The scene playing out across the country, as reported by the Associated Press, is not confined to a single style of worship or even a single theology. On many weeknights, church sanctuaries and university chapels have become spaces where people sit in silence, follow guided breath work, chant mantras or join in sound-based meditations. Organizers say the practices are often presented as spiritually rooted, even as participants also cite mental health and social benefits.
In Pasadena, Betty Cole, a longtime Zen practitioner and a self-described “card-carrying Episcopalian,” leads a weekly interfaith meditation group in the sanctuary of All Saints Episcopal Church. Cole, who said she started the group in 2001, described it as evolving into a “quiet fellowship.” She said it brings together people who are “really not very inspired by the liturgy, pomp and music of the church,” but who do come for “the building, the quiet of the chapel and the sense of encouragement and accountability in that shared quiet.”
Across the United States, AP reported, congregations have in recent years either introduced meditation practices associated with traditions such as Buddhism and Hinduism or revived contemplative practices found within their own religious histories. In some religious settings, meditation has faced suspicion or rejection, including concerns about it being a gateway to demonic forces. In some secular circles, AP said, meditation has been treated as superstition. At the same time, skeptics have raised concerns about cultural appropriation, especially when Eastern practices are marketed as trends for self-improvement.
The AP report described an interfaith pattern that includes elements of both the outward forms of meditation and the way communities frame what the practices are for. In an Ivy League university chapel, participants chant “Om,” hear singing bowls and other instruments, and attend sessions that can include chamber music and breathwork. Elsewhere, a rabbi leads virtual meditation and breath work while drawing from Jewish scriptures, and a Unitarian Universalist congregation hosts groups that study Buddhist dharma and spend time in sound-bath meditative practice.
AP also highlighted a reframing among some teachers: not treating meditation as something separate from religion, but as something that can be practiced through a faith’s own lineages. Lodro Rinzler, a Buddhist teacher and author of “The Buddha Walks into a Bar,” said “the next resurgence that we’re seeing now” is that people move “all the way out from saying, ‘I’m going to practice a religious tradition’ into ‘I’m willing to do some of the practices that exist within those traditions,’” adding that he expects it can help people “rekindle a connection to their own religions” and “come back under the umbrellas” of traditions they were already part of.
That approach shows up in Jewish contexts too. The report said Or HaLev — Center for Jewish Spirituality and Meditation was launched in 2011 by Rabbi James Jacobson-Maisels and aims to provide access to a meditation practice “rooted in Jewish tradition.” Jacobson-Maisels said the center is “bringing Hasidic meditations and understandings to a contemporary audience,” while also integrating them with “Eastern traditions that have come from the West.” He said many people may not know about such practices because modernity and the Holocaust disrupted communities and teachers that preserved them, and he described Kabbalah as having been pushed aside in the past, now experiencing “a resurgence.”
In university and interfaith settings, AP described participants who said meditation sessions make them want to return. At Princeton University Chapel, people have attended meditation events that include chamber music, breathwork and the chanting of mantras. Hope Littwin, who AP said facilitates musical rituals for the meditations and is pursuing a PhD in music composition at Princeton, said the most common feedback she has received is, “I want to do that again. I don’t know what happened, but I feel like whatever happened, I need more of it.” She also said people “notice the mysterious quality and people feel changed by it,” and AP described the chapel as hosting concerts, weddings and interfaith services throughout the academic year.
AP also described a Unitarian Universalist congregation where meditation has become a core part of spiritual life. At All Souls NYC, Rev. Pamela Patton, described as a Universalist and Buddhist, began the Mindfulness, Meditation, Buddhism program in 2016. AP said the program grew over the next decade into a community of about 800 members learning from teachers of different Buddhist lineages, and Patton said, “It’s brought a lot to our community.”
The report also put meditation practices in conversation with Muslim traditions through Sufi teaching. Omid Safi, a professor of religion at Duke University, told AP that he sees young Muslims practicing yoga, mindfulness and breath work as they look for ways to integrate those practices with their religious identity. Safi said this reflects recognition that Islam has its own tradition dating back more than 1,000 years developed alongside Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Safi described a Sufi practice of directing breath into “lataif,” which he said is similar to chakras in yoga but framed differently: “In the Sufi model, it’s a whirling model that whirls in your inner landscape and enters your heart,” adding, “It’s not about pure transcendence, but balancing earth and heaven.”
Catholic leaders and retreat organizers also appeared in the AP report as saying contemplative practices are spreading within Christianity. Susan Stabile, described by AP as a spiritual director who leads retreats nationwide, said Catholic parishes have shown a resurgence in contemplative practices, including meditation. AP reported that Stabile, who AP said became a Buddhist in her 20s and lived as a nun for a few years in Asia before returning to Catholicism, said some Christians are suspicious of practices such as centering prayer, which she described as a silent prayer developed in the 1970s by Catholic monastics. She said her experience has led her to emphasize that early Christian hermits developed these practices and that “I didn’t know it was in my own tradition,” adding, “No one had ever told me about it.” Stabile told AP she sees “more people wanting that deeper experience” and said, “My hope is that more people will allow themselves to be transformed,” as they seek “to live more fully in creation and the image and likeness of God.”