IMS Online Learning Center

This program is now closed to new registrations.

Mindfulness is a quality of awareness in which our perception of the present moment’s experience is not distorted by biases such as old fears, assumptions, or projection into the future. It shows us what life looks like when we see through the lens of universal conditions such as impermanence and interconnection. Mindfulness spearheads the path of understanding our lives by helping us to notice what causes us suffering and what brings us freedom from suffering. It is the root of living our lives more fully and more truly. 

This program explores the meditative techniques of mindfulness applied in a variety of contexts, including wrestling with dukkha, making ethical decisions, seeking wisdom, coping with trauma, communicating, practicing lovingkindness, exploring equanimity, the commonality of science and mindfulness, and the role of mindfulness in everyday life.

Whether you use mindfulness to manage stress or difficult emotions, improve relationships, increase engagement, or enhance your overall well-being, these discussions can help you further live your mindfulness practice. This nine-month program features IMS teachers from many generations and backgrounds. You can participate in all nine months or pick and choose the topics that interest you most.

The Buddha taught that the foundation of spiritual life rests upon mindful and caring relationship with ourselves and the world around us. So that we may interact skillfully in the world, the Five Precepts provide a guideline of ethics for Buddhist laypeople. They point us toward our relationships with others and help us understand how our actions impact them.

JoAnna Hardy is an academic, author, and insight meditation practitioner, teacher, and trainer. In this module of Essential Mindfulness, she will lead a study, discussion, and practice of the Five Precepts as a framework for living an ethical life. Participants will be given the opportunity to reflect on how these ethical principles can fit into their life and deepen their understanding of living a life of non-harm.