Insight Meditation Society

Insight Meditation Society, usually called IMS, is a non-profit Buddhist retreat organisation in the small town of Barre in central Massachusetts. Three young teachers who had trained in Asia, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield, set it up in 1975 and bought a former Catholic novitiate, which opened its doors to meditators on Valentine's Day 1976. It grew into one of the best-known homes of vipassana in the West, and over the decades it has welcomed visiting masters from Burma, Thailand, Tibet and Korea alongside its own resident teachers. Its roots are in the Theravada tradition, but the practices are taught in a way that people of any faith or none can take up.

The land holds two separate retreat houses set in roughly 400 acres of woodland. The Retreat Center runs a yearly calendar of silent, teacher-led courses in insight and lovingkindness meditation, from a weekend up to three months, and most of them suit beginners as well as seasoned meditators. The Forest Refuge, opened in 2003, is for experienced practitioners who want a quieter, more self-directed personal retreat of a week to a year or longer, guided by a pair of visiting teachers each month. IMS Online adds livestreamed retreats, short courses, a book club and weekly sitting groups. Fees run on a sliding scale, and the teachers are supported by the traditional practice of dana, gifts offered at the end of a retreat.