A seat in the community
Become a member
RIM is a refuge we create together: a place for learning, practice, and fellowship. Everyone is welcome, from all backgrounds and phases of life. Come as you are.
What membership means
Membership may not mean here what it has meant to you elsewhere. There are no dues; membership is freely offered. There is no attendance requirement and no role to fill, and nobody tracks how often you come. Joining says one thing: this is my practice community, and I would like a seat in it.
If you are quiet by nature, you may be carrying the question many of us carried in: will I have to be social? You will not. The heart of what we do together is sitting in silence, side by side. Nobody will ask you to share, to mingle, or to be anyone other than the person who walked in. Some of the steadiest members of this community are also its quietest. Presence is enough.
So why practice with others at all? Because the work of this path is inward, and it goes better in company. A room of settled people settles you. Other people’s honest difficulties teach as much as their calm. And over time, without anyone forcing it, the people you sit beside become what the tradition warmly calls friends on the path. The Buddha’s own attendant once guessed that such friendship must be half of the spiritual life. The Buddha corrected him: it is the whole of it.
That is what we mean by community. Friends who support one another’s practice: each of us releasing what gets in the way, each of us strengthening what serves, for our own lives and for the people and the world our lives touch.
Community Care Agreements
Our Shared Vision. We come together because wakefulness, wisdom, and compassion are already within each of us, and we want to live from them. We practice to be more awake and present in our lives, freer of what binds us to unhealthy patterns of heart, mind, and action, understanding with greater wisdom, caring with kindness and compassion, and acting from both, for the benefit of ourselves, those we care about, and our shared world. These agreements are how we care for that vision together. We ask everyone who takes part to hold them. They are intentions we share, and holding them is a practice. A community is a place to practice. When we fall short, we begin again, and when harm happens, we protect and repair.
- Care for YourselfWe care for the conditions that help us see clearly and live well, and we take responsibility for our own path: coming to know ourselves, cultivating what is healthy and wholesome, and letting go of what harms. We come with a sincere wish to practice, as the practice is offered here. Teachers and community offer support, and the walking is ours to do.
- Care for OthersWe care for one another through our presence, speech, and actions. Guided by goodwill, we listen deeply, speak truthfully and kindly, and seek not to cause harm. We are diverse together: we welcome one another across our differences, and we respect each person’s way of taking part, their experience, and their privacy: what is shared in practice stays where it was shared. We help keep RIM a safe place for everyone, and when harm happens, we work to repair it.
- Care for RIMRIM is held through dana, the practice of mutual generosity. Financial support meets the center’s practical needs and keeps the teachings open to everyone. RIM could not exist without it, and we ask each member to support RIM financially as they are able. Time, care, service, and sincere presence also nourish the life of our community, traditionally called sangha, and together we co-create RIM. We trust each person to discern what is possible; no one is expected to offer in every way, and belonging is never measured by what or how much one gives.
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If you can hold these intentions with us, we would be honored to have you.