Ellen this is awesome. I had a very different experience from 11 PM to 3 AM – the soundtrack for us was mostly drunk hecklers who didn’t realize we could hear them. I found myself surprisingly able to just hear the distractions, if i judged them (and I did, often) I was able to let that go pretty quickly and just go back to breath… or metta which was helpful too. The energy was amazing though. I can’t imagine what that was like, listening to pop music the whole time. But I love that you were just able to be with it and even enjoy it. One awesome thing I got was that I was actually able to meditate for four hours and not freak out or fall asleep. What a confidence builder that was! I would do it again in a second, no question.
Jon

I too was struck by how profound the Alanis Morisette Music was. “Hand in My Pocket” is totally about non-dualism:
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/alanismorissette/handinmypocket.html

Okay… I have to admit. I love that song. It’s in my ipod and I was singing it at work on…Friday. So when I it heard come on, I paused for a moment to make sure I was hearing it because I couldn’t believe there was another person still listening to it.
At that point my mind when to the childhood memory of the first time I heard the song. The movie “Love @ first Bite” with George Hamilton.
It’s the footwork that fascinated me as a kid. Song has been in my head ever since.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgtftS4MF0Y

I had the same 7-11 am shift that Ellen did and was in the ‘Group’ window with her. It was sweet for her to express how grounded the space felt in our crew.
What I loved experiencing during my mainly Shamatha and some Loving Kindness meditation session was the relatively quiet slow build up of daylight, street traffic and jack hammers. My eyes shifted back and forth between far-sighted and near-sighted depending on how close people were standing to the window. I have worked in windows before as a dresser, so I am used to being looked at while working – but not while meditating. The photography got to be a bit much around 10 – when the music started. I don’t envy the afternoon folks one bit. What really struck me was how at ease and engaging most people were with IDP people handing out fliers and with us in the windows. About a handful of people walked by and looked in the window with a sort of half-terrified expression of confusion or sideways intense curiosity. That is basically how I might have reacted. So, I found myself cherishing them.

Really great, Ellen. In reading some of the other sitter’s experiences, I love that everyone seemed to incorporate metta/maitri into their practice. I sat from 3:30 – 5:00 pm. The first half hour, I closed my eyes, and focused on the breath. Certainly I noticed the music, but as we know that’s part of the practice, taking in the sounds around you without focusing on them. I settled in and felt the dynamics of the fellow sitters which could best be described as comfortable silence. Beings just being, giving and receiving. The gong chimed marking 30 minutes and I thought, “I am so in for another 30″. The second round I chose to keep my eyes open in a downward cast. Sitting in the back of the big window, I chose to focus on a point on the inside rather than outside so my point of concentration was fixed. Maitri came to mind and so that was my second practice. The third round, I kept my eyes open again and back to the breath. I have read that crime rates go down as do acts of violence when there are groups of meditators sitting. With all of the loving, peaceful energy the group was cultivating, I think we covered the Union Square Area pretty good. – Namaste, Kim

i have to say that it was fascinating watching from the outside, both entertaining and mesmerizing. i don’t know how you all managed to do it, with people (like me) snapping photos, banging on the glass, so determined to make you move and flinch, as if they “got you” to break your concentration.
but for the most part, when i was there (around 7:00 friday night and 2:00 saturday afternoon) the crowd was really coming together, interacting with each other even though we were all strangers.
how did it feel when you would go for a walk around the block, making your way through the crowd, and then get back in the window again?

I sat from 7-11pm on Friday, then helped the sitters until 3am and then sat again until about 5AM.
My practice was a mixture of shamatha and maitri. The energy outside the windows made for an excellent opportunity to remain present. At times you just couldn’t return to the breath, you had to open to the people yelling. And people WERE yelling and banging on the windows and generally making merry outside.
As I settled in, the store began to wind down. Raquel and I both chuckled when we heard the announcement that ABC home would be closing in 5 minutes. There was music, but I knew it would be shut off soon. When the store became silent, the voices outside the store became more audible. As the evening progressed, the people outside became drunker and were better able to dive right into their confusion and really act crazy. This was fun and I sent each one love and kindness and I felt vulnerable and open and very settled. I also sent A lot of love to Josh and the others who were seated only inches from the glass.
At 3AM, all was quiet except the alluring sound of cars, buses and the regular subway underneath us. When I walked outside at around 4am, we were a beautiful window display with the night all around us. Some people were passing for the second time just to see again. One young man wanted to know how to meditate. The drunks were fewer and more confused. Where we real? I wasn’t even sure. I had doubts. I had a lot of feelings. My practice for the last hour was a quiet, lovely mind wandering, returning, wandering and returning to breath. The sounds were subtle and easy to appreciate. I left at around 6am, the moon was bright and The Farmers Market was putting itself together.

I have to say it was one of the most intense meditations I have done so far. I have done long meditations in a temple where everyone is focused in silence, so I was a bit nervous as to what it would take to do a meditation in a loud public space. I chose the time between 11pm and 3am with the thought they would be very few people on the street. Well there were people. Some loud people. Maybe some a bit intoxicated. But people whose energy was joyful as they knocked on the window. I chose to practice by switching from shamatha, tonglen, and lojong techniques. I was amazed how necessary it was to switch in order to keep focused. I tried to move back and forth from the different techniques according to the energy of the environment at that moment. It was truly truly the most amazing meditation I have done and going back to the temple will be difficult. It will be like living in NYC and then moving to the suburbs. Lets do it again!! Thanks for the experience!!

This is a list of things that people said on the street when passing by the ABC carpet windows and noticing the IDP sitters meditating this Saturday. (I know that there were other people taking notes too. I’d love to hear more.)
I was a volunteer outside on the street and listened to comments on Friday evening during the launch and Saturday from 11 until 3pm. The interactive aspect of this event was amazing. People were clearly pulled in, interested, sometimes provoked, but practically every passerby had a response.
There were several behaviors that repeated themselves throughout the day which I found very interesting and worth contemplating. First, how many people who passed the windows felt compelled to take a photograph of the sitters. Two, how many people looked, smiled and maybe stopped but did not want any information. Third, how many people who did not seem to “get it”, seemed agitated and expressed what seemed like a quiet hostility, sometimes not so quiet.
Interesting that such a peaceful, quiet act was able to a antagonize so many.
How much are they getting paid?
Are they real? They’re real! (about 75 times)
I saw her blink. (about 40 times)
A knock on the window.
HELLO! Screamed at the window
Weird! (a lot)
Cool! (a lot)
Very cool.
Awesome!
(smile and keep walking)
(stop, stare, no expression, like figuring something out.)
What is this? (said with all kind of expressions)
Crazy!
Why are they sitting?
What are they doing?
I don’t understand what these people are doing? (snarls and keeps walking)
I bet they voted for Bush.
This IS about Darfur.
They are meditating. (a lot)
This is meditation!
We should just stare back at them! Oh Jenny, please.
Jesus Christ. (Guy pushes through pedestrian traffic)
How cynical can you be, with the prices of things in there, thinking you can change the world through meditating.
So, what is this? What are you trying to do? (when answering the question and offering the information that the group is called the Interdependence Project, he answers “Whose interdependent?” (snarky) We all are. I answer. OK, thanks for the information.)
I wonder how much these people are getting paid?
That’s a nice way to spend your Saturday.
Human People! Sittin in the window.
Que ce qu’il fait la?
C’est geniale
She’s looking. How can she do that?
Must be boiling
Weirdos!
Will you marry me?
Wow! What are they doing?
What do YOU think they might be thinking about? mom to kids
Weird. Another mom to kids or to herself.
They ARE meditating. Boy explaining to father.
This is creepy.
I bet everything in there is made in china.
This is sort of wonderful. (but she didn’t want any information about the project. She said she understood it all.)
Stop staring at them! That’s what they want.
This is a wonderful thing to do.
“There are people sitting here for 24 hours in the window.” Someone talking into her cel phone.
What’s the point?
Oh they is just meditating.
They are real people.
This is freaking me out.
I made that lady jump!
I love this! This is so cool. I guess they don’t mind if we take their picture.

This is slightly late, but I thought I’d add to thread. This is my account, from an email I wrote to all of my sponsors who were inquiring about the experience:
Practicing for 8 hours on one of the busiest streets in the world was incredible. It was super insightful and fun. The passerbys offered the perfect externalized metaphor for the usual, internal experience of meeting one’s own mind in meditation. That is, the onlookers on the street behaved exactly in the manner that thoughts and feelings so often do when observed in practice. Some glided by, some stayed a while, some kept coming back leaving us to wonder why. Some heckled, some were incredibly malicious, some were friendly, some slammed their hands against the windows and went running, some cheered, some were inspired, some were frightened (when they figured out we weren’t mannequins), one person mooned us (!!!), some cursed, some gave each of us nicknames like “Princess Leia” and “Harry Potter,” and I was propsed to by a girl with blue hair. Many only wanted to distract us, and there were times when there was no other option but to be distracted (most of us practiced with our eyes open, and, yes, we could hear everything from the street). There was a constant cacophony of laughter and flashbulbs going off. I wish I had counted how many times I heard the words “what the fuck?” But it didn’t matter. Just like experiencing thought in meditation – the presence and content of thought/onlooker itself didn’t matter so much as how I chose to relate with the experience of it. I used this time to deepen my practice of Lovingkindness: radiating affection and well-wishes to everyone in my feild of awareness without discrimination. The majority of my experience was pretty blissful, but, of course, that came and went in waves.
The best part was the giggle fits, though I definitely started out pretty uptight. Just like in solitary meditation, initially I fell right into the myth that I was there to be stoic and to resist discursiveness, rather than to open up and ride the tide. That, and the strangeness of the situation brought some rigid feelings to the surface at first. But over time, I softened and found my vulnerability in the midst of the ever-fluxuating situation. Towards the end of the first four-hour shift, a group of ladies with thick Jersey accents hung around for quite a long time. They were absolutely hilarious and good-hearted about trying to interact with us and knock us off our seat. Bursts of laughter began to spurt out amongst the sitters (ok fine, I was the main culprit) and they cheered, “Yayyy..”. I found myself just wanting to be there in an honest way, accepting whatever that meant, and this marked a shift in my practice for a fairly long spell. Around this time, someone said to me directly, “You fucked up. Laughing isn’t a part of meditation.” And I looked up at him and said “Oh yes it is!” just as one of my cohorts blurted out “You don’t even KNOW!” It made me so happy to realize that the only real rule here was to be present. To just be there; to show up and keep showing up, moment after moment, practicing unconditional friendliness with anything and everything that arose – and if that meant laughter, then it meant laughter! Plain and simple. After all, is laughter nothing more than breath?
There were excruciating moments, too, of course. Towards the end of the 8 hrs I was in a fair amount of pain and sitting with heavy boredom. It was interesting, because this was around the time that foot traffic on the street died off. It was 2am: the would-be spectators were most likely either at home or settled into their night at the bar, and I became desirous for the entertainment of the distractions. Funny, when I got the peace and quiet that I had longed for in so many moments along the way, I still managed to find fault with it. This sort of thing happens to us over and over again in life and yet it is still so hard to see. I got to see it directly, as all concentration broke apart and left me waiting for the bell to ring for an entire hour. Still, I left feeling energized and so very satisfied. I saw a lot of my fellow sitters in class the other night, and the there is just such a tight–knit feeling between all of us now. The reaction is unanimous: we all want to go back and do it again. It was truly a precious opportunity.

I’d add to the list of comments heard (by me and the other sitters near me):
(teenagers read our shirts): “Sit down, rise up….well, rise the fuck up then! Oh right. You can’t.’