Ongoing: Start Your Week Well – Monday Morning Online Sitting
with the Auckland Insight Meditation Community

Start your week well by joining Auckland Insight for a regular Monday morning Zoom sitting hosted by Guiding Teacher, Jill Shepherd
Mondays 7:30- 8:00 am NZT. Everyone is welcome.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3011573331 Meeting ID: 301 157 3331

Start Your Week Well – Monday Morning Online Sitting
with the Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre community

Start your week well by joining BMIMC for a regular Monday morning Zoom sitting hosted by Jill Shepherd and others from the BMIMC community
Mondays 7:30-8:00 am AEST. Everyone is welcome.

Register here to get the Zoom link


Insight Dialogue Asia Pacific Sangha’s 2026 Series on the Whole Life Path

offered by Beth Faria, Jill Shepherd and Anita Bermont

“The Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path provides a wiser way through life than any offered by our conditioning. It’s an intentional path through life’s tangle. And intention is necessary. Any change for the good must face the momentum that made things as they are now. Old habits run deep within us; we complicate, palliate, protect and meander. …

If we truly aspire to ending our personal ignorance and craving, supporting relationships rooted in mettā and compassion, and contributing to human flourishing and a just and humane society, then we need a fully immersive, always-on engagement with the Noble Eightfold Path. We need to engage the Buddha’s path as a whole-life path.” – Gregory Kramer

In 2026, the global Insight Dialogue community will celebrate the fifth anniversary of Gregory Kramer’s book, A Whole-Life Path. Here at IDAP, we’ll join that celebration by exploring the Noble Eightfold Path together, using Gregory’s book as a resource.

Over the course of the whole year*, we’ll discover how the eight factors can be strengthened in both silent and relational meditation and in every moment of our daily lives, powerfully supporting our progress on the Buddha’s path to freedom.

* We will offer a total of eighteen practice sessions, spread over three series of six meetings, with a one-month break between each series. 

Series 3 (6 Oct – 15 Dec) will focus on the Meditative factors of the path: Wise Effort, Wise Mindfulness, and Wise Samādhi

Date and Time: 
Series 3: 6 October 2026- 15 December 2026

Each series will run for 6 sessions on every other Wednesday (Australia, NZ and Asia)/Tuesday (North America), 10-11:30 am AET

Suitable for Asia Pacific and North American time zones. Please see your local time here.

Prerequisite:  
Participants must have completed an ‘Introduction to Insight Dialogue’ course and/or an Insight Dialogue retreat of two days or more, so they have a working knowledge of the Insight Dialogue Guidelines. 

Join an introduction to Insight Dialogue here.  

Registration and attendance: You are invited to register one or more series. You are asked to commit to all 6 sessions of each series you sign up for. 

Language: English

Dāna: The teachings are freely offered. Participants will be invited to offer dāna to support the teachers.

More information and to register: here

Balancing Effort and Enjoyment

This weekend retreat will focus on the balance between effort and enjoyment in insight meditation, to help refresh, renew, and re-inspire your practice.

For many people, enjoyment is less well developed than effort—as it was for the Buddha himself at the start of his own journey to freedom—so there will be an emphasis on cultivating skillful, positive mental states such as appreciation, gladness, ease, calm, and contentment, as supports for finding more balance in your meditation and your daily life.

Hosted by the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts

Time and dates: 7:00 pm ET Friday, October 23 to 3:00 pm Sunday, October 25

More information and to register: here

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Start Your Year Well

Saturday 2 January 2027
Friday 1 January in the Americas and Europe

Since June 2020, I’ve been offering an online meditation on Monday mornings called “Start Your Week Well.” As an extension of that idea, you’re invited to join me and meditators from around the world for a full day of drop-in practice to help start your year well.

  • Meditation sessions: Every hour I’ll lead a lightly guided 30-minute sitting, grounded in mindfulness and the heart practices of kindness and compassion
  • Breaks: Between sessions there will be a 30-minute break for walking and/or written reflection.
    I’ll suggest some prompts to help you look back on the year just gone and prepare for the year ahead, so we can move into it with a little more calm, kindness and clarity.
  • Relational practice (optional): At 1:30 pm NZT you can join breakout rooms to connect with other meditators and explore a dharma theme together.
  • Drop in as you like: Join as many sessions as suits you and your time zone.

This event is suitable for beginners as well as experienced meditators, and is offered on a dāna (donation) basis.

Please make sure to register for a ticket, so that you can be sent the Zoom registration link a day before the event starts, plus more detailed information about the timing of meditation sessions throughout the day.

Times and date:

Auckland 8:30 am – 4:30 pm NZDT Saturday 2 January

Sydney 6:30 am – 2:30 pm AEDT Saturday 2 January

Singapore 3:30 am – 11:30 am SGT Saturday 2 January

San Francisco 11:30 am – 7:30 pm PST Friday 1 January

New York 2:30 pm – 10:30 pm EST Friday 1 January

For other countries, check your time here:
https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

Cost: $0 + dāna*
*Dāna means generosity, and there’s no fee to attend. In keeping with Buddhist tradition, I offer these teachings freely. At the end of the day, there will be an opportunity to offer a donation to support my ongoing teaching.

Register: here