Buddhist Meditation Centers: Spirit Rock, IMS and Others

By Tim Yu, Founder & Editor · Published 2 November 2026

Checked against the primary texts · How we check · Report a correction

A Buddhist meditation center (centre, in British spelling) is a place set up to teach meditation, hold group sittings and run silent residential retreats open to lay people, rather than to host temple ceremony or monastic life. The centres people most often search for belong to different traditions: Spirit Rock and the Insight Meditation Society teach Insight (vipassana) meditation from the Theravada, Kadampa Meditation Centers belong to the New Kadampa Tradition, and others are Zen, Plum Village, Thai Forest or Tibetan.

What is a Buddhist meditation centre?

The difference is one of purpose. A temple is built around devotion, ceremony and a community’s religious life; a monastery is where monks and nuns live and train; a meditation centre exists mainly to teach meditation and hold retreats. The scholar Wendy Cadge calls the Insight Meditation Society “a meditation center for teacher and self-led meditation retreats” (Heartwood, 2004).

Some monasteries draw the line themselves: Cittaviveka, a Thai Forest monastery in England, says “The monastery is not a retreat centre” and points lay people wanting guided retreats to Amaravati. What a retreat is like is on Buddhist retreats; the practices are surveyed on Buddhist meditation.

Kinds of centre, by tradition

Spirit Rock Meditation Center (Woodacre, California)

Spirit Rock calls itself “a spiritual training institution in the Insight Meditation tradition”. Its practice grew from Burmese vipassana and is “particularly influenced by the Thai Forest Saṅgha style of Ajahn Chah”, the root teacher of its founder, Jack Kornfield. It sits on 411 acres in West Marin County.

The dates depend on the source. Spirit Rock’s archived history has Monday-night classes in Marin from 1984 (its drop-in page now says 1986), the land and name in 1988, and the residential centre opening in July 1998. Lion’s Roar (2013) names Kornfield, James Baraz, Sylvia Boorstein, Anna Douglas and Howard Cohn as founders in 1984. Cadge gives 408 acres, the name in 1993 and the first residential retreat in 1998.

Programmes run “from weekly and monthly drop-in groups to silent residential retreats, lasting from one day to two months”. As of November 2026 the drop-in groups meet online, the Monday night one with occasional in-person dates, and are offered by dāna on a sliding scale. Residential retreats have a partially subsidised “Basic Rate” open to all; 20-22% of residential participants receive needs-based scholarships, which Spirit Rock says are in very high demand and can support only a very small proportion of those who ask. Teacher dāna is given at the end of a retreat.

The Insight Meditation Society (Barre, Massachusetts)

“In 1975,” IMS’s history says, “a group of young teachers – Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield – decided to start a meditation retreat center.” Cadge and Spirit Rock also count Jacqueline Schwartz (now Jacqueline Mandell), and Cadge dates the incorporation to 19 May 1975. The centre opened in Barre on 14 February 1976. The founders brought back, says Spirit Rock, chiefly Mahasi Sayadaw’s method, with lovingkindness (mettā) phrases; see Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg.

IMS has two adjacent facilities on almost 400 acres. The Retreat Center runs silent courses “from a weekend to three months”, with a day from 5:30 am to 10 pm. The Forest Refuge, open since 2003, expects at least one six-week teacher-led insight retreat or six one-week ones. Half a mile away is the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, which says Goldstein and Salzberg founded it in 1990 (another of its pages says 1989).

As of November 2026 fees follow four sliding-scale rates and, IMS says, generally pay for board and running costs, not teaching: “Teachers instead rely on the generosity of retreatants.” IMS helps about a third of retreatants financially.

Kadampa Meditation Centers (the New Kadampa Tradition)

Kadampa Meditation Centers belong to the New Kadampa Tradition – International Kadampa Buddhist Union (NKT-IKBU). In its own words, New Kadampa Buddhism “is a distinctive form of Mahayana Buddhism established in 1991 by Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso”, an independent tradition carrying the teachings of Atiśa and Tsongkhapa, which it notes “were part of the Gelug school” (on the medieval school it is named after, see Kadam). It says it maintains “no political affiliations”. Its mother centre, Manjushri Kadampa Meditation Centre at Conishead Priory in Cumbria, offers drop-in classes open to everyone (£7.50 for an evening class, some sessions free, as of November 2026), retreats and festivals. Its study rests on three programmes Kelsang Gyatso built from his books, the General, Foundation and Teacher Training Programmes, which Manjushri calls “the core of all Kadampa centers around the world”. When Kelsang Gyatso died in September 2022, aged 91, Tricycle counted more than 1,300 centres opened since 1991.

Not every centre with “Kadampa” in its name is NKT. The Kadampa Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, says it is part of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), “in the lineage of His Holiness the Dalai Lama”.

The NKT is also controversial. Tricycle’s 2018 report describes it as accused of sectarianism and traces the conflict to the protector Dorje Shugden: in 1996, it says, the Dalai Lama “instructed Tibetan Buddhists to refrain” from Shugden worship, and the NKT, which had placed Shugden at the centre of its worship, organised demonstrations; Tricycle adds that Reuters reported in 2015 that the NKT was behind the International Shugden Community’s US protests against him. That group disbanded in 2016, Tricycle reported in 2022. The Dalai Lama’s office says there “never has been an official ban”, only advice against the practice since the mid-1980s that is “a matter of counsel only”. Asked by Tricycle, a representative of the NKT’s US headquarters replied that under its constitution it “cannot be involved in political activity”.

Goenka vipassana centres (dhamma.org)

The centres on dhamma.org teach vipassana as taught by S. N. Goenka, who, Cadge writes, “strictly avoided the words ‘Buddhism’ and ‘religion’”, in ten-day residential courses with “no charges for the courses - not even to cover the cost of food and accommodation”. No teacher is paid, and donations are accepted only from people who have completed a course (a first-timer may give at the end). Dhamma Dhara in Shelburne, Massachusetts (1982), calls itself “the first Vipassana meditation center in North America”, though IMS had opened in 1976; Cadge calls it, more narrowly, the first in the Goenka lineage outside India. On 2 November 2026 dhamma.org listed 273 centres and 135 other course locations. Dhamma Dhara says Vipassana “is not a treatment or therapy”; the course rules and the organisation’s caution about significant mental health issues are on S. N. Goenka.

San Francisco Zen Center, Tassajara and Green Gulch

San Francisco Zen Center “was established in 1962 by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi (1904-1971) and his American students” and practises in the Soto Zen tradition. Its practice places are City Center (1969); Green Gulch Farm, 115 acres in Marin County, bought in 1972; and Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, inland from Big Sur. SFZC dates Tassajara to 1967 and calls it “the first Soto Zen training monastery on the West coast”; the Soto school’s official site dates it to 1966 and calls it “the first Zen Buddhist monastery built in the United States”. From September to April it is closed to the public; it takes guests in summer.

Plum Village and its monasteries in the US

Plum Village, near Bordeaux in south-west France, began in 1982 and is, in its words, “the first monastic community founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) in the West”. Over 200 monks and nuns live there, and overnight guests must join a retreat. As of November 2026 a week costs €326 to €1,650 per adult, by lodging and rate tier, and most rates include a dāna offering starting at about €100 a week for the teachings and the monastic community. In the US the tradition has Deer Park Monastery in Escondido, California (2000); Blue Cliff Monastery in Pine Bush, New York; and Magnolia Grove Monastery in Batesville, Mississippi (2005).

Thai Forest monasteries: Chithurst, Amaravati and Abhayagiri

How Ajahn Chah’s lineage reached England is told on the Thai Forest tradition and Ajahn Chah. Cittaviveka at Chithurst was established in 1979 by Ajahn Chah and Ajahn Sumedho, its first abbot. Amaravati, founded by Ajahn (Luang Por) Sumedho in 1984 in Hertfordshire, holds retreats for lay people. Abhayagiri, in Redwood Valley, California, calls itself “the first monastery in the United States to be established by followers of Ajahn Chah”; Cadge writes that Hsuan Hua, abbot of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, gave Ajahn Sumedho’s sangha its 120 acres of land shortly before he died. (Another Thai lineage, the Dhammakaya movement of Wat Phra Dhammakaya, lists its own branch centres abroad.)

Kagyu Samye Ling and Shambhala centres

Kagyu Samye Ling, at Eskdalemuir in southern Scotland, dates from 1967. Samye Ling says Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Akong Tulku Rinpoche “co-founded the first Tibetan Centre in the West”. It teaches within the Karma Kagyu lineage and says it is under the spiritual direction of the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, and Tai Situpa. Ogyen Trinley Dorje is one of two rival claimants to that title, Tricycle notes; the other is Thaye Dorje. On the Kagyu school itself, see the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

Shambhala centres belong to Shambhala International, which the Colorado Daily Times-Call in 2024 describes as “founded in Boulder by Trungpa in the early 1970s”; in 1976, his institute says, he set up the Shambhala Training programme. CBC News put its centres at more than 200 in 2018. In February 2019 a third-party investigation commissioned and released by Shambhala found it “more than likely” that its then leader, Trungpa’s son Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, had committed sexual misconduct in two cases, Tricycle reported. In the report he called one kiss consensual and denied any sexual contact in the other case; Shambhala’s interim board said he “must take responsibility for the harm he has caused”. He left Shambhala permanently in 2022, the Daily Times-Call reported. The detail is on Chögyam Trungpa.

Gaia House (Devon, England)

Gaia House, “a silent meditation retreat centre” in South Devon, was founded in 1983 by Christina Feldman and Christopher Titmuss, who, it notes, is no longer associated with it. Its retreats are “predominantly based in” Insight, loving-kindness and Zen practice, drawing about 1,500 people a year. None of the registration fee goes to the teachers, who rely on students’ generosity.

How to choose a meditation centre

Questions worth asking, with what the centres themselves publish on each:

1. Which tradition and lineage? The table above is a start.
2. Who teaches, and who authorised them? Spirit Rock, for instance, records that Mahasi Sayadaw gave teaching authorisation to four American students at IMS in 1979.
3. How does money work? Fees may cover board only, with teachers relying on dāna (IMS, Gaia House); Goenka courses charge nothing.
4. Is it for beginners? IMS says most of its retreats suit both new and experienced meditators, and Spirit Rock says the same of most of its programmes; some, like the Forest Refuge, ask for weeks of prior retreat experience.
5. Is there a code of ethics and a complaints process? Gaia House’s teachers’ code recognises “a significant disparity of power” between teacher and student; IMS publishes a teachers’ code, SFZC its complaint processes, the NKT a safeguarding policy.
6. Is it the right help? A retreat is not therapy. If meditation stirs up difficulty, see common meditation problems.

Checking a teacher is old advice. In the Caṅkī Sutta the Buddha describes a lay person looking over a monastic teacher:

Only after finding no such qualities, the discourse goes on, do they “place faith in them”. The warning signs to watch for are on how to find a Buddhist teacher.

How to find a Buddhist meditation centre near you

BuddhaNet’s World Buddhist Directory is a searchable, not-for-profit database that can be filtered by tradition, and Lion’s Roar runs the Dharma Network, a directory of meditation and retreat centres which, it says, contains paid listings that are not editorial content or endorsements. Single traditions keep their own lists: IMS’s list of Insight centres and communities, the dhamma.org locations directory, and Plum Village’s International Sangha Directory, which points to a directory on the lay-run Plumline website. A listing tells you where a group is, not how it is run. For how these centres came to the West, see Buddhism in America and Buddhism in the West.