How does the collective exercise of contemplative practices improve individual abilities? I need to figure this out.

When I talk to people here in the lab, words like "contemplation" and "meditation" sound like things that are almost entirely internal and solitary: meditation is something that happens in a quiet room. Likewise, in an era of Facebook and email, we tend to think of other people as distractions, and current efforts to reassert control over technologies usually involves shutting one's self off from online communication. Finally, it's entirely cognitive: it's all about what happens in your brain.

Clearly, the fact that institutions like Buddhist monasteries, and practices like group meditation, exist suggests that this view is at least incomplete, and that there is a valuable collective, public dimension to what we normally think of as a private, disembodied activity. I suspect it's not just about social sanction and reinforcement: individual practice isn't merely improved by the presence of other people doing the same thing. Something else is going on, and I want to try to understand it.

I'm sure there are a couple classic books on the subject and I just haven't gotten to them, or one of Colin Renfrew's students is writing about the cognitive archaeology of early Christian monasteries, or something; but my best efforts to find the answer have fallen short so far.