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My feelings on meditation are well-documented: Regular practice can and does improve your sex life, reduce anxiety, and help you sleep. In the past two and a half years, I’ve progressed from sarcastically raising an eyebrow at the mere mention of a mantra to a person who regularly writes about the practice for a living. Over this time, meditation’s also become a full-blown wellness trend among my kale-eating, Soul Cycling, smoothie-making friends. And while the practice may seem eye-rollingly millennial, we can all agree that the next progression of that trend is mass meditation, as in, meditating with hundreds of strangers.
Entrepreneur and meditation obsessive Jesse Israel is at the forefront of the movement, modernizing mass meditation with The Big Quiet, a buzzy New York City?based event bringing together hundreds of meditators for a group practice every three months?trust me when I say this one’s primed to explode across the country in 2016. Israel started the event nine months ago after nearly a decade in the music business: “For years, I was running a record label and found meditation as a way to deal with my own stress of daily life and running a business. After that, I wanted to find a new way to bring people together and discovered that group meditation is a powerful way for groups to connect.” He tested out the concept with a handful of friends: “I started by using a friend’s loft and inviting DJs,...