Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center: dharma talks and meditation instruction

341 episodes - English - Latest episode: 1 day ago -

IMS’s Retreat Center first opened its doors in 1976. It offers a yearly schedule of meditation courses, lasting from a weekend to three months. Most retreats are designed for both new and experienced meditators. Recognized insight meditation teachers from all over the world offer daily instruction and guidance in Buddhist meditations known as vipassana (insight) and metta (lovingkindness). While the context is the Buddha’s teachings, these practices are universal and help us to deepen awareness and compassion.

Buddhism Religion & Spirituality dharma dhamma seed insight meditation vipassana metta ims retreat buddhism
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Episodes

Devon Hase: The Second Music

February 15, 2024 15:58 - 54 minutes - 25.1 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Reflections on love, devotion, and finding truth through the Three Characteristics.

Andrea Castillo: Heart practices

February 14, 2024 19:13 - 44 minutes - 20.5 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) The practice of generosity, lovingkindness, and compassion. Introduction and guided meditation.

Devon Hase: Receiving Metta from the Earth

February 13, 2024 19:12 - 42 minutes - 19.5 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Teachings on Brahma Vihara practice and guided Receiving Care meditation

Jessica Morey: When a starfish is stuck on your face

February 13, 2024 15:58 - 1 hour - 28 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) A talk about what mindfulness is, it's relationship to concentration, and why it's useful to practice

Devon Hase: Mindfulness of Emotions

February 07, 2024 08:16 - 52 minutes - 24.2 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Reflections and guided practice on the third foundation of Mindfulness of the Heart-Mind (Cittanupassana).

Devon Hase: Wholeness and the Four Noble Truths

February 06, 2024 16:00 - 48 minutes - 22.3 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Discussions of returning to wholeness, and opening to wisdom and love. New interpretation of the Four Noble Truths

Devon Hase: Mindfulness of the Breath and Mindfulness of Sounds

February 04, 2024 08:14 - 54 minutes - 24.8 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Introduction to satipatthana with a guided meditation on sounds and breathing

Devon Hase: Introduction to the Brahma Viharas

February 03, 2024 19:31 - 43 minutes - 20 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Short teaching and overview of the divine abodes, followed by a guided receiving care practice.

Devon Hase: Mindfulness of Eating

February 03, 2024 11:35 - 14 minutes - 6.44 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Short teaching on the practice of mindful eating, including quote from Sonya Renée Taylor (author of The Body is Not an Apology).

Rebecca Bradshaw: Saṅkhāra Dukkha and vulnerability

November 18, 2022 19:30 - 1 hour - 28.3 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Suffering due to contingency and sense impediment the resulting vulnerability in how to hold it

Jill Shepherd: Liberation through non-clinging

November 13, 2022 19:30 - 46 minutes - 21.5 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) An exploration of the clinging aggregate of Saṅkhāra, volitional mental formations, and their role in constructing self-view

Brian Lesage: The impulse for intimacy and the Dharma

November 12, 2022 19:30 - 53 minutes - 24.5 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

Kim Allen: Guided meditation: metta the neutral and difficult person

November 11, 2022 19:28 - 46 minutes - 21.4 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) After establishing metta with an "easy being" we can train the heart to offer goodwill to a person we do not know, and also to one who is challenging for us. Our hearts grow stronger as metta deepens and expands.

Kim Allen: Perception: distortions of it and training of it (perception)

November 09, 2022 19:29 - 52 minutes - 24.1 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) How we label our experience has it major impact on how much we suffer. We can train this function of mind to be wiser and less distorted

Bhante Buddharakkhita: Freedom through the practice of impermanence (anicca)

November 08, 2022 19:29 - 57 minutes - 26.4 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) The practice of impermanence can help us to overcome all kinds of cravings and experience freedom from suffering.

Winnie Nazarko: Thoughts and meditation

November 07, 2022 19:30 - 55 minutes - 25.4 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Is thinking/thought inside or outside of meditation practices? This talk explores how to consider thought, and how do use it to wake up

Jill Shepherd: Right effort

November 06, 2022 19:30 - 51 minutes - 23.5 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Exploring ways that effort can become unbalanced, some antidotes, and the Buddhas four-part definition of right effort in the noble eightfold path.

Brian Lesage: Being somebody and being nobody.

November 05, 2022 19:30 - 59 minutes - 27.1 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

Bhante Buddharakkhita: Mindfulness of Choicelessness.

November 04, 2022 08:15 - 58 minutes - 27 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) The practice of choiceless awareness is very important for progressing on the path to liberation

Brian Lesage: Guided loving-kindness meditation

November 03, 2022 19:31 - 44 minutes - 20.4 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) This talk offers reflections on the importance of kindness for ourselves. This is followed by a guided meditation that includes receiving kindness, kindness for a benefactor, and kindness for oneself.

Jill Shepherd: Mindfulness Of Cetana/Intention

November 03, 2022 08:15 - 55 minutes - 25.6 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Exploring the "about to" moment of intention that occurs before every action of body, speech, and mind.

Kim Allen: Faith and wisdom

November 02, 2022 19:29 - 43 minutes - 19.8 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) This pair of faculties – broadly speaking, the "heart" and the "mind" – can be harmonized such that our practice grows strong and balanced.

Bhante Buddharakkhita: Turning the five hindrances into wisdom

November 01, 2022 19:29 - 59 minutes - 27.3 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Meeting the five hindrances with mindfulness and wisdom can make a huge difference in either being caught in them or being free from them

Jill Shepherd: An overview of the four Bramhavihara.

October 30, 2022 19:30 - 44 minutes - 20.2 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) How the four skillful qualities of kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity work together to support balanced practice

Bhante Buddharakkhita: Mindfulness of the four elements

October 30, 2022 08:14 - 42 minutes - 19.7 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Mindfulness of the four elements helps to mentally dissect the body and go deeper into a visceral experience of the body

Brian Lesage: Offering the gift of our Dharma practice

October 29, 2022 19:28 - 49 minutes - 22.6 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

Carol Wilson: Perception of impermanence.

October 09, 2022 19:30 - 54 minutes - 25.2 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

Carol Wilson: Morning sit and Q&A

October 09, 2022 09:00 - 14 minutes - 6.77 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

Monica Antunes: Metta To Neutral Catagory

October 04, 2022 15:30 - 1 hour - 28.2 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Expanding the metta practice to the neutral category while working towards the unboundless nature of the quality of metta

Carol Wilson: Morning questions and answers

October 03, 2022 08:59 - 15 minutes - 7.25 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

Carol Wilson: Exploring Sense Of Self

October 02, 2022 19:29 - 50 minutes - 23.3 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) De-mystifying the felt sense of self with steady awareness noticing birth and death of self many times per day

Greg Scharf: Walking The Path

September 26, 2022 19:30 - 55 minutes - 25.2 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

Carol Wilson: The Dart: Understanding Vedana

September 25, 2022 19:30 - 54 minutes - 24.8 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

Guy Armstrong: Concentration

September 23, 2022 19:31 - 1 hour - 29 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Concentration as a unification of mind brings stability of attention and is the foundation for liberating insight. Benefits of Samatha and vipassana. What blocks concentration and how to develop it in the retreat setting.

Greg Scharf: Morning instructions and guided meditation

September 23, 2022 08:15 - 58 minutes - 26.9 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Bringing mindfulness to thoughts and thinking

Sally Armstrong: The Judging mind

September 22, 2022 19:30 - 59 minutes - 27.5 MB

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Many of us have a tendency to be critical and judgmental of ourselves and others. In meditation, this habit can seem quite strong and can create a lot of suffering. But mindfulness is a wonderful tool to enable us to see these thoughts for what they are, so we can begin to bring wisdom and understanding to them. The good news is, like any conditioned habit, we can learn to decondition this pattern.