Events Calendar

Keri Pederson, Senior Teacher at Seattle Insight Meditation Society (SIMS), will offer a talk and meditation on Friday, September 11, from 7:00 - 8:30 pm.

She will also offer a retreat the following day, September 12, from 9:00 am - 4:00 pm.

Keri will be assisted by Temira Lital, a Local Dharma Leader with SIMS.

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.

The title of the retreat is "Dropping the Burden, Stopping the 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.

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?