IMS Book Club: Rodney Smith Touching the Infinite

Touching the Infinite
A New Perspective on the Buddha’s Four Foundations of Mindfulness
By Rodney Smith 

With Tuere Sala

Dates: December 2, 16, and 30, at 7 PM ET.

About the Book

Awakening manifests through the application of mindfulness to four areas: body, feelings, mind, and dharmas. Buddhists of all the traditions share this principle found in the Satipatthana Sutta, which has been expounded upon since the time of the Buddha himself.

In Touching the Infinite, Rodney Smith challenges us to hold this teaching up against our own experience, and in doing so to discover the inherent interconnection of all Four Foundations. They are revealed to be a sequential path leading the practitioner from the world of form to the joyous perception of the formless.

Rodney Smith is a retired Insight Meditation Society guiding teacher and retired founding and guiding teacher of the Seattle Insight Meditation Society. A former Buddhist monk and hospice director, he has taught meditation for over 30 years and is the author of Lessons from the Dying; Stepping Out of Self-Deception: The Buddha’s Liberating Teaching of No-Self; Awakening: A Paradigm Shift of the Heart; and Touching the Infinite: A New Perspective on the Buddha’s Four Foundations of Mindfulness.

Tuere Sala is a guiding teacher of Seattle Insight Meditation Society and Capitol Hill Meditation Group. She has over 25 years of Buddhist meditation experience and is currently a participant in IMS’s 2017-2021 Teacher Training Program. Her teaching focus is on strengthening the value of everyday urban practice.

About the 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 early Buddhist teachings and practice through the lens of the selected book.

• The IMS Book Club is entirely free of charge.
• All Book Club meetings will be held online  via Union and Zoom.
• Each monthly Book Club event will feature a new book and three group discussions of one-hour each, including at least one session with the author. 
• Featured authors will lead at least one of the three group discussions. If the author/teacher does not participate in all three sessions, a trainee in IMS’s Teacher Training Program will moderate those discussions in place of the author.
• Discussion questions will be offered to participants in advance of each meeting session so that everyone has a chance to consider if and how they want to contribute to the discussion.
• 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.

Want to Join?

Step one: register for Rodney Smith’s three book club meetings here.

Step two: join the IMS Book Club here, if you haven’t already. This registers you for our monthly newsletter which announces new programs and allows you to sign up for the book-of-the-month discussions that interest you.

Step three: order your copy of Touching the Infinite here. Although there is no charge to join the book club, participants will need to secure their own copies of the books prior to the start of the monthly discussion group.