Keri Pederson and Temira Lital will lead an Insight Meditation retreat on Saturday, September 12, 2026, from 9:00 am until 4:00 pm. The retreat will be conducted at Shalom UCC, 505 McMurray Street, Richland, in the Fellowship Hall. Please note that this is a change of location from our usual meeting place!
Registration is now open for the retreat. To register for the retreat, please send an email to the following email address: registrar@insightmeditationmc.org. We’ve found out that some people mailing to that email address receive an error message that their email was returned. In fact, the emails are received intact, so please ignore the error message. We’ll try to confirm that your email was received and that you’re registered within 24 hours.
Keri is a Guiding Teacher of the Seattle Insight Meditation Society (SIMS), and Temira is a Local Dharma Leader for SIMS.
The title of the retreat is “Dropping the Burden, Stopping the Fight”.
In meditation practice and in life, we are often aware of how an attitude of striving and overdoing is not helpful, and yet it can be difficult to release. Steeped in a culture that values productivity and the optimizing of everything, we find here that our own efforts thwart us. Where is the ease, relaxation, and peace that we read so much about? We can hear ourselves arguing with the moment, with our own minds, with experience itself. Might there be a way, as the teachings point out — to make steady effort without perpetuating stress, to be dedicated to something without ongoing strain, and to engage in the world without it being a fight?
In Friday evening’s talk and Saturday’s daylong retreat we will gather in community (sangha) to explore perspectives and experiential teachings from the early Buddhist tradition that speak to some of these questions. We’ll take a look at the ‘mind at normalcy’ (Upasika Kee), awareness becoming natural (Sayadaw U Tejaniya), and dwelling in non-contention with experience (Ajahn Amaro), and see what we find for ourselves.
The retreat will consist of a mix of stationary meditation and movement meditation with instruction and a Dharma talk and will be suitable for beginners and experienced meditators.
Fee for the retreat will be $10. Please use our online donation form to pay the retreat fee (https://donorbox.org/support-insight-meditation-society-mid-columbia) and leave a comment indicating that the donation is for the retreat on September 12. The fee will be waived for those who can’t afford it, please send an email to the Registrar’s email address (registrar@insightmeditationmc.org) if you’d like to request a scholarship. Those who are registered for the retreat will receive an email the week of the retreat with additional information.