Joseph Goldstein

Joseph Goldstein is an American meditation teacher and one of the founders of the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts. He learned insight meditation in India from Anagarika Munindra and Dipa Ma, among others, and has led retreats since 1974. He remains one of IMS's guiding teachers.

From the Catskills to Thailand

Goldstein was born in 1944 and grew up in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. After graduating from Columbia University in 1965 he joined the Peace Corps and was posted to Thailand, where he first became interested in Buddhism.

Bodh Gaya and his teachers

In 1967 he began a serious study of Buddhism. IMS says that since then he has practised different forms of Buddhist meditation under teachers from India, Burma and Tibet.

Among his first teachers was Anagarika Munindra, whom he met at Bodh Gaya in 1967, a year after Munindra had returned from nine years of training in Burma. Tricycle's obituary of Munindra names Goldstein as one of his first Western students. Munindra's student Dipa Ma also taught him; the website devoted to her calls her one of his primary teachers.

Spirit Rock Meditation Center names S. N. Goenka as an important teacher for many early Insight Meditation teachers, Goldstein among them. He also practised with the Burmese teacher Sayadaw U Pandita.

Founding the Insight Meditation Society

In 1975 Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield decided to start a meditation retreat centre. They bought a former Catholic novitiate in Barre for $150,000, and on 14 February 1976 a small group of teachers and staff opened the IMS Retreat Center.

In 1979, during a visit to IMS, Mahasi Sayadaw gave teaching authorisation to four American students: Goldstein, Salzberg, Kornfield and Jacqueline Mandell. Spirit Rock describes Mahasi's noting method as the primary technique the founders of IMS brought back from Asia (see mental noting).

Goldstein sits on IMS's Founders Council of guiding teachers. His publisher, Monkfish, says he envisioned the expansion of IMS into its Retreat Center and the Forest Refuge, a centre for long self-directed retreats that has hosted retreatants since 2003.

The Barre Center for Buddhist Studies

He also helped establish the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, which combines the study of Buddhist texts with meditation practice. IMS and his publisher date its founding to 1989, while the centre's own site says it was founded in 1990 by Goldstein and Salzberg.

What he teaches

IMS describes his retreats as teaching insight and lovingkindness meditation, the two practices the society itself names as its core: vipassanā and mettā. His books include Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom (1993) and Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening (2013). With Jack Kornfield he wrote Seeking the Heart of Wisdom (1987).

The wider movement he helped start, with its mix of Burmese and Thai lineages, is described on the Insight Meditation in the West page, and its lovingkindness practice on the mettā page.

Teaching in 2026

He was still teaching in 2026. IMS scheduled an online series, "Live from the Meditation Hall with Joseph Goldstein 2026", for October and November 2026.