SIM's Insight Mediation sitting group is designed to provide a safe and friendly environment where we can meet, develop our meditation skill and knowledge, practice together, and develop friendships.

The usual format includes a silent or guided meditation period, a question and answer period on meditation practice issues, and a talk and discussion. The evenings are structured to introduce, review, and work with core principles of meditation practice and their supporting meditative psychology. Emphasis is placed on exploring the use of meditative awareness in daily life and relationships.

The topic for each Thursday evening is examined in the context of a number of important experiential questions:

• How can meditative awareness help us live a more conscious, wise, and compassionate life?
• What would it look and feel like for meditative awareness to manifest itself in our intentions, thinking, decision-making, listening, speaking, and conduct?
• How is meditative awareness specifically relevant to everyday life?

Most Thursday evenings include a handout summarizing the important points of the talk and discussion and include specific experiential homework. Each session includes recommendations for experiential "homework." This takes the form of specific practices or experiential questions that provide a framework for investigating and applying the teachings and materials covered during talks and discussion directly to day-to-day activities. See Sitting Group Model Handout for a representative illustration.

See Thursday Evening Topics for a listing of the topics that will be explored on particular dates.

You are invited to attend these Thursday evening gatherings whenever you have time, or want to make time, to enjoy sitting in meditation with others and exploring topics relating to meditation practice and its use in daily life.

Everyone is welcome, on a drop-in basis, regardless of prior meditation practice experience or tradition. No prior experience is necessary. No pre-registration is required.