A brief history

A brief history of social meditation

• Multiplayer meditation evolved from earlier social meditation practices.

• Key influence: Meditation teacher Kenneth Folk, who developed "social noting" in 2010.

• Original method:

  • Traditional mental noting (from Burmese Buddhism) was done silently during long retreats.

  • Kenneth’s innovation: Doing noting out loud with others—"social noting."

• Impact:

  • Social noting was 10x easier to teach and learn than mental noting.

  • The speaker and their partner, Emily, trained with Kenneth and began teaching it.

• Further development (2021):

  • During COVID-19, the speaker trained facilitators and refined the core elements of social meditation.

• Creation of Multiplayer Meditation:

  • In collaboration with Chris Ewald at Interbeing Inc, the speaker expanded and differentiated social meditation into multiplayer meditation.

  • It retains roots in Kenneth Folk’s innovations but is now a distinct approach with its own unique framework.

• MOST RECENTLY: We've dropped the moniker "multiplayer meditation" and are sticking with "social meditation".