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Sunday Sangha – 28th June 2026

Shaila Catherine

This session is led by Shaila Catherine.

Start Time: 11 am PDT (LA) / 2 pm EDT (NY) / 7 pm BST (London) / 8 pm CEST (Paris). 90-minute live session.

This week’s theme: Becoming Content with Emptiness and Voidness

Shaila Catherine asks “Will nothing be enough?” as she explores how identification with our experience can create discontent with the basic fact that matter and mind is empty of self. Mindfulness will not demolish ego; instead, we mindfully recognize selfing as a mental event that forms with the thought of a self. Meditators investigate what self-grasping depends upon, liberate the mind from its grip, and experience contentment with voidness.

This session is freely-offered, but dana/donations are invited to help us meet our substantial running costs and to support our teachers. To donate, please click here. We appreciate your generosity 🙏

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Shaila Catherine

Shaila Catherine

Shaila Catherine is the founder of Bodhi Courses, an online Dhamma classroom, and Insight Meditation South Bay, a Buddhist meditation center in Silicon Valley. She began practicing meditation in 1980, spent more than nine years in silent retreat, taught meditation internationally since 1996, and authored three books on mindfulness, concentration, and insight.

Her first book, Focused and Fearless: A Meditator’s Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity (2008) introduces the deep concentration practices of jhāna. Her second book, Wisdom Wide and Deep: A Practical Handbook for Mastering Jhāna and Vipassanā (2011) makes the systematic practices taught by Pa-Auk Sayadaw accessible to western practitioners. Her third book, Beyond Distraction: Five Practical Ways to Focus the Mind (2022) teaches skills to overcome restless thinking, rumination, and obstructive habitual patterns. Shaila’s teachings emphasize deep samadhi, jhāna, and the path of liberating insight. Click here to learn more about Shaila Catherine.

View Recordings of Past Sunday Sangha Sessions

Illness, death, urgency and love.

With Gregory Kramer Recorded : February 5, 2017

Yes, the Buddha repeatedly recommended that each of us contemplate our own aging, illness and death. But what gap do you feel between an abstract contemplation and the actuality of this fragile and limited...

The nature of experience. Part 3: Non Self Existence.

With Martin Aylward Recorded : January 29, 2017

Today’s session is the third in a special run of three consecutive sessions with Martin, where he looks deeply at the nature of experience through Buddha’s profound descriptions of reality – Impermanence, Emptiness, Non...

The nature of experience. Part 2: Emptiness.

With Martin Aylward Recorded : January 22, 2017

Today’s session is the second in a special run of three consecutive sessions with Martin, where he looks deeply at the nature of experience through Buddha’s profound descriptions of reality – Impermanence, Emptiness, Non...

The nature of experience. Part 1: Impermanence.

With Martin Aylward Recorded : January 15, 2017

Today’s session is the first in a special run of three consecutive sessions with Martin, where he looks deeply at the nature of experience through Buddha’s profound descriptions of reality – Impermanence, Emptiness, Non...

Three kinds of liberation.

With Christopher Titmuss Recorded : January 8, 2017

Freedom from stress. Freedom to Be. Freedom to Act. Join us as we explore with Christopher how these three freedoms give support to each other.

The full range of the heart.

With Martin Aylward Recorded : December 18, 2016

We call this ‘the season of goodwill’. A reminder to care for one another, and to wish each other well. This year, we find ourselves in more need of understanding and expressing our common...

Shaila Catherine

Daily life practice – the cultivation of virtue in ordinary action.

With Shaila Catherine Recorded : December 11, 2016

Shaila discusses the cultivation of virtue. Her talk will considers the relationship between virtue practices, and the more popular practices of compassion, mindfulness, and wisdom.

Working with difficult emotions.

With Nina La Rosa Recorded : December 4, 2016

Feelings have the power to motivate one toward wise action when facing a challenge. They can also cause intense suffering, drive and distort behavior, and lead to regret. Being able to work with emotions,...

Brian Dean Williams

Post-election trauma: embracing fear, extending love.

With Brian Dean Williams Recorded : November 27, 2016

It has been a distressing and disorienting time for many of us, and to different degrees. Following recent political events in the US and Western Europe our practice is being challenged in new ways....

Our sensitivity is our greatest strength.

With Deborah Eden Tull Recorded : November 20, 2016

Being human is an inevitably vulnerable experience. The challenge lies in being taught that there is something wrong with us for feeling as sensitive and vulnerable as we do, We learn to cover up...

Wide Dharma, wide path.

With Gregory Kramer Recorded : November 13, 2016

Many of us long to experience the Buddhist path in all of our lives, but really only feel its aliveness when we meditate. There’s an incompleteness, a gap, when it comes to our everyday...

Right view – a path to liberation.

With Lila Kimhi Recorded : November 6, 2016

The practice and realizaton of Right View is the first of the eightfold path. Holding to views and opinions is a sure way to suffering, says the Buddha. But can we live with no...