March 25, 2021

Sitting in Solidarity and Taking Refuge in the Sangha: An Offering for the AAPI Community | March 30

Sitting in Solidarity and Taking Refuge in the Sangha: An Offering for the AAPI Community

Kamala Masters and Yong Oh

Open to all self-identified people of Asian and Pacific Islander descent only.

Tuesday, March 30, 6:00-7:15 PM ET

IMS stands in solidarity with the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. The recent deadly mass shooting in Atlanta highlights the increase in violent incidents against AAPI communities over the past year. We are deeply saddened by this news and the disturbing trend it reflects.

In this time of grief and fear, IMS is offering a solidarity sitting on Tuesday, March 30, 6:00-7:15 PM ET. IMS Guiding Teacher Kamala Masters and IMS Teacher Yong Oh will offer guided meditations and a place of refuge for those who self-identify as AAPI.

While no single Dharma talk or meditation can heal the pain and fear many of us feel, coming together in community, breathing together, and taking refuge in awareness, lovingkindness, and connection with sangha can be a salve.

We hope you will join Kamala and Yong for an hour of shared practice, and to begin again to create the conditions for inner and outer healing and peace. This is a free offering.

As an organization we are committed to dismantling racism and other forms of institutionalized oppression, we dedicate ourselves to the Buddha’s teachings that hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone, and remain steadfast in upholding non-harming and nonviolence as the pillars of compassionate action.

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Teacher Bios

Kamala Masters is a co-founder with Steve Armstrong of Vipassana Metta Foundation, and serves as an IMS guiding teacher. A meditator since 1977, she trained intensively in metta (lovingkindness) and vipassana (insight) in the Mahasi tradition with Sayadaw U Pandita and Anagarika Munindra. Continuing her practice with Sayadaw U Tejaniya, she encourages a balanced relaxed awareness that has the clarity of precision as well as kindness.  She is a mother of 4 children and grandmother of 7.

Yong Oh’s initial doorway into the Dharma was through Soto Zen. His love for Vipassana began with his, then and now, primary teachers Kittisaro and Thanissara. He is currently a Dharma Council teacher at the Durango Dharma Center, teaches for the Chattanooga Insight Meditation group, and is currently on the Leadership Council for Thanissara and Kittisaro’s Sacred Mountain Sangha.

Yong is a graduate of Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Community Dharma Leaders program and is currently a participant in the 2017-2021 Insight Meditation Society Retreat Teacher Training program as well as the Sacred Mountain Sangha Dharmapala program. Yong is also an acupuncturist, loves the outdoors and bringing the practice of meditation into nature, and aspires to support practitioners of color in the Dharma.

REGISTER FOR THIS FREE OFFERING