Insight Meditation

Over its 34-year history, the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts, has become a spiritual home to thousands and is now among the most respected centers for learning and deepening meditation practice. Based on curriculum first developed at IMS, the Insight Meditation online course invites you to experience one of history’s great contemplative practices as it was taught by the Buddha himself, then passed friend to friend for more than 2,500 years.

This self-paced course was originally presented in a 12-week, intensive online learning program highlighted by live audio-learning sessions with IMS cofounders Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein. Our on-demand edition brings you these sessions as they happened, with an additional 17 hours of audio instruction and online workbook material with exercises, articles, and private journaling.

For most of us who have thought about meditation, the challenge has always been, “How do I get started and then keep going?” The Insight Meditation online course offers you the answer as you explore for yourself the Buddha’s path to true freedom one moment at a time. Note: This online course is an adaptation of Insight Meditation: A Correspondence Course and includes essentially the same content as the original course.

Course Highlights

Course Sessions
Session One: The Power of Mindfulness—Basic Meditation Practice
Session Two: Bare Attention—Expanding the Field of Awareness
Session Three: Desire and Aversion—How to Work with Obstacles
Session Four: Sleepiness, Restlessness, and Doubt—Antidotes to Distraction
Session Five: Concepts and Reality—Working with Perception
Session Six: Suffering—The Four Noble Truths
Session Seven: Delusion—Practicing to See Things as They Are
Session Eight: Karma—The Fruits of Our Intentions
Session Nine: Equanimity—The Power of Perspective
Session Ten: Faith and Wisdom—Deepening Our Practice
Session Eleven: Lovingkindness—The Revolutionary Art of Happiness
Session Twelve: Practice in the World—How Wisdom Grows