“We cannot block the thought. Be mindful,” said Tsering Ngodup Lama before striking a bowl, signaling the beginning of the meditation process.
“Do not fabricate thought. Concentrate on breathing.”
Amid the bustle of Boston’s busy streets, he is just one of many yogis, sages, Zen masters and even college students searching for a way to unwind after a stressful exam who can duck into one of a handful of meditation locations around the city, spread their mat and discover an inner calm.
At The Bodhi tree in Cambridge, Ngodup, a Tibetan Buddhist, leads a weekly “meditation of mindfulness” session that consists of three periods of silent meditation, each followed by a question-and-answer session, which he said often results in deep discussions.
“The store is my contribution to mankind,” he said. “We are open to everyone, and I give answers to anyone with a question.”
The millennia-old practice of meditation gained popularity in the United States when The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and other rock bands began practicing the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi nearly 40-years ago, he said.
Today, various spots around the city provide secular, Far-Eastern meditation and yoga sessions, which Ngodup said allow practitioners to clear their minds.
Ngodup’s sessions are small in comparison to other centers around Boston, he said, but act as a solid representation of meditation’s goals and benefits.
For those willing to spend $2,500 to explore the inner workings of their mind, Peter and Susan Harris — owners of Maharishi Peace Palace on State Street, a sparsely furnished 11th floor suite in downtown Boston — offer sessions in transcendental meditation, a process Peter said is an effortless way for people to tap into their “unified field,” which he said is the basis for everything from people and plants to galaxies and planets.
“People get tired and don’t know where their energy goes, and they don’t know they have this field within them where they can find more energy,” he said. “With TM, people can do less but accomplish more.”
Harris said hundreds of scientific studies have backed TM, stating the practice helps lower stress and blood pressure. The practice’s ultimate goal is to help alleviate world stress and world problems through unified meditation by many people in one area, he said.
Yoga, a related spiritual discipline, is a physical practice through which the “little self,” or every-day self, is joined, or “yoked” with “a much larger and transcendent version of authentic self,” said Back Bay Yoga instructor Josh Summers.
Summers said he teaches classes that blend the physical aspects of yoga with the mental aspects of meditation, allowing the mind to explore while relieving bodily tension through stretching.
“People are sometimes trying to get exactly what I’m not teaching,” he said. “They’re trying to get away from a thinking mind, and they see meditation as a form of escapism. I see it more as a way of waking up from your own nightmares and seeing the world for what it is.
“Consider yourself a dark room,” he continued. “Yoga and meditation turn the light on.”
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