After a year of isolation, on March 17th Sacramento Insight Meditation volunteers prepared and served dinner to the women and children who are living at St. John’s Program for Real Change. The cooks and servers practice COVID safety by wearing masks. Servers were in close proximity, while cooks were distanced. Most of the volunteers have been fully vaccinated.
We will soon be scheduling shifts for the third Wednesday of April, May, and June. Volunteer opportunities include cooks who prepare the meal from 2:45-4:30 pm, and servers who work from 4:30-6:00 pm. We are welcoming new volunteers as we re-start this chance to practice generosity and compassion in the greater community.
If you are not already on the email list and wish to volunteer or have questions, please contact Mary Howard at mary@sactoinsight.org.
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Sacramento Dharma Center News Update (Mar 16, 2021). News topics include: Solar Energy System, The North Yard Project, Parking Lot Makeover, and SDC Re-opening. For details, click here.
SIM is grateful for all our donors and we’ve already emailed tax letters to those who gave $250 or more in 2020. If you have not received the tax letter and you think you should have, please check your email Inbox, as well as your Spam or Junk folder. If you still don’t find it, please contact SaraD@sactoinsight.org.
For 2021, we’ve changed the 6-week Beginning Meditation course meetings from Tuesday to Wednesday. The class start time has shifted 30 minutes earlier with a 90 minute duration. The Spring 2021 course begins Wednesday, May 12th and general registration opens on Thursday, Feb 4. Rich Howard and Sandra Sigrist will be instructing. For more information, visit the course summary page at https://sactoinsight.org/activities/practice-opportunities/meditation-courses/.
We hope you’ll join us for a mid-morning coffee/tea break with Greg Scharf. This will be a chance to get to know Greg in an informal hangout (on Zoom). Bring a beverage and/or snack and your questions.
Note that Greg will lead our Thursday Sit & Dharma talk on Jan 28 and our daylong retreat on Jan 30.
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We are starting to plan the next offering of the popular course “A Year to Live” with Rev. Diane Wilde. The 2021 meeting times/dates are still to be determined due to the pandemic. If you’re interested and want to stay in touch with the planning, visit the course summary page at https://sactoinsight.org/acti…/study-groups/a-year-to-live/.
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If you’re planning to attend our annual Holiday Party this year, please RSVP now. Because we’ll be setting up some smaller break-out groups during this event, your RSVP will help us be better hosts. We look forward to seeing you there!
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“Generosity brings happiness at every stage of its expression. We experience joy in forming the intention to be generous. We experience joy in the actual act of giving something. And we experience joy in remembering the fact that we have given.”
the historical Buddha
Dear SIM Friends,
This past year has been a challenging year for all of us and we hope that you are well.
We are proud that our sangha at Sacramento Insight Meditation (SIM) has risen to the challenges of this year. Although we have not been able to meet in person at the Sacramento Dharma Center (SDC) since March, we have successfully maintained our commitment to fulfill SIM’s mission of offering continuing support for those practicing in the Insight (Vipassana) Meditation tradition.
Our progress this year required a huge learning curve in shifting to remote meetings for all our activities. In addition to meeting regularly on Zoom on Thursday nights, we created and held in September a successful on-line annual retreat with Guiding Teacher John Travis and over 30 retreatants. The on-line monthly Saturday one-day retreats have been well attended, as have been the Beginning Meditation Class, Living on the Other Side of Suffering, and A Year to Live classes.
In addition to our dedicated faculty of Dennis Warren, Rich Howard, and Diane Wilde, we have brought in a variety of new teachers for the Thursday night talks. When Covid-19 first affected us, we created a community information source on our website for Sangha members and anyone needing support. Being aware of climate change, we gave support to SDC for the addition of solar panels to the center. We continue to work at being an inclusive and welcoming community to all who are interested in Insight Meditation.
Our fund-raising goal for 2021 focuses again on our mission as an educational non-profit and has two parts:
First, to continue to express SIM’s gratitude to our existing faculty through a year-end dana contribution in recognition of their ongoing commitment and teaching. Without them, we would not be the community that we are now.
Second, to support the Teaching and Development Initiative. This initiative aims to continue to maintain relationships with our faculty and Senior Teachers, develop relationships with new teachers, and work to identify and support potential teachers from within the community.
As you plan your year-end giving, we hope that you will continue to support SIM, our faculty, and the Teaching and Development Initiative. You can do so through a one-time, year-end contribution and/or signing up for a monthly, automatic on-line contribution to SIM. Monthly contributions are key to our long-term financial health, covering basic operating expenses as well as sustaining our Teaching and Development Initiative. (A portion of either type of donation will go to the faculty’s year end dana.)
