Current Events
2026
Jan. 1 – March 28, 2026: Three-Month Meditation Challenge
River Wisdom Insight Meditation Community invites you to deepen your practice with a three-month meditation challenge
Traditionally known as the Rains Retreat in Asian cultures, the three months of rainy season were spent indoors. This was seen as a way for the monks to come together, remain in one place, rather than do their usual wandering alms rounds. This was said to offer protection both to the land from their trampling over new crops and to the people from having to come out to feed them in the rain.
The practice has been carried forth in the states, in Barre MA and in SRMC.
Some years ago, Howie Cohn gave the Mission Dharma Sangha a 100-day challenge of practice for the first 3 months of the year. As part of the challenge, we were to pair off in buddies – someone to check in with during the hundred days, to be accountable to and to just see how it was going. I joined with 2 others, forming a small group of 3. Our little Kalyana Metta group continued for years after as a solid dharma support and check in group.
This new year 2026 you are being invited to this challenge. Beginning on the first day of the new year and ending on March 28 (the last Saturday of March), you will develop a daily practice which can look however you would like.
- Setting up your daily practice. It could be 5 mins a day, 20 or 30… It could be sitting, walking, or lying down… You get to decide what the form it would be. Let it be consistent in whatever way that works for you.
- Set your intention. What would you like that to be? Again, there are many choices: gratitude, forgiveness, loving kindness, compassion, patience, wise speech (inner & outer), letting go of control, of needing things to be a certain way… What is up for you?
- Find a buddy, someone who you will check in with regularly- how often is up to you. If you need help finding someone, we will assist.
- Use the Insight Timer App to track your daily progress. I have found doing that is an additional motivating force or aid in keeping on track.
To provide guidance, there will be additional Zoom sessions on Wed., Feb. 18 and Wed., March 18, 10 – 11 am. To join, use the Zoom link provided here (this is the same link as for our Saturday meetings).
May we all grow in wisdom, compassion, and joy, as we deepen our practice together. -Linda Rose
Past Events
2025
Sept. 26 and 27: Anita Bermont
Insight Dialogue Mini- Retreat
Practicing With The Three Poisons/Three Fires
Dana: The teacher does not receive any money from these fees, instead offering the dharma freely through the spirit of dana or “generosity”. There will be an opportunity to offer dana, which will go directly to Anita Bermont. The registration fees only cover administrative costs to host the event, such as rental fees etc. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Fees:
Friday evening: Open to the public, suggested donation $ 10.
Saturday day-long: Registration fees apply.
About This Retreat
Please join us in this non-residential mini retreat exploring three particular roots or causes of so much suffering in the world: greed, aversion and ignorance.
We will investigate these natural tendencies of the mind and become more familiar with how to skillfully meet these states when they arise: With more kindness, compassion, generosity, and mutuality. Insight Dialogue meditation practice will allow us to listen deeply and speak the truth, with heightened mindfulness and awareness to what arises and becomes known in the investigation.
On Friday evening, there will be an opening talk and practice session. On Saturday, there will be a full day of practice, including silent sitting, talks, Insight Dialogue practice with partners, walking meditation and large group open dialogue practice. Adequate time will be made available for body care breaks.
About Insight Dialogue
Insight Dialogue is an interpersonal meditation practice that rests on three bases, each powerful in its own right: meditative awareness, the wisdom teachings of the Buddhadhamma, and relationship. It has the same purposes and traditional roots as silent meditation: developing mindfulness, compassion and liberating insight.
About Anita Bermont
Anita Bermont guides Insight Dialogue practice both online and in-person. When first encountering Insight Dialogue in the mid-’90s, the practice spoke immediately and strongly to her heart. With this recognition came a deep commitment to participating in the first face-to-face practice group. As the years have gone by, her commitment to the path inspired a return to school, earning an MA in Buddhist Studies. She participates in many of the Insight Dialogue Community teams and practice cohorts and coordinates the Insight Dialogue Teaching Community Coordinating team. Insight Dialogue gets called her ‘heart song’ practice and it is from this place that the practice is shared. Anita lives in Portland, OR.
2025
June 6 – 8: Tuere Sala
The Importance of Maintaining Inner Stability in External Uncertainty
Tuere is a Guiding Teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and at Seattle Insight Meditation Society. The retreat was held at Saraha Nyingma Buddhist Temple in Eugene.
The Importance of Emptiness, Hiri and Ottappa
About Tuere Sala
Tuere Sala is a Guiding Teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and Seattle Insight Meditation Society. She is a retired prosecuting attorney who has practiced Vipassana meditation for over 30 years. Tuere is committed to lay practice and inspired by bringing the Dharma to nontraditional places. She is a strong advocate for practitioners living with high stress, past trauma and difficulties sitting still. Tuere has been teaching since 2010 and has a long history of assisting others in establishing and maintaining a daily practice.
Tuere’s Dhamma talks can be found on https://www.dharmaseed.org. You can contact Tuere at https://tueresala.org.
About this Retreat
The Importance of Maintaining Inner Stability in External Uncertainty
When external conditions begin to fluctuate and spin at a fast pace, we need to know how to ground and stabilize ourselves internally. This is what the four foundations of mindfulness are pointing towards. Knowing how to establish mindfulness is an empowerment. It creates agency in oneself and allows us to move through challenging situations with strength and integrity.
2024
Dec. 21: Solstice Sound Meditation (“Sound Bath”)
Special Winter Solstice Sound Meditation at Buddha Eye Temple, held Saturday, Dec. 21 2024, 10:30 -11:45 AM. Kate Savage presented a sonic journey created with crystal & Tibetan Singing Bowls, gong, light percussion, and more. The soundscape was tuned to 432 Hz, a frequency found in nature and in sacred geometry, which offers deep calm and nervous system regulation.
2024
Insight Dialogue Practice based on the Brahma Viharas
by Anita Bermont
About This Course
Imagine a world where the Brahma Viharas, the Divine Abodes of goodwill/loving kindness, compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity are the foundation in which all words, actions and deeds arise from. To make these qualities manifest in the world, we begin by examining our own minds and hearts to become more familiar with where these qualities are already well developed as well as where our capacities for their expression can be strengthened.
In this 4-session offering, we will spend time deepening our understanding and integration of each Brahma Vihara. With the additional support of the Insight Dialogue meditation instructions, we will share in contemplative investigation together that includes speaking and listening.
Some previous silent meditation practice is recommended.
No previous Insight Dialogue experience is necessary, although it is recommended that if the practice is new to you, you spend some time on the Insight Dialogue Community website to become familiar with the guidelines of this practice.
2024
July 26 and 27: Retreat with Trina Truong
Let Go To Be Free
Trina is the co-guiding teacher at Pacific Northwest Meditation in Portland. She has served on the Teacher’s Council at Portland Insight Meditation Community, and founded a daily meditation group in 2020, “Wake Up Together” (see link below).
Trina combines the teachings of Thay Thich Nhat Hanh with the Insight teachings. She calls her approach “Thaypassana”.
Daylong Retreat Description
About Trina Truong
The Roots of Mindfulness with Kate Savage, CMT-P
A five-week class in mindfulness meditation (March 2024)
This is a course for beginning meditators, those who wish to deepen or reinvigorate their practice, and for those who want to learn about the roots of mindfulness (also known as “vipassana” or insight) meditation.
Each class offers practical, evidence-based approaches to meditation in a course designed to build on concepts covered in previous sessions. Weekly teaching and discussion will be followed by experiential guided meditations, with time for reflection and Q & A. Participants will learn about the science of mindfulness while exploring a range of practices such as mindfulness of breath and body, dealing with stress, walking meditation, mindful eating, befriending and working with our busy minds, and more.
Over the five weeks, students will be encouraged to meditate on their own in order to more fully experience the benefits of regular practice, supported by mid-week recap emails with recorded meditations. The deep history of Buddhist wisdom underlying each of the practices will offer a more complete understanding of the “why and how” of meditation.
About Kate Savage
Kate’s formal meditation study began in 1993 in the lineage of Thich Nhat Hanh. While she has explored many meditation traditions, finding her way to insight (“vipassana”) meditation in 2013 felt like a homecoming. In 2018, Kate graduated Insight LA’s teacher training with Trudy Goodman-Kornfield, and she became a Certified Mindfulness Teacher-Professional (CMT-P) through the International Mindfulness Teachers Association in 2019. Other study includes Mindful Schools Yearlong teacher training, Eco Sattva, White Awake, UCLA MARC’s trauma-sensitive Meditation Safety Training, Insight LA’s Dedicated to the Dharma, Dharma and Art at Barre Center for Buddhist Study, and Dharma Here and Now training with Dave Smith. Kate leads mindfulness classes and retreats at meditation and wellness centers, schools, businesses, health-care settings and for city employees.
An Introduction to Insight Dialogue with Guest Teacher Dave Leggatt
Weekend Workshop/Retreat (Sept. 2023)
About Insight Dialogue
Insight Dialogue is an interpersonal meditation practice that rests on three bases, each powerful in its own right: meditative awareness, the wisdom teachings of the Buddhadhamma, and relationship. It has the same purposes and traditional roots as silent meditation: developing mindfulness, compassion and liberating insight.
In this short Introduction to Insight Dialogue we’ll take a journey through the Buddha’s teachings on Kalyanamitta and the Brahma Viharas to explore the power of good friends practicing together. This offering will focus on the embodiment of the practice and practical ways to use these teachings in everyday life.
About Dave Leggatt
Dave Leggatt practiced in the Vipassana tradition for many years. He was introduced to Insight Dialogue in 2011 and joined the Insight Dialogue facilitator program in 2016. Since then Dave has been facilitating and teaching in-person workshops, retreats and online offerings. Aware of the importance of spiritual friendship and the power of Insight Dialogue practiced in daily life, he enjoys expanding the boundaries of practice for himself and others. He founded the annual Kalyanamittata retreat and offers practice in the global Insight Dialogue community. He is active on a number of community teams. Dave lives in Toronto, Canada.