photo of two young people with hands in anjali
BMC group photo 12/2018
BMC summer retreat at IMCN
Chris, Sayadaw, Mimmi
Chris and Rod
Latest News
BMC is now meeting on Tuesday mornings for a virtual group meditation from 8:00am to 8:45am ET. More information can be found here.
About
Boston Meditation Center (BMC) is a Buddhist sangha in the Insight tradition serving greater Boston and the East Coast. Emphasizing the development of wisdom and kindness through traditional practices made accessible and relevant to modern-day lives, BMC welcomes everyone who seeks greater freedom and happiness in their lives. Central to our vision is the belief that the path of awakening is attainable by all and should be available to all. Our guiding teacher is Chris Crotty.
We offer weekly meditation classes and dharma talks, as well as daylong and residential retreats.
Weekly Meditations
BMC currently meets every Thursday from 7:15pm to 8:45pm ET. Meetings typically begin with 20 to 30 minutes of guided meditation, followed by a dharma talk and discussion with our guiding teacher, Chris Crotty, or another teacher or facilitator.
Donations are gratefully accepted.
Though grounded in the Theravada tradition, we strive to expose our members to diverse approaches to the dharma by occasionally hosting teachers from other traditions, such as Tibetan or Zen Buddhism.
Next Day Program:
August 15: Alone and Together: Spiritual Friendship & Resilience for Difficult Times
A Workshop with Chris Crotty & Susan Shannon
Description
With care and practice the Dharma can become a refuge, a place to find respite and spiritual nourishment during the hardest of times. In this unique program, we will gather virtually to create a refuge with each other and for each other, coming together to give and receive true spiritual friendship through listening, witnessing, meditating, and finding connection within our personal and collective narratives. These narratives–or stories–take many forms and have many expressions: some of them we might want to change, some might want to be heard for the first time, and others we may not even have words for yet.
Facilitators Chris Crotty and Susan Shannon, both active members of the Center for Spiritual Care & Pastoral Formation, will co-create with participants a Community Dharma Discussion where our connection might potentially weave or re-weave threads of resilience, personal power, spiritual direction and interconnection. This program will include periods of meditation practice.
Everyone is welcome. Pre-registration required.
When
Saturday, August 15, 2020
12:00pm – 3:00pm ET
Where
A Zoom link will be emailed before the program.
Cost
$25 Base
$35 Sustaining
$45 Contributing
Paying at the highest level you can afford helps us make our programs available to as many people as possible. There is also an opportunity to offer additional dana (generosity) for the teacher at the end of the program.
Please let us know if finances are an obstacle. Scholarships are available for anyone experiencing financial hardships.
This program will also be offered at no cost for COVID-19 frontline workers. Please email info@bostonmeditationcenter.org for more information.
Teachers
Chris Crotty, MA, BCCC, BCPC is Dharma teacher in the Insight tradition, Buddhist chaplain, and pastoral counselor. He is the founder and guiding teacher of Boston Meditation Center, and an active member of the Center for Spiritual Care and Pastoral Formation. Chris is interested in the role of kindness and ethics in the development of wisdom, and as a basis for creating caring communities.
Susan Shannon, M. Div. is a seeker, teacher, earth and animal steward, and devotee of the heart. She has worked in the fields of Emotional Literacy and Restorative Justice for over 20 years, incorporating over 45 years of Buddhist practice and study from the Tibetan tradition. She has worked among diverse populations all her life in varying capacities including Tibetan Refugees, the homeless, the differently-abled, at-risk youth, and most recently, a Buddhist Chaplain to the men in San Quentin State Prison and Death Row. She currently resides in the San Juan Islands where she writes, provides spiritual coaching and tends her land.
Next Residential Retreat:
June 1-6, 2021: Spring Mettā Retreat
5-Night Residential Retreat with Sayadaw U Indaka, Chris Crotty, and May Myint Oo
Description
The practice of loving-kindness (mettā-bhāvana) includes sitting and walking meditation to cultivate a loving, friendly, and benevolent attitude towards all living beings. For over 2600 years, loving-kindness meditation has been practiced to ensure that good-will surpasses all forms of enmity and ill-will. The well-being of mettā is a natural support for the development of insight and wisdom.
In this unique retreat, participants will have the opportunity to be guided by
Burmese meditation master, the Venerable Sayadaw U Indaka, who is renowned in Burma as both a mettā and vipassanā teacher. He will be joined by Western teacher Chris Crotty and Burmese translator May Myint Oo.
This fifth annual retreat will take place at the beautiful and spacious Won Dharma Center in Claverack, NY, where nature will play an important and supportive role in our meditation practice. Beginners and experienced students welcomed and encouraged.
Teachers
Sayadaw U Indaka was born in 1952 in Upper Burma and ordained in 1972 at the famous Mahagandhayon Monastery in Amarapura, Burma. Starting in 1976 he practiced vipassana meditation in the Mahasi Meditation Center in Mandalay; some years later he went to the Chanmyay Yeiktha Meditation Center in Yangon, where he was commissioned to teach meditation. In 1996 he became the abbot of the newly established Chanmyay Myaing Meditation Center on the outskirts of Yangon. In 2009 he established a second center in the northern town of Pyin Oo Lwin, not far from Mandalay. Sayadaw U Indaka’s books on the practice of metta meditation and the factors of enlightenment have been translated into English and German.
Chris Crotty is a Buddhist teacher, pastoral counselor, and adjunct professor in alternative medicine. Practicing meditation since 1998, he has taken retreat with Burmese monastics Sayadaw U Inndaka and Sayadaw U Tejaniya, scholar-practitioner Bhikkhu Analayo, western monastics of the Zen and Thai Forest tradition, and senior western Vipassana teachers. Chris was authorized to teach Buddhadharma in 2015, and in 2016 was encouraged to teach vipassana and metta by Sayadaw U Inndaka.