Insight Meditation Community of Bloomington-Normal

06/03/2026

Tomorrow morning is a chance to pause, settle, and practice mindfulness meditation together.

We’ll gather for One Mindful Morning — a half-day meditation retreat at the Bloomington Public Library.

This retreat offers a quiet, formal space to practice together, with light guidance to support and strengthen your mindfulness meditation practice.

Through sitting and walking meditation, we’ll practice developing a few simple but powerful skills: stabilizing attention, recognizing when the mind is caught in doing, and learning how to gently return to presence.

One of the themes we’ll explore is the difference between the mind in a state of doing and the mind in a state of being.

The doing mind helps us plan, solve problems, remember, and move through daily life. The being mind rests more fully in present-moment experience. Learning to recognize both can help us move through life with a little more steadiness, clarity, and ease.

If you already have a vipassana practice, or have been wanting a more intentional space to practice, you’re warmly welcome.

We’ll meet in a spacious community room at the Bloomington Public Library, with plenty of room for walking meditation and quiet reflection.

March 7 | 9:15 a.m.–12:00 p.m.

Suggested donation: $35

Visit our event calendar: https://www.insightblono.com/event-calendar

Register here:
https://pci.jotform.com/form/252547440288159

Please click the link to complete this form.

05/03/2026

Alan Watts (1915–1973) was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker who became one of the most influential interpreters of Eastern philosophy for Western audiences. After moving to the United States in the 1930s, he helped introduce Zen Buddhism, Taoism, and Hindu philosophy to a generation of seekers during the cultural shifts of the 1950s and 60s.

He is most known for translating complex spiritual ideas into clear, vivid language—often with humor and poetic flair. His classic book, The Way of Zen, remains one of the most widely read introductions to Zen in the West.

04/03/2026

A common misunderstanding about meditation:

“I’m not good at it because I think too much.”

Vipassana is not about stopping thoughts.
It’s about changing your relationship to them.

In practice, we learn to:
• Notice a thought arise
• Feel it linger
• Watch it fade

Without chasing it.
Without pushing it away.

The mind becomes less sticky. Less reactive. More balanced.

During One Mindful Morning, we’ll practice this gently — with clear instruction, silent sitting, and walking meditation in a spacious, quiet community room at the Bloomington Public Library.

March 7 | 9:15–12:00
Suggested donation: $35

If you’ve been wanting to deepen your practice, this is a wonderful opportunity.

Register here:
https://pci.jotform.com/form/252547440288159

03/03/2026

Meditation Tip – Loving-Kindness Practice ❤️

Try offering yourself simple phrases like, “May I be safe. May you be at ease.” Start with yourself, then expand outward.
Loving-kindness meditation has been shown to increase compassion, connection, and positive emotions.
🔗 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5704778/

Who feels easiest — or most challenging — to offer kindness to?

02/03/2026

A gentle reminder that we’re gathering tonight, Monday, March 2nd, at 6:30 p.m. on Zoom for our Sangha meeting.

Tonight, we’ll jump back into our new sangha book, Trusting the Gold: Uncovering Your Natural Goodness by Tara Brach. This book offers a compassionate path toward greater peace, self-acceptance, and connection.

During the meeting, we’ll listen to the audiobook together while reading along on a shared screen of the Kindle version. This makes it easy to participate whether you’re joining from a phone, tablet, or computer. As always, we’ll include time for meditation, quiet reflection, and open-hearted sharing.

Each reflection includes a discussion question designed to evoke honesty and connection, helping us recognize how deeply shared our human experience is.

Join us tonight here: https://us05web.zoom.us/j/86336406842

We hope to see you there. 💛

27/02/2026

This evening I’m feeling called to slow down and dedicate an hour to practice — and I’d love to open that invitation to our Facebook community.

We’ll meet on Zoom and spend:
• 45 minutes in silent sitting meditation
• followed by 15 minutes of gentle moving meditation

This will be a simple, quiet space to settle the mind and reconnect — nothing fancy, just steady practice together. All levels are welcome, whether you’ve been practicing for years or are just beginning.

My available window is between 5:30–7:00pm. If you’d like to join, please comment below or send me a message with what time works best for you. I’ll confirm the start time once I hear from folks.

Hope you can join. 🙏

- Ryan Barfoot

26/02/2026

Pema Chödrön (born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown in 1936) is an American Tibetan Buddhist nun and one of the most influential Western teachers of Tibetan Buddhism. She became a student of Chögyam Trungpa in the 1970s and later became one of the first American women to be fully ordained as a bhikkhuni (nun) in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. She is most widely known for making Buddhist teachings deeply accessible to everyday life—especially during times of fear, and uncertainty.

25/02/2026

What is Vipassana?

It’s often translated as “insight meditation,” but the practice is beautifully simple:

Notice what is happening.
Stay with it.
See clearly.

In Vipassana, we observe the breath, the body, sounds, thoughts, emotions — not to control them, but to understand them. Over time, we begin to see how experience unfolds moment by moment. That clarity naturally steadies the mind.

You don’t have to force insight.
You create the conditions, and insight reveals itself.

If you already have a mindfulness practice and would benefit from a structured morning of silence and steady guidance, consider joining us for:

One Mindful Morning
March 7 | 9:15 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
Bloomington Public Library

Suggested donation: $35
Register here:
https://pci.jotform.com/form/252547440288159

24/02/2026

Meditation Tip – Mindfulness of Thinking 🧠

Mindfulness practice helps you notice thoughts rather than get swept away by them — research shows that observing thoughts with curiosity can reduce stress and rumination.
🔗 https://www.apa.org/topics/mindfulness/meditation
During meditation, gently label thoughts as “thinking” and return to your anchor. You’re not trying to stop thoughts — awareness itself is the practice.
✨
What kinds of thoughts show up most often for you?

23/02/2026

At our next Sangha meeting, we’ll gather for a time of meditation and then open the space for heartfelt sharing and reflection on what is alive for us and on our hearts. Please join us tonight at 6:30 p.m. on Zoom.
You’re always welcome, just as you are, and we’d love to practice and reflect together.
Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86336406842