Ruth King shares that “Racism is a heart disease, and it’s curable.” In this talk she shares insights from her new book, Mindful of Race, and her approach of blending mindfulness principles and meditation with an exploration of our racial conditioning, its impact, and our potential. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Pat Coffey shares that the Buddha offered a path and practices for his students to learn how to navigate and settle peacefully in relationship to the vicissitudes of life. All of us are subject to what he called the 8 Worldly Winds. They are gain, loss, status, disgrace, censure, praise, pleasure and pain. Most people spend their entire lives buffeted by the turbulence of these ‘winds’, never knowing the deep peace and restoration possible by learning how to work skillfully with these energies. Meditation teachers and practitioners all have their favorite methods and techniques. In this talk, Pat shares what he considers the most important aspect of practice. The methodology of how to conceptualize and work with the Worldly Winds in a way that brings deep peace and restoration of body and mind. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Susan Stone shares that at a time when truth is a frequent hostage to those with the loudest or angriest voices, our insight tradition teaches truth-telling as a practice. The practice includes, but reaches beyond, the statement of facts. It involves consciously aligning with and embodying our deepest truths and values. Following a guided meditation, Susan Stone will explore how truth-telling is a sane and compassionate practice that leads us onward on our spiritual journey. This session is suitable for beginners as well as seasoned practitioners. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Jeanne van Gemert shares how the added dimensions of the Buddhist teaching expand our perspective and provide richness to our path. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Susan Stone shares that the Buddha said his Dharma (teaching) is "good in the beginning, good in the middle and good in the end." Following a guided meditation, Susan will offer overview observations about the Buddha's graduated teaching. Grounded in the wisdom of loving, skillful and ethical approaches in daily life, the teaching expands to the mystery of formlessness. It is a transformative, lifetime journey, and it welcomes us at every stage. All is good. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Pat Coffey shares that every spiritual path worth it's salt has elements of practice. Real transformation requires this. There is no end-run around practicing. In a real sense, any skill you have learned..... you have earned. As humans, we are naturally inclined to move away from anything challenging and toward pleasure. That is how we roll. Given that, establishing a transformative spiritual practice is significantly supported by finding ways to bring elements of pleasantness into practice. This evening we will look at various ways to bring Joy and pleasant means into your practice such that it moves formal practice from being another improvement project to a 'looked-forward-to' time of your day that is restorative, calming and joyful. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Susan Stone shares in this talk: in this fraught world, it is helpful to remember the Buddha's teaching of living in joy and love even among those who hate. When we look deeply into the teachings, we realize the way to do this requires us not only to cultivate lovingkindness and compassion, but to move into difficult territory that we almost instinctively resist—namely, our resistance to the inherent pain of Life. Following a guided meditation, Susan will offer a talk that explores the Buddha's 1st Noble Truth, the truth of suffering. The talk investigates how living in joy and love calls on us, as the Dharma teaches, to surrender, even as we work to alleviate suffering. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Sharon Beckman-Brindley shares that in the Mahanama Sutta, the Buddha teaches us how to cultivate the mind so that it becomes a fertile ground for true, deep and lasting awakening from the trance of suffering. In this talk, we will together explore his instruction to Mahanama, investigating the ways that this teaching offers practical encouragement and guidance with the mind's modern confusions and dilemmas. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Pat Coffey explores the view or perspective of how this creation operates will determine your level of happiness or suffering. If your view is a Wise View, a view aligned with nature you will suffer less and enjoy greater happiness. It is just that simple. The Buddha has declared that a Wise View is both the beginning and end of the contemplative path. Without the arising of even a tepid perspective that a contemplative practice might hold some benefit for you there is no further exploration. No contemplative practice ever gets started. If you are reading this description from our website there is already something turning in you. There is an interest, an inspiration, a curiosity to explore the possibility that there is benefit in a contemplative practice. That is your beginning. As your practice matures your view, your perspective, your weltanschauung becomes ever richer, nuanced and aligned with the natural flow. Suffering decreases and joy, love, compassion and peace abound. In this talk we explore the Buddhist concept of Wise View and how to cultivate the kind of perspective that serves you and all those around you. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

IMCC is pleased to welcome guest teacher, Caverly Morgan. She is the Founder and Guiding Teacher of Peace in Schools and Presence Collective. She trained for eight years in a silent monastery and now teaches meditation through retreats, workshops, and online courses nationally and internationally. Peace in Schools has created the first, for credit mindfulness class for public High Schools and also offers mindfulness trainings for adults. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

This is the final in a ten-part series focusing on active engagement with the four heart qualities that are a prominent part of the Buddha’s teachings. The qualities, known as Brahma Viharas, are lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. In this talk Sharon Beckman-Brindley, Susan Stone, Jeff Fracher, Teresa Miller, and Helen Farrar lead a discussion of the Brahma Viharas series. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org