New York, NY — September 15, 2025 — From September 20 through 26, 2025, New York City resident, real estate agent, and meditation teacher Cary Tamura will undertake a week-long solo meditation retreat in one of the world’s busiest intersections: Times Square, New York City.

For seven days, rain or shine, Tamura will commit to 8–10 hours daily of sitting and walking meditation, following the tradition of mindfulness–awareness (Shamatha–Vipashyana) practice. While solo retreats are a millennia-old discipline for monastics and lay practitioners alike, this retreat is unique: as far as can be determined, no one has ever attempted to hold such a retreat in the middle of Times Square.

“Retreats are often associated with quiet monasteries, mountaintop hermitages, remote cabins, and even caves,” said Tamura. “But what happens when we bring the same intensity of practice into the most frenetic, overstimulating environment on the planet? Times Square is a mirror of our culture’s speed, noise, and distraction. My aim is to sit right in the middle of that energy and meet it with presence, compassion, and awareness.”

The outdoor, public nature of the retreat invites passersby to witness an ancient practice in a completely modern setting. It also raises timely questions about mindfulness in contemporary life: Can stillness be found amidst chaos? What does it mean to practice awareness not by escaping the world, but by engaging with it directly?

Tamura is a long-time New Yorker and has been ranked among the top real estate agents in NYC. He leads a team of eight brokers at The Agency in Greenwich Village. He has been meditating for over 20 years and teaching for about nine. He is a proponent of public meditation and has led groups in Times Square before as well as Boulder and Denver, CO.  He currently teaches meditation to real estate professionals and has also taught in more traditional settings, including New York Buddha Dharma at Nalandabodhi, Dharma Junkies (formerly at Three Jewels in the Village), The Aligned Center in Irvington (in conjunction with the Westchester Buddhist Center), and at schools such as Marymount Manhattan College and Phillips Exeter Academy. He has been featured in Mindful magazine and New York Magazine, appeared on The Seeking Center and Soul Pod podcasts, and is published on ElephantJournal.com as well as his site, TheSittingProject.org. He was featured in a South Korean TV documentary about Buddhism in the West, and in the photography book Public Meditations, alongside teachers such as Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg.

Retreat Dates: September 20–26, 2025
Location: Times Square, New York City — Duffy Square (Father Duffy Statue, by the red steps)

Media Contact:
Cary Tamura — [email protected] — (917) 604-0809

More Information: https://thesittingproject.org The Sitting Project was founded by Cary Tamura to normalize and de-mystify meditation in everyday life.