We understand conceptually that everything is changing, even the stars and the earth. But can we perceive impermanence in a profound and immediate way? Until we understand our false assumptions about reality, and that we are all attributing all sorts of solidity and stability. Where there isn’t any, we won’t experience the underlying peacefulness inherent in our hearts. When we see clearly the ever-changing nature of all conditioned phenomena, including our thoughts, feelings, emotions, and perceptions of self and other, the futility of grasping for certainty becomes obvious. In letting go we know freedom. Taking the insight of impermanence to heart will have a revolutionary impact on our lives.
DaRa Williams
Residential Retreat Teacher
DaRa Williams has practiced Insight Meditation for more than 25 years. She completed the Spirit Rock/IMS/IRC Teacher Training, serves as a Spirit Rock Stewarding Teacher, and as an Associate Guiding Teacher at IMS. DaRa is a trainer and wellness coach, and has been a clinician and administrator in the mental health field for over 25 years. She is a certified Focusing Oriented Therapist and a practitioner and trainer of Aboriginal Focusing Oriented Complex Trauma Therapy.
"It is my belief that vipassana meditation and the dharma are ideal for transforming suffering, particularly the trauma of oppression and its many vicissitudes-where the chains around our minds and hearts can be broken through and dissolved. Awareness and wisdom become the vehicle for freedom and transforming lives."
DaRa Williams' Upcoming Programs
Retreat | On-Land
December 11 - December 17, 2026 | Friday - Thursday | 6 nights
Opening to Insight and Love
Spaces Still Available! It is easy for us to forget the heart’s capacity for wisdom and love. The term sati—mindfulness—means to remember. To re-member is to make whole. Meditation retreat invites us to remember our fundamental wholeness so we can respond to the cries of the world. Cultivating a clear mind and tender a heart, we can act with skill and kindness. Within the silent container of retreat, we investigate our experience with relaxed, focused attention, let go of habitual patterns of reactivity and fear, and rediscover the preciousness of human life and poignancy of our shared humanity. As our felt sense of separation heals and we remember our essential goodness, we can engage with life from a place of embodied compassion, freedom and peace.
Erin Treat
DaRa Williams
Pamela Weiss
Kate Siber (Teacher in Training)
Ronya Fakhoury Banks (Teacher in Training)
Retreat | On-Land
December 27 - January 4, 2027 | Sunday - Monday | 8 nights
New Year's Insight Meditation Retreat
Spaces Still Available! This is a traditional Insight Meditation (vipassanā) retreat with stillness and movement in silence, and meetings with teachers. Each day there will be meditation instructions, Dharma talks, and movement practice. We will mark the turning of the year with a late evening sitting and simple ceremony on New Year’s Eve. In celebration of the New Year, our focus will be on cultivating loving awareness and embracing each moment as fresh and new. All are welcome.
Eugene Cash
devon hase
DaRa Williams
Yong Oh
Hakim Tafari (Movement Teacher)
nico hase (Teacher in Training)
Retreat | On-Land
April 10 - April 18, 2027 | Saturday - Sunday | 8 nights
Insight Meditation Retreat: A Path to Wisdom and the Cultivation of the Heart
Registration Open. Grounded in mindfulness, investigation, and compassion, this retreat offers a supportive and contemplative space to turn inward, observe the nature of the mind and body, and deepen understanding of impermanence, interconnection, resulting in clarity and the possibility of inner freedom. Through sustained periods of sitting and walking meditation, guided instruction, Dharma talks, and meetings with the teachers, we will engage with the cultivation of clear seeing as well as the development of the heart qualities—equanimity, lovingkindness, compassion, and empathetic joy.
DaRa Williams
Noliwe Alexander
Tuere Sala
Bart van Melik
Melanie Huitse Cherng (Teacher in Training)
Brett Bethke (Teacher in Training)
Dharma Library
Can't join us live online or on the land? Study and practice at your convenience with DaRa Williams through our new library of recordings, articles, and self-paced online courses.