IMS Teacher

Joseph Goldstein

Listen to a Featured Talk

Understanding Karma

Listen to more talks

IMS Teacher

Joseph Goldstein

Listen to a Featured Talk

Understanding Karma

Listen to more talks

Joseph Goldstein has been leading insight and lovingkindness meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. He is a cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, where he is on the guiding teachers’ Founders Council. In 1989, together with several other teachers and students of insight meditation, he helped establish the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.

Joseph first became interested in Buddhism as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand in 1965. Since 1967 he has studied and practiced different forms of Buddhist meditation under eminent teachers from India, Burma and Tibet. He is the author of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, A Heart Full of Peace, One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom, The Experience of Insight, and co-author of Seeking the Heart of Wisdom and Insight Meditation: A Correspondence Course.

Meditative Story podcast—"It's ok not to know"

Joseph Goldstein shares the story of his return to the U.S. from India in the early ’70s, penniless and not knowing what his future held, and how he learned to keep himself open to all possibilities and embrace the uncomfortable feeling of not-knowing. Listen here.

The Wisdom Podcast: Bringing the Dharma from the Masters to the West

Interview with Joseph Goldstein on the Wisdom Podcast. Listen here.

Big Think Podcast: Doubt Comes Masquerading as Wisdom

Host Jason Gots interviews Joseph Goldstein in a conversation about struggle, doubt, and growth on the spiritual path. Listen here.

Joseph Goldstein—Wisdom for Troubled Times

For many of us, the current environment, magnified by 24-hour news outlets and social media, has created a level of stress, fear and anger that impacts our lives and relationships. How can we meet these challenges with a clear mind and an open heart? IMS co-founder and renowned meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein discusses the two qualities of mind—equanimity and compassion—that enable us to unhook from reactivity and engage the world with purpose and hope.

Mindfulness: What It Is and Is Not

CFM Guest Lecture Series—November 19, 2014 at the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society, Shrewsbury, MA

Featured Books

Mindfulness Guide to Awakening
Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening
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Mindfulness: Six Guided Practices for Awakening (CD/Audio Download; Companion to the Book)
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A Heart Full of Peace
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The Experience of Insight
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Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom
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I have two main aims in teaching. The first is to spread the dharma as widely as possible, offering it to as many different people as I can. The second is to teach a smaller number of people over sustained periods of time. This in-depth teaching engages my tremendous love for intensive, long-term meditation practice, where people can immerse themselves in the retreat experience and see how it transforms their understanding.

Joseph Goldstein