After 2 years, we took and counted a million mindful breaths with the intention to make the world a more peaceful place. We started this practice as a response to the anxiety rise in the beginning of COVID pandemic.
The idea is simple. We breathe to calm our own minds. Thanks to this, each person we interact with later is influenced by some portion of this equanimity. As a result, his/hers mind calms down. Next, everyone who this person interacts with is influenced in the same way. So, our accumulated equanimity spreads like a good virus.
In order to make it practical, I created a web page with a global breath counter. Anyone could submit their numbers.
2 years ago, I didn’t think about a million. I just committed to do 100 breaths each day. My anticipation was that after 10,000 breaths, I would feel tired and satisfied enough to close this project. Meanwhile, new people started submitting their breaths. I got signals that many others were counting with us, but they didn’t report their numbers. Doing it in a group was extremely motivating.
Around 10,000 breaths, Rob asked me what do I think about aiming towards a million. I did the math, and replied that it will take us 2 years. Honestly, I didn’t believe that anyone could be so persistent. But I was surprised again, Rob counted with me every day. Shortly, Jo, Zhenis joined – latter, Aga, Anna and Luiza. This is the core team of regulars. Many others joined us for some time and dropped off to come back again. There are also participants who counted 1 or 3 breaths only. I appreciate them very much because it was the nicest way to tell us that they value what we were doing.
Anyway, we are not closing this project yet. Thanks to this practice, I meditated every day. Otherwise, I definitely wouldn’t do it. A couple of times, I was asked for guidance. It was a great joy to help some people take their first steps. I learned so much from them.
I was also surprised how powerful this method is. It seems to be simple enough that it can be done by anyone. It also provides some type of sangha (community) and possibility to practice with others when it is physically difficult e.g. lockdown or work/life schedule limitations. Participants are motivated to stay in everyday practice, although they practice alone. Moreover, they have regular insights into the nature of mind.
Traditional methods of meditation are definitely more efficient. This joint breath counting seems to be a good introduction for beginners, but also a good way to stay in the practice for more mature lay practitioners.
I’d like to thank everyone who participated and helped with this project. There were many invisible participants, i.e. those who:
- Counted breaths but never reported their numbers,
- Gave us feed-back on what we are doing,
- Spread news about our project.
The last one is very valuable, because one of the goals of this project is to inspire. Hopefully, we will spread not only peace, but also the idea that you don’t have to do very complicated or labor-intensive things to make the world a better place.
Namaste my friend. Patrick