In two weeks, IMS is offering The Sure Heart’s Release: Insight and Metta Retreat, which will explore the steps on the path to awakening as laid out by the Buddha. Offered both as a residential retreat on campus and as a hybrid program through IMS Online, August 4-13, this retreat will draw on the teachings of the late Venerable Mahāsi Sayadaw—one of the most influential Buddhist scholars and insight meditation masters of the 20^th century. He was also an important teacher for Joseph Goldstein and several other IMS senior teachers. Because of this retreat’s emphasis on Ven. Sayadaw’s teachings, we often think of such a program as “Mahāsi-style.”

But because Mahāsi Sayadaw played such an important role in how insight meditation has taken shape and is practiced in the West today, a fair question might be, What is a Mahāsi-style retreat, and what distinguishes it from other retreats?

We recently put these questions, and others, to IMS teacher Deborah Helzer, who is co-leading The Sure Heart’s Release with Kamala Masters, Tara Mulay, and Vance Pryor. Here’s what she had to say.

To learn more about IMS’s upcoming hybrid Mahāsi-style retreat, The Sure Heart’s Release, clickhere.

The post What Is a “Mahāsi-Style” Retreat? appeared first on Insight Meditation Society.

Enjoy Joseph Goldstein’s Poetry—and Support IMS

When he was 75 years old, IMS co-founder Joseph Goldstein developed a surprising new passion—writing poetry. “I was traveling with friends in Spain listening to the poetry of Ocean Vuong when a creative channel opened, and poems came tumbling out,” Joseph recalls.

His first attempts at writing poetry began 50 years earlier, when he was in the Peace Corps in Thailand in the mid-1960s. “Although I didn’t realize it at the time,” Joseph reflects, “it was the first inklings of the meditative mind—a quality of attention that’s sensitive to things that might normally be overlooked.”

“It can be a moment of seeing something new or having a new perception of something very familiar,” he continues. “In that space of openness and intimacy, new understandings can transform our experience of the world around and within us.”

Joseph’s rediscovery of poetry has filled him with “a newfound appreciation of the creative process being a wonderful aspect of dharma practice. It is precisely those qualities of mindfulness, intimacy, openness, and stillness out of which poetry is born.”

This year, IMS printed a collection of Joseph’s poetry, titled Dreamscapes of the Mind: Poems and Reflections. The book includes 21 poems and almost a dozen short verses.

We have made copies available for a suggested donation of $12 to support IMS’s Retreat Center scholarship fund (shipping to U.S. addresses only).

For a copy of Joseph’s book, visit give.dharma.org/JGpoetry.

The post Dreamscapes of the Mind: The Poetry of Joseph Goldstein appeared first on Insight Meditation Society.

We are eight months into the terrible events in the Middle East—a human, cultural, and environmental catastrophe that has rocked us all, so visible, personal, and palpable.

At IMS, we chose not to make a statement about the unfolding violence in Israel and Palestine. This was, in part, because we could see the degree of pain held on conflicting sides of this tragedy, and we did not want to alienate anyone from their place of practice. We also felt mindful of so many other horrific situations around the world that don’t receive daily attention, including Sudan, Ukraine, and—given its significance in the lineage of offerings at IMS—Burma. Our silence angered some in our community who felt IMS was shirking its responsibility as a major Dharma center in our tradition. We’ve received emails and petitions asking—insisting—that we condemn what they saw as genocide and apartheid. We’ve received emails asking us to condemn Hamas and its terrorism. Others have written asking us to please stay out of it.

What continues to be clear to us is that IMS’s primary role is to hold a safe space for all who turn to the Dharma for solace, for insights, and for freedom. That priority remains in times of great turmoil. Human beings are the ones who are committing terrible pain on one another. Each of us has the capacity to inflict harm in those conditions that give rise to it because we are each subject to the forces of greed, hatred, and delusion. We can see this in so many long-standing conflicts on Earth right now, as well as those in the past. We know there will be more to come. We believe that practice is the pathway for each of us to cultivate discernment amid suffering so that we can access greater clarity and truth.

We are inspired by the Dharma reflections of the Spirit Rock Guiding Teacher Council, and want to share them with you in case you find the message supportive.

Wishing you ease in these challenging times.

May all beings be free from suffering.
May all beings be at peace.

The post Reflections from IMS on the Middle East appeared first on Insight Meditation Society.

In recent years, Shelly has focused her philanthropic efforts on the intersection of meditation practices and climate change.

Here, Shelly discusses her meditation practice, her work with the BESS Family Foundation, and what she loves about IMS, where she’s been a yogi and a donor for the past ten years.

Let’s start with meditation. How did you first get into it?

I’ve long been interested in how we can improve our lives by working with our minds. When I was in college in the early 80s, I read one of those self-help books about how the mind is like a set of building blocks that we can reconfigure, stacking them differently to make ourselves happier. I thought that was revolutionary. Changing my own mind certainly wasn’t an idea I grew up with!

But how do you actually change your mind to become happier? By around 2005 or 2006, I still didn’t have an answer to that question, but meditation was becoming more popular, and I was very interested. In early 2011, I went to a meditation retreat led by Larry Rosenberg at Kripalu, and that was a transformative experience. It really showed me what having a meditation practice could do.

Then I discovered metta meditation through Sharon [Salzberg]. My first retreat at IMS was Sharon’s metta retreat, back in 2014. Metta was so helpful to me because I could not—and often still can’t—still my mind. My mind goes at hyperspeed, so it is very useful to have these metta phrases to recite. I love the way that lovingkindness practice cultivates a gentleness and forgiveness towards oneself and others. Metta helped me to see more clearly who I am hurting when I hold grudges or am angry—myself! Experiencing the freedom that comes with letting go and learning to forgive was huge for me.

Was Sharon’s retreat also your first silent meditation retreat?

Yes. Practicing with Larry Rosenberg got me thinking about how amazing it would be to do a silent retreat. And it was amazing—and difficult, too, of course. But very rewarding. Over the years I have found, as so many do, that every time I arrive at IMS and enter the meditation hall, I just settle into the silence and the beauty of that space. I was recently at the Forest Refuge for the second time, and the same thing happened. A sense of having returned home came over me. I thought, “I’m here, and I’m present, and I’m going to do this!”

Tell us about the BESS Family Foundation, which merges philanthropy and the Dharma. How did it start?

My husband had a software company that he sold in 2008, and from that we started the family foundation. I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth, so I did a lot of research to learn about philanthropy. I was very interested in children and food insecurity, and I started there. I served on a food pantry board and worked with an advocacy organization. It was gratifying work, and I learned a lot about philanthropy. But in terms of the three T’s of stewardship—time, talent, and treasure—I could devote my treasure (giving funds) and my time (doing fundraising) to the issue of food and hunger, but not my talent. I found it emotionally difficult work and since I’m not a nutritionist or a doctor, there was little talent I could offer.

But then in 2016 or so I sat a retreat with Jon Kabat-Zinn, where he talked about how we’re living in an all-hands-on-deck moment. And then it clicked for me: Couldn’t our foundation support these practices, which have helped me so tremendously, in ways that could benefit others?

I began with research to see what the evidence base was for mindfulness practice and, of course, there’s a mountain of evidence on the effectiveness of mindfulness and meditation. We started slowly and ramped up to where we are today, offering grants to organizations that provide evidence-based mindfulness and meditation programs, supporting both research and applied programs. I am fortunate to meet so many inspiring people who are working for the benefit of all beings. It feels right.

You’re also quite passionate about ecodharma and environmental justice…

I really wanted to do my part to address climate change, and I wanted to make more of a contribution than simply writing checks to organizations. Again, the question, How? Then in 2019, Bhikkhu Analayo published Mindfully Facing Climate Change. I got a lot out of his book, and it excited me about the possibilities for this kind of work, but I must admit that much of his book spoke to a deeper knowledge of Buddhism than I had at the time, and perhaps still have!

During the pandemic, I spent my time online researching the intersection of mindfulness practice and climate change. What I was looking for was very personal—hope and agency. I know that some people don’t like the word “hope,” but we all need a reason to keep going, to believe that something good can be found in this crisis. I found reasons for hope in many places—in online courses, books, and programs. I was blown away by Joanna Macy’s work. And systems theory; I was like, “This is it!” All of this helped me to understand what “don’t-know-mind” means in the face of the climate crisis, and it showed me that, yes, one person can make a difference. Even simply holding space for other people can be powerful.

So, in 2022 and 2023 we launched a yearlong program that brought together 21 mindfulness teachers and practitioners from insight spaces and beyond. The aim was for us to learn where we could effectively fund, while building community among the participants and pooling our knowledge about practices that can help us to skillfully navigate the feelings of anxiety and grief that this crisis produces. The result of that yearlong project was an online flipbook called Earth-Based Mindfulness and Meditation: An Exploration of Ecodharma Practices.

We got great feedback from the group—a lot of the people who were involved in the project are still working together and still advising us. We learned a tremendous amount about where our funding can be most impactful so we started a second round of an advisory group, and that’s still running. Both groups point to the fact that racial injustice and inequality deeply intersect with the ecological crisis, such that responding to one entails responding to the other. This understanding has transformed our work and we are catalyzing action in ways that feel right.

What projects does the foundation have coming up?

Our next project is a retreat program we’re working on that will run for three years. Four centers geographically spread out will offer ecodharma retreats aimed at building community—Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center, the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, which just bought the Seven Oaks Retreat Center, and then a new retreat center called Big Springs Garden Retreat Center, out in Northern California.

Another topic I’m passionate about is supporting mindfulness and meditation teachers. In this time of climate crisis, they are holding us. But how are they holding themselves? How well equipped are they to handle their students’ fears around the climate crisis? This arose recently when we supported a project with MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stressed Reduction) teachers and their students. How can teachers address their own and their students’ climate concerns within the MBSR curriculum? We are also supporting a discussion of this topic with a group of Buddhist teachers. We hope that their feedback will advise us further on how the foundation can support mindfulness and meditation teachers in coping with their own and their students’ climate concerns.

What does it mean to you to be an IMS donor, and are there areas you particularly like to support?

Over the years we’ve given to specific areas, like the Teacher Training Program, and environmental sustainability projects, like the electric vehicle charging station and the new electric lawnmower. But as with other organizations we give to, I prefer to have IMS tell me what the needs are. I trust IMS to listen to our funding interests and respond appropriately.

I want IMS to thrive and to continue to do what it does so well. I love IMS, and am fortunate that it’s here in my backyard! I believe IMS plays an important role in our world. Many of the problems we face, including the climate crisis, exist because we have become distracted and disconnected, particularly disconnected from ourselves. I believe that collectively we need to establish deeper connections to our thoughts and feelings, and that doing that important inner work will result in deeper connections to one another and to the planet and its needs. That’s what I love most about IMS—that it fosters inner knowledge and offers a means of cultivating a world where we each can be of benefit to all beings.

The post Donor Spotlight: A Conversation with Shelly Chigier appeared first on Insight Meditation Society.

Jack Carter spent a month as a facilities department volunteer at IMS in December of 2016. Previously a registered nurse in the emergency department at New York City’s Mount Sinai-Beth Israel Hospital, Jack sat a dozen retreats at IMS and spent three months in residence at the Forest Refuge before filling out IMS’s volunteer application. Volunteering for a month seemed like a good way to take his involvement to the next level. And it was. “I had a nice little room and did minor carpentry repairs, painting projects, and cleaning, as well as tagging along with a very good builder and carpenter on staff at the time. I went to the meditation hall for the Dharma talks. I made good friends. They feed you every day. It was perfect.”

So perfect that when it was over, Jack rented out his apartment in New York City and moved to Barre. He worked in a local emergency room, volunteered at IMS, sat retreats at the Forest Refuge. Then he applied to work at IMS.

Jack isn’t alone. Since the volunteer service program launched in 2007, some 200 volunteers have done 30 days of service in the housekeeping or maintenance departments. The pandemic shut the program down when IMS was forced to close its doors in 2020, but it is now accepting applicants again. Volunteers shovel snow; clean common spaces, yogi rooms, and offices; paint or perform light construction projects; garden; help with lawn or trail maintenance; do the laundry; wash windows; or give tours or bell-ringing trainings to yogis on opening day. Volunteers work 30 hours a week for a calendar month, with two days a week off. The rest of the time, they sit in the meditation hall, spend time with paid staff, eat in the dining hall, participate in retreats, or have regular interviews with the resident teacher. No prior work experience is required, though accepted applicants need to have an established meditation practice and have sat two or more week-long retreats at IMS within the last decade.

Years after his volunteer stint in 2019, Jack was offered a paid position as a retreat support staff member at IMS. He is in the same role today, responding to the medical, emotional, and logistical needs of yogis on retreat, often after hours. He lives in the house across from the Retreat Center, affectionately known as “HATS” (“House Across the Street”)—and doesn’t have any plans to leave. “Along with the retreat at the Forest Refuge,” Jack says, “doing the volunteer program changed my life.”

IMS Director of Operations Pete Baker says the program has changed many lives, and he is glad IMS has re-launched it. “Volunteers have the chance to meditate a lot and they all have a retreat background, so the position typically attracts practitioners—often retirees, young people out of college, or college students during the summer. Multiple very successful employees started out this way.”

To learn more about IMS’s Month-long Service Program click here.

The post Before the Ecstasy, the Laundry—Is IMS’s 30-Day Volunteer Program Right for You? appeared first on Insight Meditation Society.

IMS Teen Retreat
June 28 – July 3, 2025
Learn more about the Teen Retreat here.

As a teenager, IMS teacher Cara Lai felt a lot of pressure from the adult world to pursue happiness in a particular way: to get good grades, go to a good college, and make a good living. She didn’t get many chances to explore how she wanted to live. She did notice, though, that many adults didn’t seem happy. She tried to avoid that fate by going to art school rather than following an academic path, but that landed her in a desk job in animation. Cool as it was, she says now, it was still a desk job. Then she was introduced to meditation. She soon began to have profound experiences in her practice and feel present in a new way, free from social anxiety and worry. That led her to IMS in her mid-20s and to becoming a Teen Retreat mentor in 2014. Eleven years later, she’s co-leader of the summer retreat with 50 to 100 teens ages 15-19.

“This retreat is a combination of everything I love,” she says, “meditating, being with young people, being playful, being in community. Working with people for what feels like an important, worthy cause is enlivening.”

When she’s not at the Teen Retreat or practicing metta with her 17-month-old son, Cara teaches her own courses in meditation and parenting online and leads retreats for IMS, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and Ten Percent Happier. To join a retreat or class with Cara, please visit her website. Here, Cara discusses some of the benefits of the five-night Teen Retreat as it heads into its 35th year.

Why would a teen want to join IMS’s Teen Retreat?

A lot of the teens come back year after year because of the community and the friendships they have. It’s a really safe group, and people feel free to totally be their weird selves. That doesn’t happen in high school. There’s lots of love and embrace for all genders and sexualities, and everything people say and do is met with support. It’s freeing to walk into an environment like that and be met with love and feel seen and meet likeminded people, so people form some of the deepest connections they’ve ever had.

Some teens love the meditation and being quiet, too. A lot of teens are happy not to be using their phones and to be around peers who aren’t using their phones.

They get to live in a world that doesn’t exist for a while. Half of them dread giving up their phones going in. Most teens have a love-hate relationship with technology. But a lot of them find by the end of the retreat that they love not having it.

What do teens do there? What’s an average day like?

They wake up at 7 a.m., do a pre-breakfast meditation, eat breakfast in silence, and stay in silence almost all morning.

They go into the hall, get meditation instructions, do a sitting meditation and a walking meditation, and then right before lunch, they get into a small group that meets twice a day—eight teens and two mentors—and they share about what’s going on for them—in their lives, in their practice, or maybe they just play games. It can get silly or serious. It’s designed to be an intimate experience for the group. Then there’s lunch, when they can talk to each other. After that, we do a yoga session together and then they go into one of about six workshops led by the mentors. The workshop could be on mindful Frisbee or writing poetry or discussion groups about what it’s like to be a woman in the world today—whatever the mentors decide to offer.

Then teens have free time, when they can talk. Following that, there’s a metta session, and then dinner. After dinner, there’s a dharma talk, another meeting of the small groups, a meditation, and bed.

They spend half the day in silence. The rest of the time, everybody talks.

What do you consider the high point of the retreat, the juiciest part?

One thing that’s definitely worth describing is that on the last night, there’s a community share, and if they want to, the teens can share something. It doesn’t have to be impressive. That’s when we get to see the fruits of unconditional positive regard.

I have seen some things that have really inspired me.. The most unassuming teen who seemed quiet and didn’t really say much before the last night. I would never have known that he was this masterful spoken word artist. He spouted beautiful poetry at lightning speed about love and pain and what was happening in the retreat. It was a free flow of beautiful self-expression that he made up on the spot.

Then there’s super-hilarious goofball stuff, like this kid who read a passage from a book while other teens were spooning yogurt into his mouth.

And you get stuff that melts your heart, too. I remember this one young woman who needed to express her voice more. We were all like, “Yeah, go, do something for Community Share!” You could tell she was really nervous. And at
the end, she said, “I didn’t like how I did it, and I want to do it again.” But she was just as nervous the second time! So, she said, “I want to do it one more time” —and we were all sitting there for half an hour while this went on. In any other context it would have been humiliating, but everybody’s inner awkward person could relate to it, and it was so endearing. It made us all feel free to relax and be ourselves.

But ultimately, the high point of the retreat is witnessing teens learn and understand the Dharma for the first time and be transformed by it. I would have given anything to know this from a young age. What happens at Community Share is just a taste of the freedom and self-expression that unfolds over the course of their lives as a result of their encounter with the Dharma on this retreat.

Some feel it’s important to make the Dharma accessible to young people. Do you agree? If so, why is it important?

Lots of reasons. So many of us wished we had encountered the Dharma at a young age and know how much we would have benefitted from it. Those of us with kids in our lives have a stake in this younger generation’s mental health and mindfulness, and really we kind of all have a stake in it if we care about the world and our fellow humans. The world today is very intense. How can we set the next generation up with the tools they need to inherit the world in the state it’s in? How can we give them what they need to survive and thrive? As
practitioners, it’s our gift to give and our responsibility to give it. What else would we do with the love we have practiced but pass it on to those who need it most?

The post The Teen Retreat: “A Combination of Everything I Love” appeared first on Insight Meditation Society.

Fireside Chats with Sharon Salzberg will feature IMS’s co-founder as the host of informal live talks about practice with members of IMS’s sangha.

The hour-long glimpses into the struggles and rewards of a life dedicated to the Dharma will cover subjects like the highs and lows these practitioners have experienced on the mat, how their teachers have influenced them, the challenges they’ve faced in navigating contemporary life, and some of the strategies they’ve discovered to meet those challenges.

The first guest in the series will be another IMS co-founder and a friend of Sharon’s for 50+ years, Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart and After the Ecstasy, the Laundry and co-founder of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin County, California.

This conversation is expected to be wide-ranging, in-depth, and personal, given that Sharon and Jack met as teachers and practitioners at Naropa University in the early 1970s and guided IMS through its early days together.

The impetus for the series arose from a public dialogue between Sharon and Sylvia Boorstein that felt to Sharon as though she was chatting with a good friend in her living room by a fire, drinking tea, relaxed and intimate. The Fireside Chats series, which will be recorded every month or two for the next year with a variety of guests, are designed to recreate that atmosphere.

The audience will also have the chance to ask questions of Jack and Sharon. So if you’ve ever been curious about how IMS came to be, how Sharon and Jack became two of its guiding lights, how they practice, or what they’ve experienced as meditators, founders, authors, or teachers, the upcoming event is a must-see.

And if you can’t attend the live event, you can watch the recording for 90 days.

SIGN UP HERE

A Fireside Chat with Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
2:30 – 4:00 PM ET

Sharon Salzberg

Sharon Salzberg is a pioneer in the field of meditation, a world-renowned teacher and New York Times bestselling author. She has played a pivotal role in bringing meditation and mindfulness to mainstream American culture since 1974. Sharon is co-founder of IMS and has authored 12 books. Acclaimed for her relatable teaching style, Sharon offers a secular, modern approach to Buddhist teachings. Sharon is the host of the podcast, The Metta Hour, with 100+ episodes featuring interviews with the top leaders and voices in the meditation and mindfulness movement. Learn more at www.sharonsalzberg.com.

Jack Kornfield

Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, India, and Burma. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is a founding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society as well as Spirit Rock Meditation Center. He is one of the key teachers to introduce mindfulness practice to the West, has taught internationally since 1974 and is the author of 16 books that have sold 2 million copies. Alice Walker once called him one of the great spiritual teachers of our time. Learn more at www.jackkornfield.com.

The post Live with Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield appeared first on Insight Meditation Society.

Jonathan’s success with BCS was covered everywhere from Time magazine to CBS Evening News, and the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs named him one of the “Top 100 Young Entrepreneurs in America.”

A dedicated meditator for decades, Jonathan has been a regular IMS yogi and donor since 2006.

This month, IMS’s John Spalding met with Jonathan at a coffee shop in Harvard Square, where they discussed Jonathan’s early success in business, his current projects (including the book he’s writing about Steve Jobs), and the path that led Jonathan to IMS.

Tell us about your spiritual path. How did you come to meditation?

Part of my spiritual path began with my experiencing an unusual level of success at a very young age. I cofounded The Boston Computer Society [BCS] in 1977, when I was 13 years old. I didn’t set out with a plan to succeed, or even with a clear idea of what I was doing. Still, the BCS took off crazy fast, becoming the most influential personal computer user organization in the world with 32,000 members in all 50 states and in 47 countries. When I was 19, I was profiled on the front page of The Wall Street Journal.

I earned fame and fortune but in reality was overcome with stress and worry. I was in a very powerful position where industry leaders would listen to me and follow my advice. Fame, fortune, and power—isn’t that what everyone craves who goes into business? It didn’t feel like a reward to me; it was an overwhelming burden. I felt personally responsible for so many people, and wanting everyone to have a wonderful experience.

With the peaks came valleys—identity crises and some serious spiritual questioning. Who am I? What’s my purpose? And it was through my early years at the BCS that I met Steve Jobs, who started me on my spiritual path. Steve introduced me to meditation and became a central teacher for me.

How did you meet Steve Jobs, and what can you share about the book you’re writing?

I met Steve in 1981, when I was 18 and he was 26. Steve was my hero. Apple had just gone public shortly before we met, and Steve went from being this, like, barefoot monastic without two nickels to rub together to suddenly being one of the greatest technology entrepreneurs ever—worth more than $250 million, which would be over a billion dollars today.

Steve had come to Boston for Applefest ’81, the world”s first international conference and exposition for Apple users. I was the creator and head of Applefest. I met Steve at the Top of the Hub for lunch, and we immediately hit it off. It was as if we’d known each other all our lives. We wound up spending 10 hours together that day. And at the end of the day, he walked me back to my parents’ house, where he gave me a gold pen with the Apple logo on it. Then he said, “On Monday morning, give my assistant a call. I’d like to fly you out to California, so we can talk more about all this.” That’s how our friendship began.

The book I’m writing is called My Teacher, Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was an intensely devoted Zen Soto practitioner. He was an advanced protégé of Kobun Chino Otogawa and one of the most extensively read Buddhists I’ve ever met. My book tells the story of Steve’s own spiritual path—beginning in his early teens—and how he became the first leader in business history to integrate Eastern Wisdom teachings with Western Capitalism. It seems like a lot of people today have very strong (and often very negative) impressions of Steve Jobs. Once people understand more fully what Steve was trying to do—what he was trying to protect us from and what he was up against—I think people will begin to recognize the depth of compassion and wisdom that guided each of his decisions.

I look forward to reading your book. When did you start doing meditation retreats?

My first retreat was an LGBTQ+ retreat I attended in Santa Fe in 2000. It was an amazing experience, and from that retreat onward the LGBTQ+ community has supported me in my meditation practice and development. After I got back from Santa Fe, I started going to the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center, where I learned about Buddha Buddies, an LGBTQ+ meditation group that met at the Cambridge Zen Center. I started going to that group every Sunday. It was a wonderful sangha. It seemed like all of us were going through very difficult things in our own lives, but also together as a community, which was very supportive.

In 2009, several of us who had met through Buddha Buddies started a new “meta sangha” called OutBreath. OutBreath works with meditation centers of all different lineages to develop welcoming programming for LGBTQ+ people. We publicize our events on Meetup and have almost 3,500 members. We offer meditation classes, retreats, affinity groups, and workshops at centers around the Boston area.

I understand you’re involved with projects in Uganda that support their LGBTQ+ population.

That’s right. This year the Ugandan Parliament passed the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA), one of the most extreme, violent, anti-LGBTQ+ laws in human history. The law not only punishes LGBTQ+ people with life imprisonment and death but requires every Ugandan citizen to report to the police anyone they suspect may have “committed or intends to commit the offence of homosexuality.” Furthermore, it’s now illegal for landlords to rent to or house an LGBTQ+ person, which has led to a wave of evictions and homelessness. It’s absolutely mind-boggling.

I’m working with an organization called Create a Smile to Kids Uganda that provides emergency shelter, medical care, and crisis counseling for LGBTQ+ youth in Kampala who have been thrown out onto the street by their evangelical parents. I’m helping them with operational, security, and program issues, and raising money to fund their 2024 operating expenses. I created a GoFundMe page to help pay for food, shelter, security and other critical needs. People can visit if they’d like to learn more and help out.

Another organization I’m working with is the Uganda Minority Shelters Consortium, a coalition of 25 shelters across the country that secretly provide housing for homeless LGBTQ+ people. I’m now helping them to develop a U.S. fundraising strategy.

When did IMS enter your life?

I started going to IMS in the mid-2000s, right around when I left the management consulting business. At that point, I’d been a successful consultant for a number of years, working 70 to 90 hours per week. Basically, my life had been reduced to going from airports to car rentals to clients’ offices and back, over and over.

The tipping point was when I was working at AT&T’s corporate headquarters in New Jersey on a project that required pulling all-nighters. I slept on the office couch of the executive vice president who’d hired my firm. The afternoon we finished, I walked out of the building and had an extraordinary experience that’s difficult to convey. Suddenly everything around me became fuzzy. I stopped in my tracks, and l felt like I had literally died. I left my body, and I could see it below me, lying lifeless in the parking lot. I’d been feeling for some time like there was something spiritually missing from my life, but that’s when the realization hit me—I am dead. I wasn’t upset about it. “Oh,” I thought, “I have died. That’s interesting.” And in a way I really had died.

After that, I shifted the energy I had put into work into my spiritual practice. I did my first retreat at IMS in August 2006. It was a seven-day retreat with Howard Cohn, Mark Coleman, and Anna Douglas. That retreat changed everything for me, and I’ve basically done a retreat at IMS every year since then.

In what way was that IMS retreat a game changer?

[Laughing] I remember it now as being amazing and profound and unlike anything I’d ever done before. It felt life-changing to me, and it was! But I laugh because that’s not how I felt during the retreat. The truth is it was a real struggle for me, particularly the first couple of days. There were moments I wasn’t sure I could stick it out for the entire retreat.

Around day three, though, something shifted and I felt more settled. The wisdom of IMS teachers still always amazes me. They are so attuned to where you’re at that they’re able to suggest even slight adjustments that can help keep you going and move you deeper into practice.

Meditation classes and day workshops and retreats are wonderful, but nothing compares to what a long silent residential retreat can offer. I think of the retreats I did before IMS as like riding a bike with training wheels. When I got to IMS, the training wheels came off, and I discovered, Hey, I really can ride this bike!

But I see the importance of IMS as far more significant than that. It really is an international beacon for vipassana, for insight meditation. I think that as the world faces greater and greater challenges, interest in meditation will continue to grow, and IMS will have an opportunity to play a larger role.

A larger role in what sense?

There will be a greater need for highly trained and experienced meditation teachers. I think IMS has the potential to set the gold standard for meditation teacher training.

And as interest in meditation continues to grow, IMS will likely need to expand physically—to increase capacity. As it is, IMS retreats fill up fast and there are waiting lists, quite long waiting lists for some retreats. It hasn’t always been difficult to get into a retreat. Mind you, this isn’t a criticism of IMS. These are just growing pains, part of the price of success.

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First-hand stories of Asian Buddhist meditation masters are a precious gift that a few North American insight teachers have shared for decades.

A new online series, Lineage Stories, offered by IMS Online and five Canadian Prairie sanghas, seeks to preserve our teachers’ stories about the Asian teachers with whom they studied. The series begins on October 12 with IMS co-founders Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg discussing Munindra-ji, Dipa Ma, Mahasi Sayadaw, and others.

“We wanted to honor the Asian roots of this practice and create something that had the sense of the teachings being handed down from generation to generation,” explains Jeanne Corrigal, who helped organize the series. “We wanted people to be able to hear these stories as close to the source as possible, now, while they still can. And we thought the storytelling format would work best since it is a traditional and powerful way of hearing the Dharma.”

Jeanne, who is the Guiding Teacher of the Saskatoon Insight Meditation Community, and an IMS teacher, conceived of the project in partnership with four other Canadian Prairie sanghas across Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Jeanne is also a member of the mixed heritage Métis Nation, one of three Indigenous communities recognized in Canada, for whom the storytelling tradition is an important part of their culture.

“We can lose sight of where these teachings came from,” said Jeanne. “So, it’s important for current practitioners to be able to hear from the teachers who trained with our Asian ancestors, particularly for students who are a long way from the big meditation centers.”

The impetus for the series was to give practitioners living on the Canadian Prairie more access to the teachers who trained with early Buddhism’s lineage holders. “But, of course, our teachers are everyone’s teachers,” said Jeanne. “So, we’re happy to have this valuable collaboration with IMS Online.”

These first-hand stories inspire one’s practice and desire to share the Dharma. “If we have a stronger connection to the roots of the practice, we’ll feel more committed to it in our own hearts and grounded in carrying it forward,” said Jeanne.

The intention is to make this an annual series with programs in every season, spanning the next three (or more) years. The series schedule is:

• October 12, IMS co-founders Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg will reflect on their teachers, Anagarika Munindra, Dipa Ma, Mahasi Sayadaw, and others.
• January 11, 2024, Rebecca Bradshaw, devon hase, and Jessica Morey will share memories of Sayadaw U Pandita, and explore the connections between Theravada and Tibetan practices.
• April 11, 2024, Roxanne Dault, Tara Mulay, and Carol Wilson will describe the Mahasi Method and how it has been passed on in different ways through both Sayadaw U Pandita and Sayadaw U Tejaniya.
• October 10, 2024, Guy Armstrong will offer a special overview presentation of our lineage.

A visual tool showing the various lineages will be created as part of the series. After each program concludes, the lineages discussed will be added to the visual aid as a reference for participants and others. The visual lineage will live permanently on the Canadian Prairie Sangha website along with the recordings from the series. These recordings will also be available through dharmaseed.com and the IMS Online website for a limited time.

A Note on the Canadian Prairie Sangha

The Dharma has been in Chinese Canadian communities on the Canadian Prairie since about 1885. More recently, other Buddhist communities, including those from Myanmar (Burma), Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Tibet have also been established.

The early Buddhist Theravada tradition as taught through IMS began on the Canadian Prairies about 30 years ago, taking root across Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. During the pandemic, sanghas in Regina, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Saskatoon grew their connection and now consider themselves part of the larger community of the Canadian Prairie Sangha.

To learn more and enroll in the Lineage Stories series click here.

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Certified in Indigenous Focusing Oriented Trauma Therapy, Jeanne is also a certified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction teacher and Life Skills Coach trainer with more than 20 years’ experience facilitating adult programs. She is a member of the mixed heritage Métis Nation, one of three Indigenous communities recognized in Canada. One of her first teachers in loving presence was Cree Elder Jim Settee.

In this Q&A, Jeanne talks about her upcoming online program which will explore how the Satipatthana Sutta, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, is an experiential map showing the way that external nature supports awakening in our internal nature.

Nature as Teacher of Awakening
Sunday, October 15, 2023
9:00 am – 5:00 pm ET
Register for this program here.

Why is reflecting on nature as a means of awakening so important right now?

In this time of climate crisis, I’m seeing the Buddhist teachings more and more as teachings from nature. For me, it’s about being able to move from our love of nature, of Dharma, into whatever we need to do to meet this time with wisdom. Opening to nature as the foundation for many of our teachings helps me to stay connected rather than to shut down my heart in fear.

Why is the Satipatthana Sutta such a useful tool for helping us explore awakening?

Many of us have experiences of feeling—even in very small ways—connected to nature. We might have a photo or painting of nature that we really like, or a beloved memory of a time when we sat quietly by a lake. We don’t have to be outdoors to enjoy nature. House plants can bring us happiness. The Satipatthana Sutta is a description of how these simple experiences with nature can be understood and worked with intentionally as a doorway to understanding awakening.

Tell us a bit about how the Satipatthana Sutta is a nature practice.

The first line in the refrain from the Satipatthana Sutta is: “In this way, a practitioner abides contemplating the body as a body internally, or they abide contemplating the body as a body externally, or they abide contemplating the body as a body both internally and externally.”

When we are in a place in nature where we can relax, we begin to tune in—through our senses—to all that surrounds us, and as we do this our internal nature calms down. What we are doing is sensing the body internally and externally. This happens so naturally that it’s not something we need to learn.

The next line is: “The practitioner abides contemplating in the body its nature of arising, or they abide contemplating in the body its nature of vanishing, or they abide contemplating in the body its nature of both arising and vanishing.”

When we are sitting in a place of nature, maybe watching the sun set, or waves lap, or leaves rustle, we get it in our being—in an embodied, non-cognitive way—that things rise and pass. Our internal nature can be understood as part of this flow. We are able to hold our thoughts and emotions as coming and going, much as we observe the coming and going of birds, clouds, and waves. Nature teaches us how to know that we’re a part of it through this internal and external contemplation.

The next line in the sutta is: “Or else mindfulness that ‘there is a body,’ is simply established in the practitioner to the extent necessary for bare knowledge and mindfulness.”

This invites us to know—with just enough effort—the body internally and externally. This invites us into a way of being that’s present and easeful, without striving or tuning out. When we tune into external nature, we come into a way of being that’s more in rhythm with the natural cycles. Nature is a teacher of this fundamental attitude.

And then the last sentence of the refrain is: “And they abide independent, not clinging to anything in the world.”

One way of understanding this non-clinging is to feel into the release we can experience by spending time in nature.  We’re not clinging so tightly to the knot we had before our walk in the urban park or our weekend in the country. We’re a little looser, clinging less tightly, able to see with more wisdom how to respond, rather than react. We’re dwelling a little more independently from external conditions and leaning more into this sense of our connection with this flow of being.

We can even tune into this shift simply by remembering ourselves in nature. At the beginning of his teaching in Still Flowing Water, Ajahn Chah invites readers to “create the feeling that right now you are sitting on a mountain or in a forest somewhere, all by yourself.”

Give this a try sometime! Stop whatever you’re doing for 15 seconds, and recall a favorite place in nature. As you do this, observe what happens in your body and mind. See if you notice a calming in your internal nature, just from recalling external nature. In a way, this exercise is much like the practice of “Touching the Earth” and receiving help, like the Buddha did. Perhaps this is part of what Ajhan Chah meant when he said, “We can learn all we need to know from nature to awaken.”

How can this sutta help us understand and face the extreme challenges our planet is experiencing right now?

This natural process of release from what Wes Nisker calls the “tight shoe of separate self” allows love, compassion, connection, spaciousness, and other wholesome qualities to flow naturally. We can then channel this love to wholeheartedly addressing the crisis in the world now. We can move from love to love in action. Reconnecting, touching the earth, again and again, especially when we do this in community, can protect us, support us, and help us find wise response, even in the midst of the overwhelming challenges that all beings now face.

What do you hope people who join you will experience with this program?

I’d love for the sangha to have an experience of the Satipatthana Sutta as a natural awakening process that can support them in daily life and in any climate care work they may do.

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