Insight Meditation Society • ESSENTIAL MINDFULNESS • Online Class

Mindfulness is a quality of awareness in which our perception of the present moment’s experience is not distorted by biases such as old fears, assumptions, or projection into the future. It shows us what life looks like when we see through the lens of universal conditions such as impermanence and interconnection. Mindfulness spearheads the path of understanding our lives by helping us to notice what causes us suffering and what brings us freedom from suffering. It is the root of living our lives more fully and more truly.

Register Here

This program explores the meditative techniques of mindfulness applied in a variety of contexts, including wrestling with dukkha, making ethical decisions, seeking wisdom, coping with trauma, communicating, practicing lovingkindness, exploring equanimity, the commonality of science and mindfulness, and the role of mindfulness in everyday life.

Whether you use mindfulness to manage stress or difficult emotions, improve relationships, increase engagement, or enhance your overall well-being, these discussions can help you further live your mindfulness practice. This nine-month program features IMS teachers from many generations and backgrounds. You can participate in all nine months or pick and choose the topics that interest you most.

Despite common assumptions, equanimity is not indifference or withdrawal from life. Cultivating the quality doesn’t lead to numbness or the endless pursuit of naps. Equanimity can be described as balance: a spacious stillness that allows us to recognize things as they are. The power of this balance is that it allows us to avoid both apathy and indifference on the one hand, and acute reactivity on the other. This can be most helpful when we are facing challenging times in our lives, especially those that involve caring about others while at the same time facing the fact that we are not in control. When true equanimity is present, it is the ground out of which resilience is strengthened so that sustained transformation can occur.

In this module of Essential Mindfulness, IMS co-founder Sharon Salzberg will explore equanimity—a secret ingredient in mindfulness. She will reflect on how equanimity moves us from rigidity and narrowness to expansion and freedom, allowing us to live more fully and understand our lives more deeply.

This program will be recorded and made available for on-demand viewing after the live sessions. On-demand videos will be available for 90 days following the live event.