Insight Meditation Community of Bloomington-Normal

09/02/2026

A Time to Pause
There are times when the wisest thing we can do is pause, listen, and make space for what comes next.

For several years, the Insight Meditation Community of Bloomington–Normal has offered meditation gatherings, classes, retreats, and opportunities to explore the Buddha’s teachings in the Insight Meditation tradition. This community was created as a place for people to practice together, learn from one another, and bring greater mindfulness, compassion, and wisdom into everyday life.

At this time, IMCBN is not holding regular sangha meetings, classes, or other scheduled programs. There is currently no planned date for these activities to resume.

This is not necessarily a permanent closing. Rather, IMCBN is entering an open-ended period of pause, rest, and discernment. For now, there will also not be regular updates to this page or a monthly newsletter.

The practice, of course, continues.

If you have practiced with IMCBN in the past, thank you. Every person who sat with us, attended a gathering, shared a reflection, volunteered, taught, or simply offered their presence helped make this a truly special sangha.

And if you have found this page for the first time, welcome. Although we may not currently be gathering, we hope something here encourages you to continue exploring meditation and the Dharma through your own practice, teachers, retreats, friendships, or other communities.

One of the lessons of practice is that there are times for cultivating and times for resting, times for speaking and times for listening\. For IMCBN, this is a time to pause and listen.

Whatever the future may hold, we are deeply grateful for this community and for everything we have shared together.

May all beings be well.
May all beings be safe.
May all beings live with greater wisdom, compassion, and freedom.

With mettā,

Insight Meditation Community of Bloomington–Normal

09/01/2026

Ajahn Sumedho is one of the most influential Western teachers in the Thai Forest tradition. An American-born monk and longtime student of Ajahn Chah, he helped establish the Thai Forest tradition in the West and founded Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in England.

Learn more: https://amaravati.org/biographies/ajahn-sumedho/

08/31/2026

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana (“Bhante G”) is a Sri Lankan Theravāda monk, meditation teacher, and author of the classic Mindfulness in Plain English. He founded the Bhavana Society in West Virginia and has spent decades making the Buddha’s teachings accessible to practitioners around the world.

Learn more: https://bhavanasociety.org/about/the-community/

08/31/2026

A brief laboratory study found that people who listened to a ten-minute mindfulness meditation showed less implicit age and racial bias on association tests than those who heard a control recording. The researchers linked the difference to reduced automatic responding.

It is an interesting finding. It is not evidence that ten minutes of meditation dismantles racism.

Mindfulness may help create a pause in automatic thought. What we do with that pause still depends on education, relationship, listening, policy, accountability, and the willingness to see how systems affect real lives.

Inner work becomes socially meaningful when it makes greater honesty and responsibility possible. The pause is not justice. It is one place from which a more just action might begin.

Study:

Research has shown that mindfulness can positively affect peoples’ lives in a number of ways, including relying less on previously established associations. We ...

08/30/2026

Meditation is sometimes described as turning away from the world. At its best, I think it helps us turn toward the world without being completely consumed by fear, anger, or despair.

Tara Brach uses the phrase “engaged spirituality” for the joining of inner awareness with service to the collective good. That joining matters. If practice only makes me more comfortable while leaving me untouched by the suffering of others, something is missing.
Awareness can help us act without hatred, listen without collapsing, rest without abandoning the work, and remain human when public life encourages us to reduce one another to enemies.

One simple practice for today: pair a few minutes of silence with one concrete act of care. Make the call. Help the neighbor. Learn from someone whose experience differs from yours. Support work that protects people who are vulnerable.

Tara Brach's engaged spirituality resources:

Engaged Spirituality On the spiritual path, we cannot separate our inner work from how we express ourselves in daily life. Engaged spirituality refers to the active engagement of our heart and awareness in service of the greater, collective good. It means responding to the crisis of climate change,....

08/29/2026

A randomized clinical trial compared an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program with escitalopram, a commonly prescribed medication, among 276 adults with diagnosed anxiety disorders. At eight weeks, the structured mindfulness program was found to be noninferior to the medication on the study's primary anxiety measure.

That is encouraging—and it is easy to overstate.

The study tested a complete, instructor-led MBSR course, not occasional deep breathing or an app used for a few minutes. One trial also does not mean that people should stop medication or substitute meditation without clinical guidance.

My takeaway is this, mindfulness can be a serious form of support when it is taught well, practiced consistently, and matched to the person. It can belong alongside therapy, medication, exercise, community, and other forms of care. We do not need to turn one helpful practice into the only answer.

Study:

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03522844.

08/26/2026

Good research does not only tell us when mindfulness helps. It also tells us when a particular program is not better than what people are already receiving.
The large MYRIAD trial included more than 8,000 students across 84 schools. A ten-lesson school mindfulness program was not superior to the schools' usual social-emotional teaching on depression risk, social-emotional functioning, or well-being at one year.

That does not mean mindfulness has no value for young people. It means that a universal classroom program, delivered in this particular way, should not be treated as a guaranteed solution. Fit, choice, teacher preparation, student interest, culture, and vulnerability all matter.

I want mindfulness education to be accessible. I also want it to be humble enough to learn from results like these. We serve people better when we ask not only “Does mindfulness work?” but “What works, for whom, in what setting, and with what support?”

Study:

Systematic reviews suggest school-based mindfulness training (SBMT) shows promise in promoting student mental health. The My Resilience in Adolescence (MYRIAD) Trial evaluated the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of SBMT compared with ...

08/25/2026

My path into meditation did not begin with a monastery or a dramatic spiritual experience. It began with curiosity, an app, and a sense that there might be another way to relate to my own mind.

Years later, I completed a two-year mindfulness teacher training with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach and helped build a small local meditation community. I remain most interested in making practice approachable.

Mindfulness does not belong only to teachers or people who can sit silently for an hour. It belongs in kitchens, minivans, hospital waiting rooms, difficult conversations, and the few quiet minutes before everyone else wakes up.

You do not have to call yourself Buddhist. You do not have to sit cross-legged. You do not have to clear the mind.

You need only a willingness to notice what is happening and to meet it with a little more curiosity and kindness.

08/20/2026

Lovingkindness phrases are not magic words, and we do not have to manufacture a warm feeling for them to “work.” They are a way of practicing our intentions.

Try offering a few phrases slowly:

May I be safe.
May I be peaceful.
May I be kind to this body and mind.
May I live with greater ease.

Then bring to mind someone for whom care comes naturally and offer the same wishes. If it feels steady, include a neutral person—someone you see but do not really know.

There is no need to begin with the most difficult person in your life. Lovingkindness is not forced forgiveness, and it never requires us to imagine someone unsafe.
If the traditional phrases feel false, begin here: May I learn to meet this moment with kindness.

Sharon Salzberg on lovingkindness and connection: https://www.sharonsalzberg.com/on-being-column/exploring-lovingkindness-in-the-lab-and-in-the-heart

08/19/2026

Mindfulness is often presented as harmless relaxation. For many people it is supportive, but it is not universally soothing.

A systematic review of meditation studies found that some participants reported unwanted effects, most commonly anxiety and depression. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health notes that the evidence on safety is still limited.

Ethical teaching on meditation includes permission to modify or stop. If closing the eyes feels unsafe, keep them open. If the breath intensifies panic, orient to sights and sounds, feel the feet, stand up, or move. If meditation is repeatedly worsening distress, talk with a qualified mental health professional and an experienced, trauma-sensitive teacher.

The most important take away is that difficulty in meditation is not always a sign to push harder. Sometimes wisdom is recognizing that a different anchor, a shorter practice, more support, or a pause is needed.

Research review: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32820538/
NCCIH overview: https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/meditation-and-mindfulness-effectiveness-and-safety

We found that the occurrence of AEs during or after meditation practices is not uncommon, and may occur in individuals with no previous history of mental health problems. These results are relevant both for practitioners and clinicians, and contribute to a balanced perspective of meditation as a pra...