This Week's Events

Classes

Retreats

Welcome to Bellingham Insight

Bellingham Insight Meditation Society (BIMS) supports meditation and practice in the Buddhist Theravada tradition. We do not have a single guiding teacher. Rather, we are a sangha-led community. We bring in regional and national teachers, including monastics, for residential and non-residential retreats. Our weekly programs are facilitated by senior members in coordination with our Board and Program Committee.

Bellingham Insight Meditation Society welcomes visitors. To receive announcements and links to our Zoom meetings, join our list-serve by emailing bellinghaminsight+subscribe@googlegroups.com or by e-mailing the listserv moderator.

Insight meditation is a simple and direct practice, the moment-to-moment investigation of the mind/body process through calm and focused awareness. Learning to observe experience from a place of stillness enables one to relate to life with less fear and clinging. Seeing life as a constantly changing process, one begins to accept pleasure, pain, fear, joy and all aspects of life with increasing equanimity and balance. As insight deepens, wisdom and compassion arise. This practice is sometimes called "vipassana", which is a Pali word for insight.

We meet at the Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship (BUF): 1207 Ellsworth Street (at the corner of Ellsworth and I Street a few blocks north of downtown). The main entrance faces Ellsworth Street.

You can become a member of the Bellingham Insight Meditation Society by completing the Membership form found on the Supporting BIMS page.

News

No Meeting on Tuesday, April 22nd

There will be no BIMS meeting at the Unitarian Fellowship or online this Tuesday. There will be a large event at the Fellowship that night. It is an interfaith Earth Day event.

Zen teacher Tim Burnett will be one of the speakers.

You may want to attend, either at BUF or online.

We will be back at BUF and online the next week, on April 29th.

Here is the zoom link for the Earth Day event.

http://zoom.us/j/738363620

ID 738363620, password BUF

4/18/25

Tuere Sala Retreat at Camp Samish, April 19th to 25th, 2025

Join Tuere Sala for a five-day residential retreat, hosted by Bellingham Insight Meditation Society (BIMS), on Samish Island, Saturday April 19th to Friday April 25th. The retreat's title is "Cultivating a Mind in Balance".

THIS RETREAT IS FULL. PLEASE FILL OUT THE FORM AT THIS LINK IF YOU WISH TO BE PUT ON THE WAITING LIST.

In this retreat we will explore how seven friends–the seven factors of awakening–can develop in our practice and support our mind to find a deep balance between ease and energy. These seven factors are beautiful qualities of the mind that are innate potentials in all of us. When developed, they lead to awakening; they are also characteristics of the awakened mind.

Tuere Sala is a Co-Guiding Teacher at Seattle Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock Retreat Center. 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.

Learn more about the retreat at this link.

We are using online registration for this retreat. The registration form is found at this link.

4/4/25

Regular Activities

-Tuesday Night Group Meditation

-Tuesday Night Programs

-Book Club

-Soup with the Sangha

-Sangha Mamas