IMS Book Club

The World Exists to Set Us Free
Straight-Up Dharma for Living a Life of Awareness
By Larry Rosenberg, with Madeline Drexler

Down-to-earth wisdom on how to live a life of authenticity and spiritual integrity, from one of the West’s most respected teachers of vipassana meditation.

How does dharma wisdom show up in our lives every day? This collection of teachings by the beloved Insight Meditation teacher Larry Rosenberg offers clear, down-to-earth guidance on learning how to live a life informed by Buddhism—through questioning, reflective observation, and self-understanding. Founder and resident teacher of the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a former guiding teacher at IMS, Rosenberg is known for presenting the essence of the Buddhism in a way that is unvarnished, utterly accessible, and that resonates with a wide audience. Here he unpacks—with his signature engaging and iconoclastic style—such topics as meditation, silence, use of the breath, self-knowing, working with strong emotions, intimacy, illness and grief, among others.

On this evening, journalist and author Madeline Drexler will join us to discuss The World Exists to Set Us Free, a book informed by what Rosenberg considers his deeper and more immediate understanding of dharma that has come in recent years—a period marked in his own life by illness and disability—and in the life of the planet by a deadly pandemic, war, an existential climate crisis, and pervasive technological distraction.

Drexler wrote the book’s introductory essay, which serves as a spiritual biography of Rosenberg, presenting his reflections on more than half a century of dedicated dharma practice and instruction. This essay illuminates what, for Rosenberg, were profound turning points and moments of realization—his long apprenticeships with foundational figures in twentieth-century Buddhism, including Ajahn Chah, Thich Nhat Hanh, Seung Sahn, and Ajahn Buddhadasa, as well as Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti.

Madeline Drexler is an award-winning Boston-based journalist and author who has studied with Larry Rosenberg since 2000. For 10 years she served as editor of Harvard Public Health magazine. Drexler’s work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Tricycle, Undark, The Nation, The American Prospect, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Saveur, Nieman Reports, and many other publications.

Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2025, 7-8:15 PM ET

Presence
The Art of Being at Home in Yourself
By Tracy Cochran

In 20 short, gem-like chapters, meditation teacher Tracy Cochran invites us to explore living fully in the present moment as a revolutionary practice.

Mindfulness offers us a way to be fully in the present moment—and as we start to embrace this practice, we learn that our lives are made of present moments. That gift of presence is the palpable experience of awareness that appears when we remember to be mindful of those moments.

Cochran encourages us to see presence as a living force—and to recognize and explore how that shows up in our lives. She offers riveting and relatable stories from her life—a spiritually transformative wine-making trip in France, a near-death experience while being mugged, managing her feisty child while on a retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh, among many others—and Buddhist teachings to encourage us to see the power of presence to illuminate and transform our past, present, and future.

Cochran’s observations and reminiscences are wise and pithy, and she gives us plenty of encouragement to explore and reframe our own experiences.

“In Presence, Tracy Cochran offers her readers beautifully written stories filled with delightful anecdotes, poignant insights, and deep wisdom lovingly encouraging us all in the art of living…. Tracy is a trustworthy guide, leading us through the wondrous mix of the mundane and the mystical at the heart of what it means to be human.” —Sebene Selassie

“Through her vivid storytelling and personal sharing, Tracy shares insights from her own journey as an offering for all those on the path to awakening.” —Sharon Salzberg

“This is a wonderful, wise, and tender book. Its elegant and gifted storytelling will change you—softening your heart, opening you to the gifts and beauty around you, bringing you into a presence that we so need in this fast-paced world.” —Jack Kornfield

Tracy Cochran has been a student of meditation and spiritual practice for almost 50 years. She is also a long-time teacher, as well as a writer, the editorial director of Parabola Magazine, and the founder of the Hudson River Sangha, in New York. She teaches at the Rubin Museum, the New York Insight Meditation Center, and in schools, colleges, and at multinational corporations. Her writing has appeared in Parabola, The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Psychology Today, O Magazine, New York Magazine, the Boston Review and many other publications and anthologies.

Date: Thursday, November 13, 2025, 7-8:15 PM ET