Virtual Sangha

As we’ve done since March 2020, we provide Sangha via the Zoom platform every Tuesday evening. We meet from 6:30-8:00pm Eastern time.

The standard flow for each gathering is:

  • silent meditation, starting promptly at 6:30pm (30 minutes)

  • a Dharma talk by one of our teachers (~ 30 minutes)

  • breakout group discussion related to Dharma topic (~ 15-20 minutes)

  • full group discussion (~ 10 minutes)

If you would like to participate in a Zoom session, please click here to send an email to one of our administrators, who can provide access instructions. Please send your request at least 72 hours prior to the planned meeting start time.

Mindful Dialogue

(adapted from Insight Meditation Community of Washington)

  • Bow in to speak, and bow out to end sharing.

  • Allow pauses of silence between shares to allow the process to be slow and mindful.

  • Listen deeply with mindfulness, both when speaking and when listening to others.

  • Stay in touch with what is alive and true. Try to speak only from your heart and your own practice, experience, or understanding.

  • Be mindful of what motivates you to speak.

  • Try to avoid intellectual or philosophical sharing, long story-telling, judging, criticizing or challenging another’s perspective or expression. This includes mindfulness of body, face, and other nonverbal communication.

  • All perspectives offered with an open-hearted intention are welcome. If we find ourselves in reaction to any sharing, we have the opportunity to pause silently for mindful reflection and use this as a moment of practice.

  • Try to be lean of expression and aware of making space and time for all to share.

  • Please do not offer advice.

  • Please honor confidentiality.

Meditative Inquiry

Periodically we engage in Meditative Inquiry in our Tuesday night gatherings. Meditative Inquiry can be done alone or in groups. In any given night in which we are engaging in this practice, you may find some members sitting silently, tuning into their own inner experience, while others work in groups of twos or threes quietly. This practice is beautiful both ways and adds to our Dhamma study and silent meditation practice. It is another way of entering the Dhamma, specifically fostering the establishment of wise view and wise mindfulness. It is a relaxed practice and there is NO way of doing it incorrectly. In addition, this practice has the benefit of deepening our Sangha connection.

Meditative Inquiry is fresh, it is about what is arising in this present moment. It is an embodied practice in which we turn awareness toward the whole body. We bring the attitudes of kindness and curiosity to the experience. It is about coming into what is not known yet. It tends to free the mind of the suffering often connected to autopilot - the stories, views, and core beliefs in which we tend to spend a lot of time.

Meditative Inquiry is not about regurgitating old ideas or preconceived notions. It is about tuning into the heart-body-mind complex in this moment, and being open to what is here.

What arises may not be fully formed, may arise in the form of the felt sense, and it may even seem tangential. But, in quiet, in silence, we trust what emerges. It is about making space for this deeper and more intrinsic knowing to come forth.

Inquiry or investigation sits at the heart of ehipassiko, the Pali word for “come see for yourself.” This was the Buddha’s powerful instruction that leads us out of blind faith and into an interest in a deeper knowing of what is true in this moment right now. This furthers the development of our self trust..