A few years ago, Alex Cequea Fuentes wondered what would it be like to meditate in a public place where there is a lot of traffic, like a busy intersection or a shopping mall. His question ultimately led him to create the Public Meditation Project, a social and spiritual movement dedicated to bridging the gap between inner peace and world peace. The group now holds events in public places all over the country, including San Francisco, Chicago, Iowa City, and Houston. Alex’s says his goal is to create change from the feeling level. “The best case scenario is that people walk past and feel the peace. Then they momentarily become peaceful, and the people they are with become peaceful. This is world change from the core of our beings.” Reactions to these events vary, as you can imagine, but some of the funniest come from mall security guards. Check out this absolutely hysterical entry in Alex’s blog that describes one such experience at the Katy Mills Mall in Katy, Texas, then take a look at this video of Alex meditating in public places:

In a similar vein, in 1977 two American Buddhist Monks from San Francisco’s Gold Mountain Monastery began a bowing pilgrimage from downtown L.A. to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Talamage, California near Ukiah. Heng Sure has made the vow to bow to the ground in a full prostration every three steps along the road. Continue reading →