01/24/2019 “Restlessness, Worry and Anxiety” with Dennis Warren

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Investigation Leading to Liberating Insight – A Practical Model For Working With Restlessness, Worry and Anxiety
How can Restless, Worry & Anxiety be investigated in a way that leads to liberating insight? This is one of the fundamental skills of a good practice. This evening will be devoted to examining a practical, experiential and hands-on model of working with these obstacles and challenges to mindfulness and practice.
While these states of mind can appear in different areas in our practice and our life, they usually acts as an undermining factor in our confidence, decision making and behavior. What are the related experiences of Restless, Worry and Anxiety? What are their experiential origin? What causes them to be present? What causes them to diminish and no longer be present? What can we do to work with them skillfully while they present?
As preparation for this evening, reflect on how Restless, Worry and Anxiety has influenced your experience and decision making in the last year. Come prepared with questions you have regarding your experiences.

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01/10/2019 “Cultivating Joy” with Meg Gawler

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There are two audio files. Here’s the dharma talk:

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And here’s a guided meditation:

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Buddhists on the path to liberation practice meditation to train the mind in mindfulness and samādhi. The Pāli word, samādhi, although often translated as ‘concentration,’ is better rendered into English as ‘unification.’ While concentration is an essential skill, the Buddhist practitioner cannot produce a state of samādhi through concentration alone. This is because the self needs to get out of the way. Rather, the Buddha teaches that samādhi arises naturally when the supporting conditions – all positive mind states – are in place. Joy is one of these positive mind states.

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01/03/2019 “Vision and Intention” with Rich Howard

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The vision of Sacramento Insight Meditation recognizes that “development of insight meditation and meditative awareness leads to a life of clarity, balance, and peace expressed in the forms of generosity, wisdom, compassion, and ethical conduct.” As we look forward to a new year, let’s explore our own intentions around developing our practice and how that might be expressed in action. Let’s also discuss how SIM might support individual and community well being in 2019.
The full statement of SIM’s Mission, Vision, and Means may be found at https://sactoinsight.org/about-us/. You may want to review these statements to prepare for this discussion.

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12/20/2018 “Working With Doubt” with Dennis Warren

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Investigation Leading to Liberating Insight – A Practical Model For Working With Doubt
How can doubt based experiences be investigated in a way that leads to liberating insight? This is one of the fundamental skills of a good practice. This evening will be devoted to examining a practical, experiential and hands-on model of working with doubt.
While doubt can appear in many different places in our practice and our life, it usually acts as an undermining factor in our confidence, decision making and behavior. What is doubt? What is its experiential origin? What causes it to be present? What causes it to diminish and no longer be present? What can we do to work with it skillfully while it is present? A helpful handout of the model will be used as the outline for the evening.
As preparation for this evening, reflect on how doubt has influenced your experience and decision making in the last year, and come prepared with questions you have regarding your experiences.

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12/06/2018 “Knowing How to Ask the Right Question” with Diane Wilde

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The Buddha taught that how we frame our questions is equally, and usually, more important then the answer. In other words, the Buddha wasn’t content simply to provide answers to people’s questions. He also wanted to show them how unskillful questions can be recognized through testing, and how skillful questions—conducive to the end of suffering—can be framed and tested in their place. These skills are applicable to our meditation practice as well as in daily life. For example, we might begin to see when we or others are asking a question not for an answer, but to enhance a particular self-identity. If we do not know how to frame our questions skillfully, we can find ourselves mired in an untenable situation of our own making. As Voltaire noted, “Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.”

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11/15/2018 “Talking on the Toll-free Line” with Laura Rosenthal

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Wise speech – refraining from false speech, malicious or divisive speech, harsh speech and idle speech – is one of the “folds” of the eightfold path toward awakening. For may of us, talking on the phone with consumer service folks – an internet provider or bank, a government agency, or a host of others – can challenge our intention to speak kindly and wisely. What is this all about? And how can we use these frequent, ordinary interactions to hone our awareness and our ethical practice? Join Laura Rosenthal for a talk and group conversation on the topic “Talking on the Toll-free Line“.

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10/25/2018 “Dharma and Psychotherapy” with Matt Russell

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Can dharma practice heal psychological wounding? Or can psychotherapy help us grow in ways that may not possible with the dharma alone? This talk will look at dharma and psychotherapy as two separate but complementary practices in the service of liberation.

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10/11/2018 “A Practical Model For Evaluating Your Practice” with Dennis Warren

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We seldom talk about evaluating how we are practicing or what model might be used for doing an evaluation.
This evening is devoted to examining a practical, experiential and hands-on evaluation model that we can use to evaluate how we are practicing, regardless of the stage or sophistication of our practice. Talk handout links listed below:

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10/04/2018 “Conditions that give rise to Liberation” with Meg Gawler

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The Buddha’s Teaching on the Conditions that give rise to Liberation

There are two audio files. Here’s the dharma talk:

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And here’s a guided meditation “Mindfulness of Breathing: The Door to Freedom”:

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09/27/2018 “Openness Spaciousness and Trust” with John Travis

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