Gil Fronsdal & IMC

The Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California, grew up around Gil Fronsdal.  Monday through Friday @ 10am EDT they offer a live stream on YouTube.  (Remember all the times on their calendar are Pacific time zone.)  Check out the IMC YouTube channel.

The Issue at Hand is an easy-to-read introduction to mindfulness practice.  I wrote about it here.

Unhindered is perhaps the most natural next book to read.  Here's an alternate form, a six session class with PDFs of the chapters.

Look around the website (go through the main menu items) to appreciate what a wide and deep resource IMC is.  When I sat with them in the 1990's we met in a Quaker meeting house.  Now they have their own meditation center, a retreat center, multiple teachers, a chaplaincy program, and far more, and they do it with no paid staff and no charge for the retreats.  

You can also donate to support their work.

Sundays 8:30pm: Just Sitting

The Thursday morning discussion group recently knocked around ideas for more meditation time together and agreed to kickoff a new weekly 30 minute session on Sunday evenings at 8:30pm.  The first meetup will be Sunday 10/4/2020 @ 8:30.  Zoom invite to be sent by email.  I'll be the host with minimalist duties described below.  

The primary motivation for this is group silent meditation, the feeling being that, with a regular discussion group meeting every other Thursday, more silent time together will be useful for some of us.

Here's how I'd like to do it the first time:

• Open the Zoom session @ 8:15 so people can arrive and settle in, prior to the start of meeting; Zoom host need not be present.
• Start the meeting @ 8:30 with a few words of welcome and a short description of what we're doing; sometimes there might be reminders about setting the intention to meditate; settling into your body; watching your breathing.  I ask that those attending contribute to establishing a meditative intent by not speaking beyond short, informal greetings.
• @ 8:35 ring the bell for the start of silent meditation 
• @ 8:55 ring 3 bells for the end of meditation
• offer a few closing words and end the meeting @ 9pm

Afterward we can gather feedback by email and adjust for next time.

We now have 

• 60 minutes of discussion time every other Thursday morning
• 90 minute sessions every Wednesday morning combining roughly 20 minute meditation, 10 minute presentation, 30 minute mindful discussion, & 30 minute open social time.
• 30 minutes every Sunday night for silent meditation