what I mean to say is that's a healthy practice, that can bring health to an individual. Is it possible then, and again by extension, if a group of folks practice it and by extension they are bringing a level of health and wholeness, let's say, to their group? To use Riverman's examples of neighbourhood, workplace, organisation, it seems to me, and my thinking has been heading in this direction for several years, that if it's possible for an individual's health and wholeness to benefit from, for example, mindfulness practice, then it is also possible for the health of a group of human beings, whether that be neighbourhood, workplace, organisation, to benefit from a communal practice of Mindful meditation, for example?
I suppose I just wanted to join up those dots between my thinking and Riverman's questions, in the hope that this might dig around this thinking. My own journey with these questions, because these questions are very close to my own heart, my own living, find expression in something I've been doing the last six months or so, which is a communal practice of this kind. I'm doing it on the Internet. Essentially what it is, it's a few minutes of what mindfulness meditation would recognise as the breathing space, I'm doing it on the Internet in such a way as folks can join that space, I do it every couple of hours during the day, through a technology that Google provide, Google Plus, which allows people to join from their mobile phones, from their computers, from their laptops, from their desktop, from their tablets. It's a little bit like stepping out of your day and stepping into a room with a group of other folks who are practising a few minutes of the breathing space.
http://threeminutebreathingspace.com
I've been doing that for several months and just recently, because my own journey, as I was saying, has led me into the discovery of mindfulness, and this resonates for me, very much so, with what I'm doing, as a way in for folks I've just very recently added a narration of a guided mindfulness meditation of the three-minute breathing space. This is excerpted from a podcast provided by the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, so you'll hear Professor Mark Williams doing the short guided meditation. It's shared out from there, from the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, that podcast, under a Creative Commons Licence which allows it to be shared out in this way, and I've written to them to ask if that's okay, and I haven't heard any objection so, since it's possible under the Creative Commons License, and I've contacted them to let them know, it's under those circumstances that I've excerpted the audio.
Anyway, if you're curious about what this is beyond my somewhat muddled description, probably best just have a look. So, if you go http://threeminutebreathingspace.com you'll see the YouTube channel in which it live streams every couple of hours. At 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm and 7pm. You'll see there, coming back to Riverman's questions, an attempt to explore this possibility of group, communal practice, with mindfulness meditation.
Hope I haven't gone on too much, I was just delighted to see Riverman's question, and delighted to find this forum, so thanks Gareth again for providing this forum. I'd love to hear and engage in any dialogue around these questions which Rivermans raising and that I hope that I'm exploring with the three-minute breathing space, that I've been facilitating in this way. All good wishes.
Nick
http://nickhollowayvox.com
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