Teaching Seniors How to Meditate on the Lower East Side: What I’ve Learned

With eyes closed, the Vietnamese elder rocked forward and backward while following my instruction at the Good Companions Senior Center in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a sprawling facility run by Henry Street Settlement. The Latina and Black women flanking her sat as still as possible despite the health challenges they’d mentioned during introductions at the beginning of the workshop, when they established why they were interested in participating in CUENTOS, a meditation and storytelling program for seniors being developed by The Clemente.