The new SIMS  center  will be directly downstairs from the  main University Friends sanctuary, where  SIMS has  been meeting since 2019.
Photos by: Susan Alotrico, Nora Langan, Gary Maigret, Cheryl Marland, Deb Slivinsky, Peter Weertman

Seattle Insight Meditation Society—known as SIMS—will step into a new long-term home in Seattle’s University District this winter, after 25 years of gathering mostly in temporary, shared spaces throughout the city.

A celebration to bless the new facility, which has been fully renovated to meet the needs of a growing and changing sangha, is being planned for early 2024.

“Our capacity to hold events will be greater than ever,” said Cubba Reese, president of the SIMS board of directors. She added that the sangha is actively reflecting on how to use this pivotal moment in the organization’s history to better reflect its tagline: “A refuge in the heart of the city.”

The bottom floor of the University Friends Meeting building has been remodeled for the new SIMS center. A volunteer design task force worked with a team of architects, designers, and builders to create a spiritual practice area for 75 people. A state-of-the-art audiovisual system will enable live streaming of SIMS events, as well as hybrid and online participation options. An energy-efficient electric heating, cooling, and ventilation system, and abundant windows, will keep the air purified and flowing.

In addition to a large hall for meditation and dharma talks, the space will house a lobby, tea service area, small kitchen, library, and upgraded bathrooms. A separate and fully accessible outside entrance will include a small courtyard garden. 

“Our vision is that it will be a beautiful, calming space that allows us to be centered and present with our practice,” said Iris Antman, a member of the design task force.

Offerings at the center will include SIMS’ weekly gatherings for meditation and dharma discussion, introduction to insight meditation classes, daylong and weekend retreats, and events by visiting teachers. SIMS guiding teachers Tuere Sala and Tim Geil, and other dharma leaders, will offer these events. Recent visiting teachers have included Luang Por Pasanno, Ayya Santussikā, Ayya Cittānandā, Bhante Panna, Rodney Smith, Phillip Moffitt, and Narayan Liebenson.

Sala encourages practitioners to consider making in-person sangha gatherings a priority when possible. She reminds students of these words of the Buddha: “Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie, is actually the whole of the holy life.” 

“Zoom was a saving grace during the pandemic, and it will remain a saving grace for all of us who just can’t get to the center in person,” Sala said. “I want to caution us, and I include myself, against using Zoom as a convenience … It feels nice to be in the room together.” 

The space is within walking distance of the University District light rail station and many bus lines. SIMS may also consider facilitating carpool arrangements to make it easier for people to attend. 

SIMS will continue to bring together practitioners for online events almost every day of the week, including practice groups for those under age 40, those who identify as BIPOC or LGBTQIA2S+, and those connected to the Eastside suburban area of Seattle. 

Other recent and ongoing programs include small kalyana mitta (spiritual friend) groups, an eight-session curriculum called “Being Mindful of Race,” and silent forest walks paired with reflections related to the climate crisis. SIMS relies on volunteers to develop and operate all of its programming. 

For members of this 25-year-old organization, settling into a long-term home is a welcome and much-anticipated milestone. A fundraising campaign launched in 2021 received contributions totaling $180,000 from over 200 donors. Construction on the project began in summer of 2022. 

But the sangha’s desire for an enduring home began long before the vision for this project took root. SIMS was founded in 1998 when a small group of dharma practitioners in Seattle linked up with Rodney Smith, a former monk who had trained under Mahasi Sayadaw in Burma, Ajahn Buddhadasa in Thailand, and the Insight Meditation Society in the United States. By then, Smith had been teaching vipassana meditation and had recently moved to Seattle. 

The group began with one weekly meditation in a church basement in north Seattle. Responding to size constraints and other issues, SIMS moved these weekly sits four more times, while the organization used numerous additional spaces for larger nonresidential retreats and intimate gatherings. 

SIMS’ new home may be its longest lasting, but the move will be its shortest in distance. The new meeting space will be just downstairs from its current gathering place, in the main hall of University Friends.

Information about SIMS, its new home, and the opening ceremony, along with a full schedule of online and in-person events, are all available on the SIMS website.