SitForce
I am working on bringing an institutionally-supported meditation practice to Salesforce. I meditate and find benefit and value in it: the participants in the yoga classes I lead second my direction; and the founder of Salesforce--where I work--Marc Benioff, is a meditator himself.
The benefits I no longer have to persuade anyone of: seemingly weekly a new leading-science-or-academic-institution comes out with a paper or study that supports the meditation legend, with hard science and data behind it. It lowers cortisol levels; it increases focus; it helps people succeed in social relationships where they previously had failed; people feel better in general, and bring a more positive, contribution-minded approach to the workplace, when they're involved in a regular (ie. not casual) practice of sitting and doing seemingly nothing.
The truth is that "doing nothing" is quite difficult, and yet it reaps as many rewards as running several miles a day. More books, more studies, more personal journeys and anecdotes appear monthly in which the celebrated topic is a practice in which one sits with their eyes closed for fifteen minutes a day and thinks of nothing, is not productive, and is free from judgement (I am reluctant to use the word "judgement" because, "in my judgement" the term is too often disparaged as something entirely arbitrary, when it is actually more accurately put as the foundation of our society, and all societies around the world. It has become a taboo word in this please-everybody, offend nobody "politically-correct" environment we live in. In the context of meditation, 'judgement' is not a good vs. evil proposition, but more an abstinence from the sexiness of taking sides. During meditation, all thoughts are equal, and meaningless, because they exist either in the past or the future, when neither of them is the difficult thing to attain. Meditation is about here and now, down to the millisecond, and tying all those moments together into a quilt of deep experience that surpasses the dreams, expectations, and regrets of the ordinary human, which is to say, the human.)
As a first measure, I started SitForce. We’re a small group who meet to meditate. Next, this Friday, I’m hosting David Gelles to speak about his book, Mindful Work: How Meditation is Changing the Workplace.