This 45-minute course is suitable for beginners or anyone who would like a refresher. It is offered on the fourth Thursday of every month before the regular sitting and dharma talk. There is no fee.

RICH HOWARD has been an active practitioner and volunteer at SIM since 2004. His area of interest is bringing meditative awareness into everyday life. He participated in SIM’s 2007 India Pilgrimage and is a graduate of SIM’s second Practice Development and Leadership (PDL) program. The pilgrimage and the PDL program led to an interest in establishing the SIM Kalyana Mitta (Pali for spiritual friends) groups. He coordinated SIM’s network of Kalyana Mitta groups until he joined the SIM Board in 2010. He was one of the SIM representatives to the Inter-Sangha Coordinating Committee, predecessor to the Sacramento Dharma Center Board, which seeks to establish a shared space for Buddhist sanghas in Sacramento. He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in southern Africa in the 1970s and is fluent in Spanish. He is a past president of the SIM Board. Rich is trained professionally as a soil scientist and is an environmental consultant. His teachers are Dennis Warren and Steve Armstrong.