SittingLab's a simple way to have a daily sitting practice with a community of friends.

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 about taking time to step back, turn inward, breathe and be present.

It's stepping back from your usual way 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 breathing and resting in the timeless essence of how things are. Here and now. It's allowing yourself to "not know" and be curious. When you stop trying to figure things out and be quiet and still, you will experience your innate capacity to be a fully present human being.

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

We believe that you learn to sit by sitting. So, simply showing up is essential.

Just showing up––with no agenda or fixed ideas––is how you learn to sit and establish a practice. Over time, by experimenting and trying new things, you'll discover what works best for you.

If you want to cultivate a nourishing and transformative sitting practice, it's best to start where you are. You do this by showing up with an open and curious beginner's mind. This is how you create the conditions for a steady, regular practice and find your true path.

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, available to meet each moment with curiosity, compassion, kindness, and wisdom. You know yourself better and see the world around you in a different way.

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 have a regular daily practice, the benefits will increase exponentially.

Daily practice is key to creating lasting changes in your life. The way to establish a daily practice is to start with the smallest possible step, then do it again.

With the smallest step you avoid resistance to change. It helps you establish new neural pathways and patterns of behavior. Slowly, by repeating, you grow a daily practice that sets you on a deepening path. You'll then experience the benefits of practice as a transformative dance between "inter-being" and "inter-becoming."

Our intention is to help us all be kind, caring, and compassionate human beings. We do this by creating simple, yet powerful conditions for vitality, understanding, cooperation, and adaptation: a regular, everyday sitting practice.

–– Robert Thomas, SittingLab Founder and Meditator

The best way to develop and deepen your sitting practice is to do it with friends.

It's hard to have a daily sitting practice. It's even harder to stick with it and go deeper. The support and encouragement of friends is what will make it possible.

Research shows that the best way to have a daily, deepening sitting practice is to do it together with friends. Nothing helps a sitting practice develop better than caring friends there to support you on your path. Together, we're able to 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.

SittingLab is not about spending more time on your computer. It's about connecting with yourself and other human beings to share the experience and benefits of a regular practice.

When we sit quietly together, there's a feeling of connection and belonging that naturally occurs. At SittingLab, there are no 'gurus' or guided meditations. You show up when and how it works for you. Simply relax, be present, and breathe 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

We make it easy: Block out a half hour and sit together with friends for 24 minutes.

At SittingLab, we keep things as simple as possible. We're not social media, an improvement program, or a professional community. We just help each other have a regular and deepening practice.

You start by easily blocking out daily 30-minute sessions in your calendar. You'll get a reminder in your inbox. Click on the event and you're in. After sitting silently, we do a brief "check-in" to share anything you're noticing about your practice.

Above: Screenshot 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 doing nothing at 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 far away places. It's not real, inclusive, or deep enough for many of us. It's hard to meet other humans and make friends. It's too expensive, and the travel harms our environment.

At SittingLab, our intention 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 have a regular, deepening practice. That's it.

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, compassion and love for ourselves and others naturally emerges, giving deep meaning and purpose to our lives.

I imagine a day when––empowered by a healthy, yet minimalist use of technology––anyone, anywhere, can sit with others every day. This is how we find our path forward, away from struggle and suffering, toward a life of more vitality, understanding, connection, and adaptation, resulting in peace and flourishing for all.

If you'd like to check it out, please join me here."

–– Robert Thomas, SittingLab Founder

SittingLab

SittingLab's a simple way to have a daily sitting practice with a community of friends.

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 about taking time to step back, turn inward, breathe and be present.

It's stepping back from your usual way 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

We believe that you learn to sit by sitting. So, simply showing up is essential.

Just showing up––with no agenda or fixed ideas––is how you learn to sit and establish a practice. Over time, by experimenting and trying new things, you'll discover what works best for you.

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 have a regular daily practice, the benefits will increase exponentially.

Daily practice is key to creating lasting changes in your life. The way to establish a daily practice is to start with the smallest possible step, then do it again.

Our intention is to help us all be kind, caring, and compassionate human beings. We do this by creating simple, yet powerful conditions for vitality, understanding, cooperation, and adaptation: a regular, everyday sitting practice.

–– Robert Thomas, SittingLab Founder and Meditator

The best way to develop and deepen your sitting practice is to do it with friends.

It's hard to have a daily sitting practice. It's even harder to stick with it and go deeper. The support and encouragement of friends is what will make 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.

SittingLab is not about spending more time on your computer. It's about connecting with yourself and other human beings to share the experience and benefits of a regular 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

We make it easy: Block out a half hour and sit together with friends for 24 minutes.

At SittingLab, we keep things as simple as possible. We're not social media, an improvement program, or a professional community. We just help each other have a regular and deepening practice.

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 doing nothing at 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 intention 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 have a regular, deepening practice. That's it.

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, compassion and love for ourselves and others naturally emerges, giving deep meaning and purpose to our lives.

If you'd like to check it out, please join me here."

–– Robert Thomas, SittingLab Founder