IMS Book Club

Each month, the IMS Book Club brings together authors and readers for a facilitated discussion on the featured dharma-book-of-the-month. Our book club offers participants a deeper experience and engagement with Theravada Buddhist teachings and practice through the lens of the selected book.

Essential Information:

  • The IMS Book Club is entirely free of charge.
  • All Book Club meetings will be held online  through the IMS Online Learning Center.
  • Each monthly Book Club event will feature a new book and one or more group meetings with the book’s author.
  • Beyond these basic guidelines, authors will be able to tailor their book club meetings as they see fit, so the structure of book club gatherings may vary from month to month.
  • Dana:  If you enjoy this free offering and would like to give to IMS, we will include donation links when we email the video recordings of each Book Club meeting to registered members after each session. Note: authors/teachers benefit from the promotion and sale of their books. If other teachers, or assistant teachers, help support a Book Club, IMS will compensate those teachers directly for their time.

Want to Join?

To join the IMS Book Club, register here. Monthly book club gatherings will be announced in our weekly IMS Online newsletter, our monthly Sangha News email, and on social media. Subscribe here to stay up to date on the next event.

How Are Books Chosen? 

All titles featured in the IMS Book Club are selected by IMS staff and Guiding Teachers. Selections must align with IMS’s mission and values. Rooted in the Theravada Buddhist teachings of ethics, concentration, and wisdom, chosen titles will support the development of awareness and compassion.

2026 Schedule 

Living This Life Fully
Stories and Teachings of Munindra
By Mirka Knaster

“Whatever you are doing should be done mindfully, dynamically, with totality and completeness. Then it becomes meditation. It is not thinking, but experiencing from moment to moment, living from moment to moment, without clinging, without condemning, without judging.”—Munindra

Anagarika Munindra (1915–2003) was a Bengali Buddhist master and scholar who became one of the most important Vipassana meditation teachers of the twentieth century. Unassuming, genuine, and always encouraging, Munindra embodied the Buddhist teachings, exemplifying mindfulness in everything he did. Living This Life Fully is the first book about Munindra, and it features never-before-published excerpts of his teachings, stories and remembrances from Western students, a biography, and rare photographs.

“Knaster skillfully weaves teachings and personal stories. This is a wonderful introduction to a teacher whose students are now household names: Sharon Salzberg, Daniel Goleman, Jack Kornfield.  This deeply felt, loving portrait of a modern Buddhist master will also inspire those on their own journeys.”—Tricycle

“A kaleidoscopic view of one of the most influential figures in the spread of Buddhism in the West. Anagarika Munindra was one of a kind — wise, delightful, intriguing — and a fully human being.”—Daniel Goleman

Mirka Knaster is an independent scholar and freelance writer and editor who applies a cross-cultural perspective to her work, whether on women, healing arts, or spiritual traditions. She holds an MA in Latin American studies and a PhD in Asian and comparative studies. Knaster’s writings on loving-kindness meditation, the body and spirituality, interreligious dialogue, and ethical speech as a spiritual practice appear in magazines, anthologies, and encyclopedias, and at Beliefnet.com.

Tuesday, February 3, 7-8:15 PM ET

Enroll here

Sweeter Than Revenge
Overcoming Your Payback Mind
By David Richo

Sweeter than Revenge delves deeply into one of humanity’s most instinctive yet destructive impulses: the urge to strike back when we feel wronged. Drawing from psychology, principles of emotional intelligence, Buddhist teachings, and years of therapeutic expertise, Richo illuminates the web of emotions and triggers that drive retaliatory behavior. He challenges readers to examine their own patterns of retaliation and provides practical tools for responding to conflict with wisdom rather than reactivity.

Revenge happens in any human relationship, even intimate ones. Through compelling insights and actionable strategies, Richo guides us in understanding how to transform vengeful impulses into opportunities for growth and healing. Whether dealing with personal relationships, workplace dynamics, or internal struggles, this book offers a revolutionary framework for moving beyond the primitive urge for revenge toward more enlightened responses. We may not be able to eliminate our impulse to retaliate, but we can stop acting on it.

“Using science, philosophy, mindfulness practice, and his own life experiences, author and psychotherapist David Richo helps us develop the tools to do the hard work of examining ourselves, our relationships, and our pasts to heal our wounds and become the person we have the potential to be.”—Sharon Salzberg

“David Richo does a brilliant job unpacking the unhealthy versions of ego that confine us. Through psychological and Buddhist wisdom teachings and a range of powerful practices and meditations, we are guided beyond the identity of separate self to the loving awareness that is our deepest essence.”—Tara Brach

David Richo, PhD, is a psychotherapist, teacher, writer, and workshop leader whose work emphasizes the benefits of mindfulness and lovingkindness in personal growth and emotional well-being. He is the author of numerous books, including How to Be an Adult in Relationships and The Five Things We Cannot Change. He lives in Santa Barbara and San Francisco, California.

Thursday, March 5, 7-8:15 PM ET 

Enroll here

This Messy, Gorgeous Love
A Buddhist Guide to Lasting Partnership
By devon and nico hase

Partnership is rough. In This Messy, Gorgeous Love, married Buddhist teachers nico and devon hase help readers thrive in long-term relationships, well after the honeymoon shine has faded. This nuts-and-bolts guide offers a pathway to deep intimacy in the real world, where partnership is difficult but genuinely worth it.

“If you’re struggling, you can use that struggle to open your heart and connect with your partner,” write nico and devon in this refreshingly candid guide. Through heartfelt guidance—complete with practices, exercises, and reflections—readers will learn to:

Face relationship challenges with presence instead of perfectionism
Develop meditative skills to hold emotions with awareness
Communicate effectively during inevitable ups and downs
Get real without losing connection
Find each other again and again

Instead of chasing an idealized relationship, “fixing” their partner, or losing themselves, readers will discover how their current committed relationship can become a vehicle for opening their heart, clarifying their mind, and awakening to deeper truths. This book isn’t about everlasting happiness—it’s about building something even better: a partnership where you can be happy in love, thrive in conflict, and have honest fun together, all while embracing the beautiful mess that makes your connection uniquely yours.

devon hase has practiced intensively in the insight and vajrayana traditions since discovering meditation in 2000. After a decade of bringing mindfulness to high school and college classrooms, she entered several years of silent, solitary retreat in the mountains of Oregon. She now teaches at the Insight Meditation Society, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and the Forest Refuge, and serves as co-guiding teacher of the online dharma community Refuge of Belonging. Devon supports practitioners in both long and short retreats, as well as through personal mentoring, with an emphasis on relational practice and connection to the natural world. Along with her life partner, nico, she co-authored How Not to Be a Hot Mess and the forthcoming This Messy, Gorgeous Love: A Buddhist Guide to Lasting Partnership (2026). Learn more at devonandnicohase.com.

nico hase lived in a monastery for six years before earning a PhD in counseling psychology and becoming an Insight Meditation teacher full time. He currently mentors mindfulness teachers, teaches online and in-person retreats, and speaks with students in one-on-one sessions. He and his beloved life partner devon are the authors of How Not to Be a Hot Mess: A Buddhist Survival Guide for Modern Life. Find out more at www.devonandnicohase.com

Tuesday, April 14, 7-8:15 PM ET

Enroll here

Previous IMS Book Club Authors Include

  • Sharon Salzberg
  • Gregory Kramer
  • Rodney Smith
  • Joseph Goldstein
  • Sebene Selassie
  • Pamela Ayo Yetunde, Lama Dawa Tarchin Phillips, Kamilah Majied, Gyozan Royce Andrew Johnson
  • Judson Brewer
  • Narayan Helen Liebenson
  • Bhikkhu Bodhi
  • Pam Weiss
  • devon hase
  • nico hase
  • Lama Rod Owens
  • Chenxing Han
  • Mark Coleman
  • Kaira Jewel Lingo
  • George Mumford
  • Mark Epstein
  • Rhonda V. Magee
  • Martin Aylward
  • Dan Harris
  • Kate Johnson
  • Guy Armstrong
  • Oren Jay Sofer
  • Richard Shankman
  • Marisela B. Gomez
  • Thenmozhi Soundararajan
  • Jacoby Ballard
  • Allan Cooper
  • Christina Feldman
  • Rima Vesely-Flad
  • Amita Schmidt
  • Shaila Catherine
  • Valerie Brown
  • yung pueblo
  • John Teasdale
  • Kimberly Brown
  • Rev. Liên Shutt
  • Ruth King
  • Constance Casey
  • Kim Allen
  • Cindy Rasicot, Bhikkhuni Dhammananda
  • Anu Gupta
  • Vanessa R. Sasson
  • Toni Pressley-Sanon
  • Rebecca Bradshaw
  • Kōshin Paley Ellison
  • Faith Adiele
  • Gil Fronsdal
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