Register now for a very special evening:
Saturday, March 31, 6:30 to 9 pm
(Optional Dance Party 9 to 10 pm)
at Insight Meditation Center ~ 108 Birch St., Redwood City

Featuring
Lead Comedy Underwriter: Wes Nisker
Hosted by CEO’s (Chief Enlightenment Officers): Gil Fronsdal and Andrea Fella
Music: Kevin Griffin

After 25 years of success as a start-up in Silicon Valley, IMC proudly announces its first public offering of an IPO (Insight Practice Opportunity). Shares, laughs, and cake will be offered to raise capital for the renovation of our new Insight Retreat Center. Shares are expected to double in merit with every new retreat at our new Insight Retreat Center.

Wes Nisker, lead underwriter and CCO (Chief Comedy Officer), will prevent hostile takeovers and any other ways the evening might be taken too seriously.

Evening Program

• 6:30pm—Reception with refreshments and hors d’oeuvres
• 7:30pm—IPO Launch
• 8:45pm—Dessert and Closing
• 9 to 10pm—Dance Party with Kevin Griffin (Optional)

Registration Required
Suggested Donation: $100 to $500

• Check: Make check out to: Insight Retreat Center and write IPO in memo
• Mail to: Insight Trading at IMC, 108 Birch Street, Redwood City, CA 94062
• Or Register Online and receive a ticket by making a donation at: http://ircipo.eventbrite.com

Questions? Contact Catherine Byers at cabyers50@gmail.com or 650-306-9264.

Compassion is a form of empathy and care that wishes for the alleviation of someone’s suffering. Known as karuna in Buddhism, this compassion is sometimes referred to as the “jewel in the lotus.” The lotus symbolizes the heart or mind that, with practice, blossoms into freedom, and the jewel represents the compassion appearing in the center of this blossom. The feeling of unfettered compassion is one of the most beautiful feelings a person can experience, providing valuable meaning and purpose to any human life.  Its presence is sometimes celebrated in Buddhism as an inner wealth and source of happiness.

Given its importance, Buddhism doesn’t leave the manifestation of compassion to chance. We don’t have to passively accept how often and how strongly we happen to experience it. Instead, it’s possible to actively develop our feelings of compassion and remove the obstacles for our feeling compassionate.

Because people sometimes confuse compassion with feelings of distress, it is helpful to clearly distinguish these two. Compassion doesn’t make us victims of suffering, whereas feeling distress on another’s behalf often does.  Learning how to see the suffering in the world without taking it on personally is very important; when we take it personally it is easy to become depressed or burdened.  We can avoid taking it as a personal burden or obligation if we learn to feel empathy without it touching our own fears, attachments, and perhaps unresolved grief.

This means that to feel greater compassion for others we need to understand our own suffering. Mindfulness practice is a great help in this.  With mindfulness, we can better see our suffering, its roots within us and the way to freedom from suffering; we can begin to cultivate both equanimity toward our suffering and release from its causes.

In this regard, it’s helpful to appreciate the great value in staying present, open, and mindful of suffering, both our own and that of others. We often need to give ourselves time to process difficult events and experiences and to let difficult emotions move through us.  When immediate action is not required, staying mindful of suffering doesn’t necessarily require a lot of wisdom or special techniques. It mostly takes patience and perseverance.  Relaxed mindfulness of our own suffering increases our ability to feel empathy for others’ difficulty and pain. It gives time for understanding and letting go to occur.  By practicing to be free of habitual reactivity, we take the time to see and feel more deeply what is happening.  This allows empathy to operate and for deeper responses to arise from within.  In this way, compassion is evoked rather than intentionally created.

Some people are reluctant to actively cultivate compassion because they worry that it will be insincerely or artificially contrived. Others fear that it will make them sentimentally naive or prevent them from seeing others clearly or realistically—perhaps out of concern they will be taken advantage of if they are compassionate to others.  Because efforts to be compassionate can be misguided, these concerns are worth keeping in mind.  However, as there are healthy ways to increase our compassion, the concerns don’t have to inhibit our efforts to do so.

One effective way of developing compassion is creating conditions that make it more likely to occur. That is, rather than directly making ourselves more compassionate, we can engage in activities that make it more likely to appear naturally.

A condition for compassion is a sense of safety.  It is easier to feel compassionate if we feel safe and very difficult when we don’t.  Therefore, to develop a confident and compassionate life, it can be helpful to find appropriate ways to feel safe.  Locking ourselves in our home may feel secure, but it’s not conducive to caring more about others. Learning how to be safe while in the world is more useful.  So is using mindfulness practice to address some of the anxieties and self-preoccupations that make us more likely to feel threatened.

It is important not to feel obligated to be compassionate as this often leads to self-criticism and stress that interferes with the arising of a natural compassion. Buddhism doesn’t require us to feel empathy and care for others. It does say, however, that we have the capacity to be compassionate and that doing so is a wonderful asset to ourselves, to others, and to the practice of freedom. The focus can be on how compassion enriches us, not depletes us.

Some people are hesitant to cultivate compassion because they worry they will have to give up too much of themselves as they help others.  Or they fear they will have to spend time with people they feel uncomfortable with. By knowing we are not obligated to be compassionate it may be easier for us to use our best wisdom and common sense to understand when acting on compassion is appropriate and when it is not.

Having confidence in our skill to respond to others’ suffering can also make it easier to feel compassion.  If we feel helpless, too uncomfortable, or even threatened by the troubles others are facing, awareness of their suffering may add to a sense of personal threat.  Developing skill has a lot to do with slow and patient training in such things as mindfulness, concentration, and letting go.

A way of strengthening compassion is to understand and then release what prevents it from arising.  For example, tension and stress limit compassion. When we’re stressed, we’re usually too preoccupied for empathy to operate. However, when we’re relaxed, our capacity for empathy increases. People who cultivate deep states of calm often find it naturally opens their hearts to great capacities of compassion and love.

Selfishness and self-preoccupation also obstruct compassion by blocking the attention and sensitivity that is needed for compassion to arise.  One benefit of letting go of selfishness is that compassion arises more easily.

We can also increase the amount of compassion we feel in our lives by setting the intention to do so. This can be quite specific, such as intending to be compassionate in a particular situation or toward a particular person—or it can be more general, as intending to be compassionate for this day or this week. When we consciously set this intention, we’re more likely to be reminded of and to think in terms of compassion. We will also notice compassionate thoughts and impulses that occur but which may otherwise be overshadowed by different desires and concerns.

Valuing compassion when it does appear can also strengthen it and make it more apt to arise in the future. We might consider and appreciate the benefits it can bring others as well as ourselves. Knowing the benefits can bring a sense happiness that in turn can make compassion more appealing.  Compassion can be more appealing when we have seen how it can be a source of happiness and how it can be intimately connected with our inner freedom.  Compassion for others can be a relief when we have spent too long pre-occupied with ourselves.

Another supportive condition is to deliberately reflect on compassion, perhaps stimulated by regularly reading and talking to others about it.  Whatever we think about regularly can become an inclination.  If we repeatedly think about love, kindness and caring for others, thoughts related to compassion are likely to appear more often.

Spending time with people who are compassionate can also help us.  The people we see frequently often have an influence on us. Seeing compassion in others can inspire it in ourselves.

Finally, understanding how compassion is a form of love helps us recognize what a jewel it truly is. When it arises from inner freedom it is then connected to other beautiful capacities of our hearts. It can appear together with well-being, calm, clarity, and peace.

There is, in fact, a great deal we can do to make compassion a more central part of our lives. As compassion grows, our self-centeredness and clinging decrease, and liberation becomes easier. As we become freer, compassion becomes more readily available.  To let compassion and liberation support each other is one of the most beautiful ways of training in the Buddhist path.  It can be our gift to the world.

—Gil Fronsdal

This has been a significant year for IMC.

This year IMC celebrates its 25th anniversary. It’s hard to believe it was 25 years ago that a small Monday evening sitting group began meeting in Menlo Park!  For all these years we have been a steady and stable refuge for those interested in meditation and Buddhist teachings.

This year we also celebrate the 10th anniversary of the purchase of our building in Redwood City.  The ministers who sold us their church chose us because we would continue their practice of sitting in silence.  In our own way, we have aspired to create a place for silent meditation that is welcoming for all people.

In all this time IMC has grown in wonderful and unforeseen ways.  Many more people have benefited from our offerings than I could ever have imagined.

On these anniversaries, I offer my deep gratitude to our dedicated community of volunteers and to all those who have contributed financial support.  They have made it possible to accomplish so much, and have allowed us to continue to offer our programs freely, sustaining the circle of open-handed generosity.

This year is momentous in another way, as well.  As you probably know, this summer we purchased a property that will soon be the Insight Retreat Center (IRC).  Offering residential retreats throughout the year is a natural development for our thriving community, giving practitioners the chance to experience the depth of stillness that’s possible on retreat.  I’m confident that the Insight Retreat Center, like IMC, will grow and nourish our community in many wonderful and unexpected ways.

The donations in response to our end-of-year fundraising letter have been a significant source of IMC’s financial support.  I offer my sincere thanks and appreciation to those of you who are inspired to send a donation this year.

As we will soon begin renovations of the new retreat center, we hope you will also consider making an end-of-year donation to IRC.  We are half way to reaching our IRC fundraising goal. With your help, we’ll complete the renovations on schedule and start offering retreats next fall.

Your generosity is a gift to our entire community. As such, I hope you will also participate in the anumodana (celebratory joy) for what IMC has become.

With Appreciation and Metta,

Gil Fronsdal

If you would like to make a donation, please visit our donation page for more information.

We will have a memorial service in January, at IMC, and will let you know once it’s scheduled.

If you’d like to give your support to her husband Steve, please send a card to:

Steve Gasner
152 Granada Dr.
Mountain View, CA  94043

For those who felt close to Cheryll or Steve, he welcomes visitors this coming weekend: Friday after 4pm, and Saturday and Sunday all day.
You can just stop by.

Cheryll’s wish was that donations in her memory be made to the National Marfan Foundation, of which she was a founding member and President.

We will miss her presence, her warm smile, generous heart, and her ready hugs.

Insight Meditation or Vipassana, is a simple technique, beginning with focusing the attention on the breath. The practice concentrates and calms the mind. At the heart of Insight Meditation is the practice of Mindfulness, a practice of moment-to-moment
observation which cultivates a clear, stable and non-judgmental awareness. While mindfulness practice can be highly effective in helping bring calm and clarity to the pressures of daily life, it is also a spiritual path that gradually dissolves the barriers to the full development of our wisdom and compassion.

During this 6 week introductory course, the basic instructions in insight meditation will be given sequentially, starting with a focus on mindfulness of breathing, followed by mindfulness of the body, of emotions, of thoughts, of mind and of the application of mindfulness in daily life and on retreats. No pre-registration necessary.
Gil Fronsdal

Insight Meditation or Vipassana, is a simple technique, beginning with focusing the attention on the breath. The practice concentrates and calms the mind. At the heart of Insight Meditation is the practice of Mindfulness, a practice of moment-to-moment observation which cultivates a clear, stable and non-judgmental awareness. While mindfulness practice can be highly effective in helping bring calm and clarity to the pressures of daily life, it is also a spiritual path that gradually dissolves the barriers to the full development of our wisdom and compassion.

During this 5 week introductory course, the basic instructions in insight meditation will be given sequentially, starting with a focus on mindfulness of breathing, followed by mindfulness of the body, of emotions, of thoughts, of mind and of the application of mindfulness in daily life and on retreats. No pre-registration necessary.

Jim Podolske’s biography
Shin Kwan Park’s biography

Meditation, gentle yoga, relaxation. Appropriate for all, regardless of experience. Bring a large towel and sticky mat, if you have one. Taught by Terry Lesser.

Terry teaches Yoga for Meditation. She has been teaching classes and retreats at the Insight Meditation Center since 1995. She began practicing yoga in 1984, and has been a student of Vipassana meditation since 1992. Trained in Iyengar style yoga, she also teaches at the California Yoga Center in Palo Alto. Her teaching is gentle, supportive, and sensitive to individual abilities.

This retreat offers an opportunity to develop a continuity of awareness in movement and in stillness. We will integrate yoga poses, breath work, relaxation, loving-kindness (metta), and guided and silent meditation and let the synergy of these practices inform and deepen one another to open heart and mind. The retreat is appropriate for beginners to either yoga or meditation as well as experienced yogis and meditators. You do not have to be flexible to do yoga, nor to have a particular body type; you need only to be as you are. Please bring a large towel and yoga mat if you have one.

Terry teaches Yoga for Meditation. She has been teaching classes and retreats at the Insight Meditation Center since 1995. She began practicing yoga in 1984, and has been a student of Vipassana meditation since 1992. Trained in Iyengar style yoga, she also teaches at the California Yoga Center in Palo Alto. Her teaching is gentle, supportive, and sensitive to individual abilities.

Sunday, October 14 to Sunday, October 21, 2012

Hidden Villa , 26870 Moody Road, Los Altos Hills, CA 94022

Registration opens June 14, 2012.
Information about how to register will be posted here on that day.

Applicants will be admitted to this retreat by lottery.  All applications with deposits that have been received by July 14, 2012 will be entered into a lottery to be held on July 15.  You will be notified during the following week if you have been admitted or are on the wait-list.  Subsequent applications will be added to the wait-list.

Gil Fronsdal’s bio

Hidden Villa , 26870 Moody Road, Los Altos Hills, CA 94022

Registration opens May 16, 2012 May 1, 2012.
NOTE: registration and lottery date change

Information about how to register will be posted here on that day.

Applicants will be admitted to this retreat by lottery.  All applications with deposits that have been received by May 31, 2012 will be entered into a lottery to be held on June 1.  You will be notified during the following week if you have been admitted or are on the wait-list.  Subsequent applications will be added to the wait-list.

This retreat is open to experienced students who have successfully completed at least three 10-day (or longer) silent Vipassana retreats.  Applicants who have not previously sat this retreat must be approved by Gil Fronsdal.  If you are selected in the lottery but have not had prior approval for the retreat, Gil will talk to you.  Please contact Laura Crabb (registrar) at lauracrabb2@gmail.com or 408/380-3002 x80 if you have questions.

Gil Fronsdal’s bio

Flier
Information
Application

Applicants will be admitted to this retreat by lottery. All applications with deposits that have been received by March 16, 2012 will be entered into a lottery to be held on March 17th. You will be notified during the following week if you have been admitted or are on the wait-list. Subsequent applications will be added to the wait-list.

Richard Shankman’s bio
Rebekkah La Dyne’s bio
Liz Powell is IMC Dharma Sprouts and Dharma Rocks family programs leader. She currently serves as an IMC board member and as director of Youth and Family programs at IMC. She has been a meditator since 2004.