SittingLab is a simple space for growing and deepening your meditation practice.

Our Inspiration:

My teaching is not a philosophy. It is the result of direct experience. My teaching is a means of practice, not something to hold onto or worship.

— The Buddha

Sitting is taking time to step back, turn inward, breathe, and be fully present.

It's stepping back from your usual ways of thinking. It's turning inward to open up to a spacious sense of awareness and possibility. It's being fully present with yourself and everything around you.

Sitting is resting in the timeless essence of how things are. Here and now. It's allowing yourself to not know and instead be open and curious. When you stop trying to figure things out and become quiet and still, you will enable the experience being fully present and awake.

Our Inspiration:

The most radical thing any of us can do at this time is to be fully present to what is happening in the world.

— Joanna Macy, Buddhist Teacher and Author

You learn to sit by sitting. That's why showing up is the most important thing.

Just showing up––with no agendas or fixed ideas––is how you grow a sitting practice. Returning to your seat, over and over again, is how your body learns to let go and open up.

To grow a sitting practice, begin wherever you are. Show up with a beginner's mind. Sit for 24 minutes in half-hour sessions with a check-in at the end. As you experiment and try things, you'll get a feel for what works for you. That's how to grow a practice that deepens over time.

Our Inspiration:

(When we sit) we see that nothing is stagnant, and nothing is fully separate, that who we are, what we are is intimately woven into the nature of life itself. Out of this sense of connection, love and compassion arise.”

— Sharon Salzberg, Buddhist Teacher and Author

Those who can establish a daily practice, notice that everything is different.

With a regular, everyday sitting practice, you see different, think different, feel different, work different, care different, create different, and love different.

With a daily sitting practice, your life changes in ways that you could have never imagined. Everything is different. You feel more connected, present, and awake for your life, able to meet each moment with greater kindness, compassion, and understanding. You know yourself better and experience the world around you differently.

Our Inspiration:

When we sit, we bring joy and nourishment to ourselves and others. Every time we sit, we can sit in such a way that the world can profit from our sitting.

–– Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist Teacher and Activist

When you grow a regular practice, the benefits begin to increase exponentially.

A regular sitting practice is the path to creating profound and lasting changes in your life. The way you establish a practice is by taking small steps and then repeating them again and again.

By taking small steps, you can avoid resistance to change as you create new neural pathways and patterns of behavior. With commitment and repetition, you establish a daily practice that sets you on a deepening path. This enables you to experience the benefits of your sitting as the interplay of "inter-being" and "inter-becoming."

At SittingLab, our intention is to help anyone, anywhere, become a more compassionate, wise, and skillfully acting human being. We do this by creating the simple, yet powerful conditions that enable greater vitality, understanding, cooperation, and adaptation: a regular, everyday sitting practice.

–– Robert Thomas, SittingLab Founder and Meditator

The way to grow and deepen your sitting practice is together with friends.

It's really hard to grow a regular sitting practice. It's even harder to go deeper. The support and encouragement of friends is what makes it possible.

Research shows that the best way to have a daily, deepening sitting practice is to practice together with friends. Nothing helps a sitting practice develop better than caring friends there to support you on your path. Together, we can encourage each other to maintain and deepen our practice.

Our Inspiration:

Meditation practice in the 21st Century should become a collective practice. Without a community of friends, we cannot achieve much."

— Thich Nhat Hanh

The SittingLab experience is minimal yet meaningful, and profoundly human.

We are not about spending time on our computers. We're about connecting with ourselves and other human beings to share the experience and benefits of a regular sitting practice.

When we sit quietly together, there's a feeling of connection and belonging that naturally occurs. At SittingLab, there are no distracting 'gurus' or recorded meditations. You show up when and however it works for you to be fully present together with other human beings.

Our Inspiration:

Friendship is the most important element in the spiritual path. Everything else naturally flows from it.

–– Norman Fischer, Buddhist Teacher and Author

It's simple: Block a half hour in your calendar and join friends to sit for 24 minutes.

At SittingLab, we try to keep things as simple and easy as possible. We're not trying to entertain you or make things complicated. 24 minutes a day will have a transformative effect on your life.

Grow and deepen your sitting practice using the SittingLab platform to block 30-minute sessions in your calendar. You'll automatically get a reminder in your inbox. Click on the event, and you're in. Here's also where you can create a personal profile, connect with other members, join a master practice group, access resources, and more.

Above: Screenshots from SittingLab's practice event calendar.

Our Inspiration:

The past is past. The future is important. You in the West should be creative in adapting the timeless essence of the Dharma to your own cultural times and circumstances.

— His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, Buddhist Teacher and Author

Become a member, sit with new friends, and be part of the SittingLab community.

Included in your monthly membership: Daily Open Sits; Practice Check-Ins; Talks w Q&A; Half and Full-Day Retreats; Peer Connection; and 1:1 Practice Discussion.

SittingLab is for you if meditation feels like a priority for your life. We offer support and encouragement to maintain and deepen your practice. If you'll benefit from a practice community––and know that others will benefit from your presence––we invite you to join us.

Our Inspiration:

Although, in some ways, meditation is doing nothing, the very act of stopping in a world that's going faster and faster has a big impact and is a revolutionary act.

–– Lama Tsultrim Allione, Buddhist Teacher and Author

What people have to say about their experience practicing with SittingLab:

"SittingLab deepens my commitment to practice daily. I feel the support of others to be consistent when I might be feeling lazy."

–– Ernest B. PhD, Educational Therapist

"Before I joined SittingLab, I wanted to meditate more regularly but had a hard time prioritizing the time for it. I would also feel too antsy to sit still for much more than 5 minutes. After joining SittingLab, I've now been able to meditate more regularly (at least three times a week), and I'm amazed at my ability to simply "be" for our entire sitting sessions. After each session, I feel more centered, calm, and connected in a deep way with my fellow meditators."

–– Karla P., Writer and Life Coach

"Robert helped me get over the initial challenges of meditation. I'd tried in the past to meditate on a regular basis and was never able to. With this retreat, things started to click, and I began to relax into it instead of trying so hard and ultimately stopping. This made all the difference in me establishing a regular practice. I feel like I have a path forward now."

— Edward P., retreat participant

"Robert provided the group with an inspiring blend of yoga practice and meditation that was warm, non-judgmental, and fun. He took great care to address everyone's needs and encouraged each person to stretch their own comfort zone. I thank Robert for his mindful presence, good humor, commitment, and wisdom."

— Barbara R., retreat participant

Our Inspiration:

In an age of acceleration, nothing can be more exhilarating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing is so luxurious as paying attention. In an age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still."

–– Pico Iyer, global traveler and author

SittingLab was designed by long-time practitioner and community leader.

SittingLab's Robert Thomas began practicing Vipassana meditation as a novice monk in a Thai forest monastery in 1993. He would then dedicate his life to sitting practice, spending six years as a Zen monk in a remote mountain monastery and 24 years with the San Francisco Zen Center. While ordained as a Buddhist priest, Robert has led Western Dharma and mindfulness organizations for the last two decades. In addition to the San Francisco Zen Center, this includes Mindful Schools and Tara Mandala, an international Buddhist community, where he is currently the Executive Director.

Our Vision

Today, anyone can sit with other meditators at any time and from anywhere. This paradigm shift, made possible by today's digital tools, enables people to practice together daily with fewer obstacles and complications than ever before.

This is a significant development because how we meditate today isn't working. It's all about consumer apps, disembodied voices, and faraway places. It's not real, inclusive, or deep enough for many of us. It's hard to meet other humans and make friends. The travel is too expensive and it harms our environment.

At SittingLab, our sincere aspiration is to offer a fresh alternative. It's to enable a global community of practitioners to easily gather, connect, and sit together so that we can support and encourage each other to grow a regular, deepening practice.

We approach sitting practice with as few rules and restrictions as possible. With less to distract us, we can more easily let go and rest together in the boundless, open space of the present moment.

This allows us to feel our way into a profound sense of connection with everything around us––as an everyday practice! When we do this, kindness and compassion for ourselves and others naturally emerge, giving meaning and purpose to our lives.

I imagine a day when––enabled by a wise, healthy, minimalist use of technology––anyone, anywhere, can sit together with others any time of any day.

I believe this is how we find our path forward as humans, away from anger, struggle, and suffering, toward a life of more vitality, connection, adaptivity, and understanding. The result is an embodied wisdom and an ability to express our heartfelt love for all beings without one exception.

If you'd like to try it out, please join us."

–– Robert Thomas, SittingLab Founder

Coming soon is SittingLab's introductory course to help you design your own sitting practice.

SittingLab

SittingLab is a simple space for growing and deepening your meditation practice.

Our Inspiration:

My teaching is not a philosophy. It is the result of direct experience. My teaching is a means of practice, not something to hold onto or worship.

— The Buddha

Sitting is taking time to step back, turn inward, breathe, and be fully present.

It's stepping back from your usual ways of thinking. It's turning inward to open up to a spacious sense of awareness and possibility. It's being fully present with yourself and everything around you.

Our Inspiration:

The most radical thing any of us can do at this time is to be fully present to what is happening in the world.

— Joanna Macy, Buddhist Teacher and Author

You learn to sit by sitting. That's why showing up is the most important thing.

Just showing up––with no agendas or fixed ideas––is how you grow a sitting practice. Returning to your seat, over and over again, is how your body learns to let go and open up.

Our Inspiration:

(When we sit) we see that nothing is stagnant, and nothing is fully separate, that who we are, what we are is intimately woven into the nature of life itself. Out of this sense of connection, love and compassion arise.”

— Sharon Salzberg, Buddhist Teacher and Author

Those who can establish a daily practice, notice that everything is different.

With a regular, everyday sitting practice, you see different, think different, feel different, work different, care different, create different, and love different.

Our Inspiration:

When we sit, we bring joy and nourishment to ourselves and others. Every time we sit, we can sit in such a way that the world can profit from our sitting.

–– Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist Teacher and Activist

When you grow a regular practice, the benefits begin to increase exponentially.

A regular sitting practice is the path to creating profound and lasting changes in your life. The way you establish a practice is by taking small steps and then repeating them again and again.

At SittingLab, our intention is to help anyone, anywhere, become a more compassionate, wise, and skillfully acting human being. We do this by creating the simple, yet powerful conditions that enable greater vitality, understanding, cooperation, and adaptation: a regular, everyday sitting practice.

–– Robert Thomas, SittingLab Founder and Meditator

The way to grow and deepen your sitting practice is together with friends.

It's really hard to grow a regular sitting practice. It's even harder to go deeper. The support and encouragement of friends is what makes it possible.

Our Inspiration:

Meditation practice in the 21st Century should become a collective practice. Without a community of friends, we cannot achieve much."

— Thich Nhat Hanh

The SittingLab experience is minimal yet meaningful, and profoundly human.

We are not about spending time on our computers. We're about connecting with ourselves and other human beings to share the experience and benefits of a regular sitting practice.

Our Inspiration:

Friendship is the most important element in the spiritual path. Everything else naturally flows from it.

–– Norman Fischer, Buddhist Teacher and Author

It's simple: Block a half hour in your calendar and join friends to sit for 24 minutes.

At SittingLab, we try to keep things as simple and easy as possible. We're not trying to entertain you or make things complicated. 24 minutes a day will have a transformative effect on your life.

Our Inspiration:

The past is past. The future is important. You in the West should be creative in adapting the timeless essence of the Dharma to your own cultural times and circumstances.

— His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, Buddhist Teacher and Author

Become a member, sit with new friends, and be part of the SittingLab community.

Included in your monthly membership: Daily Open Sits; Practice Check-Ins; Talks w Q&A; Half and Full-Day Retreats; Peer Connection; and 1:1 Practice Discussion.

Our Inspiration:

Although, in some ways, meditation is doing nothing, the very act of stopping in a world that's going faster and faster has a big impact and is a revolutionary act.

–– Lama Tsultrim Allione, Buddhist Teacher and Author

What people have to say about their experience practicing with SittingLab:

"SittingLab deepens my commitment to practice daily. I feel the support of others to be consistent when I might be feeling lazy."

Our Inspiration:

In an age of acceleration, nothing can be more exhilarating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing is so luxurious as paying attention. In an age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still."

–– Pico Iyer, global traveler and author

SittingLab was designed by long-time practitioner and community leader.

Our Vision

Today, anyone can sit with other meditators at any time and from anywhere. This paradigm shift, made possible by today's digital tools, enables people to practice together daily with fewer obstacles and complications than ever before.

At SittingLab, our sincere aspiration is to offer a fresh alternative. It's to enable a global community of practitioners to easily gather, connect, and sit together so that we can support and encourage each other to grow a regular, deepening practice.

We approach sitting practice with as few rules and restrictions as possible. With less to distract us, we can more easily let go and rest together in the boundless, open space of the present moment.

This allows us to feel our way into a profound sense of connection with everything around us––as an everyday practice! When we do this, kindness and compassion for ourselves and others naturally emerge, giving meaning and purpose to our lives.

I imagine a day when––enabled by a wise, healthy, minimalist use of technology––anyone, anywhere, can sit together with others any time of any day.

I believe this is how we find our path forward as humans, away from anger, struggle, and suffering, toward a life of more vitality, connection, adaptivity, and understanding. The result is an embodied wisdom and an ability to express our heartfelt love for all beings without one exception.

If you'd like to try it out, please join us."

–– Robert Thomas, SittingLab Founder

Coming soon is SittingLab's introductory course to help you design your own sitting practice.