With the recent rise in the community level of COVID infection, the SIM Board of Directors highly recommends that persons attending in person events at the Sacramento Dharama Center wear effective masks, such as N95, KN95, and KF94, especially those who are at higher risk of serious complications after contracting COVID.

A limited number of masks will be available at the entrance to the Dharma Hall for this purpose.

Additionally, for your wellbeing and that of others, all attendees are encouraged to be fully vaccinated with the most recent recommended vaccines.

Thank you,

Jon Siiteri, on behalf of the Board of Directors

A message from the Sacramento Insight Meditation Board of Directors

The SIM Board is continuing to monitor developments regarding the Delta AND the Omicron variants of Covid19. After careful review of the latest available evidence, we have decided that it continues to be safe to maintain a hybrid program of in-person and Zoom attendance for now. We want to share with you not only our decision, but also the thinking behind it.

• VACCINATION PROVIDES OUR GREATEST PROTECTION – Vaccination continues to provide good protection from infection and serious illness due to both Delta and Omicron, and we strongly urge all members of our community to be vaccinated. We also recommend you receive a booster vaccination, according to the CDC guidelines, no later than seven days before attending events in person. Booster vaccines are recommended after 2 months for everyone vaccinated with the J&J vaccine and 6 months after either their second Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. If anyone would like to be vaccinated but hasn’t been able to do so, we would be glad to help. We want to send a clear message that anyone who is not fully vaccinated should NOT attend SIM events in person for their own safety and the safety of others. Those who choose to remain unvaccinated are welcome to participate remotely on Zoom and not attend in person.

• MASKING, DISTANCING AND AIR FILTRATION PROVIDE ADDITIONAL PROTECTION – To maximize safety, we will continue to require indoor masking, and high quality KN95 masks will be available at the door to anyone who would like one. We will continue to arrange socially distanced seating, and for lunch time and break periods to make maximal use of our two high-quality HEPA air filters. All of this creates a low-risk environment in which we feel that we can safely practice together.

• PRACTICING TOGETHER PROVIDES IMPORTANT SUPPORT FOR OUR COMMUNITY – We do not want the focus on minimizing risk to overshadow the benefits that we are striving to provide to our community, namely the opportunity for us to practice together. After this long period of isolation and loneliness, coming together to practice as a sangha is an opportunity that we truly value.

We understand that each of us, including our teachers, will need to evaluate the personal risks and benefits of in-person attendance and make individual decisions about how to attend SIM. All of us on the Board want to support you in whatever you choose to do. We extend sincere thanks to the members of our audiovisual and set-up teams who have agreed to participate in making in-person attendance possible.

With deep gratitude to all of you who have remained faithful supporters of our sangha,

Jon Siiteri, for the SIM Board of Directors, December 7, 2021 (republished on 10/17/22)

(For other related resources posted by SIM, visit https://sactoinsight.org/pandemic-news/)

Because of the changing nature of COVID and in keeping with our practice of trying to do no harm, in-person attendance at SIM will continue to be on hold until February 24.  The board will continue to monitor COVID on a daily basis.  Notification of a change in this policy will be made as soon as possible.

Please continue to check this website prior to coming to a particular event in-person.

Thank you for your understanding and your patience.

Jon Siiteri, on behalf of the SIM Board of Directors

Due to the current widespread and worsening outbreak of the Covid omicron variant the SIM Board of Directors unanimously passed a new policy effective immediately suspending all in-person activitiesat Sacramento Dharma Center until February 8th, 2022. Our regular Thursday evening meditation and dharma talks, the ongoing faculty-led courses and end-of the-month daylong retreat will be presented online only. Please find links for those events on our calendar. 

This decision was made after careful consideration by the Board of all the relevant factors needed to ensure for the health of the sangha, faculty and visiting teachers during the current pandemic. 

We appreciate your acceptance and understanding of this decision and look forward to meeting you in-person soon.

On behalf of the SIM Board of Directors,

Jon Siiteri

We are happy to announce that our monthly Saturday daylong retreats are moving to a Hybrid format, so vaccinated participants can now choose to attend in-person or by Zoom.