Maitrī: Monthly Circle
a quality, practiced in company
Seventy-five minutes a month, online, free.
A room for practising unconditional friendliness - toward yourself first, and from there outward.
First Saturday of the month, 10:00 IST, on Zoom. Ten places.
The word
Maitrī is Sanskrit, from mitra, meaning friend.
In the traditions it comes from, maitrī is a quality you cultivate, not a relationship you achieve. It begins with friendliness toward yourself and extends outward: to the people you love, to the people you barely notice, to the people you find difficult.
That distinction matters here: this circle can’t give you friends. One evening with strangers doesn’t make friendships. What it can give you is a taste of the quality those friendships get built from, practiced deliberately, in company, for seventy-five minutes.
If that’s what you’re after, come.
What happens
We arrive and settle.
I say what this room is and isn’t, and we go through the agreements together.
Then a short round: your first name and one true thing.
We take a few minutes to come into contact with our own experience before turning toward anyone else’s. I offer one prompt, we sit with it in silence, and journal.
Then the round. One turn each, on the prompt, whatever you choose to share. No advice, no fixing, no commentary. You get to be heard without being handled.
We close with one line each on what you’re taking with you, and we end on time.
The shape never changes. Only the prompt does.