For bustling students and busy employees, the John Main Center for Meditation and Inter-religious Dialogue is easy to miss.

The center was originally established in 2004 by Fr. Laurence Freeman, visiting professor in the Catholic Studies department, and was backed by Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson. The JMC was initially housed in two houses on Prospect St., but moved to the McSherry Building — which previously housed communications equipment and is the oldest building on campus — last spring.

Freeman said the John Main Center is one of the first* meditation center of its type at a university, but many other universities have expressed interest and are working to emulate the program.

“Meditation is important because it puts us back into touch with our own center, and if we lose touch with that center we lose touch with the meaning of our experience, we begin to feel things are falling apart,” Freeman said. “Meditation is a necessity for people today. Meditation doesn’t replace prayer, but is an essential aspect of spiritual life in a world that is as stressful and complex, and a world that is as divided as ours, meditation helps us to find the common ground between separate faiths and traditions — to find unity in diversity.”

Participants meet twice daily, at 12:40 p.m. and 6:10 p.m., and the meditation lasts roughly 20 minutes. On Sundays the center usually has a visiting guest speaker to lead discussion. Approximately 20 or 30 students use the center each week, Freeman said.

Freeman was a student of John Main, OSB, a Benedictine monk who taught meditation as a Christian prayer practice, and named the center after him.

The center is part of the World Community for Christian Meditation, which is also led by Freeman. The WCCM is a community of local meditation groups that meet worldwide in homes, parishes, offices, hospitals, prisons, schools and colleges. This ecumenical organization facilitates dialogue between Christian churches and other faiths.

*The photo caption accompanying the article "Reflection All the Rage at Main Meditation Center" (THE HOYA, Oct. 16, 2007, A4) incorrectly stated that the university's John Main Center was the first meditation center at a U.S. university. Naropa University in Boulder, Colo., has housed a meditation center for around 30 years, although officials at the university could not immediately confirm whether this was the nation's first at a university.