(cancelled) Sit & Dharma Talk with Visiting Teacher Vance Pryor

In-person events will not be meeting at SDC through 4/15/20.

Sit & Dharma Talk with Visiting Teacher Vance Pryor

This evening with Vance Pryor will be an exploration of Right View in the Noble Eightfold Path. Vance will also offer a guided meditation.

VANCE PRYOR, PsyD, began insight meditation in 1998. He has been deeply influenced by the teachings of Sayadaw U Pandita and Sayadaw U Tejaniya. His training to become a teacher has been supported by the mentorship of Steve Armstrong and Kamala Masters. He is currently participating in IMS’s 2017-2021 Teacher Training Program.

Sacramento Insight Meditation events are sustained by the generosity of instructors in offering teachings freely and on the generosity of students and members of the meditative community in the form of financial support, service and participation in events. With our practice of dana, we support our Sangha.

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(Remote) Sit & Dharma Talk – Dennis Warren

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Dealing with the Present Moment

Sit & Dharma Talk with SIM Founding Teacher Dennis Warren

Join online meeting: https://zoom.us/j/540557536
Join by phone: 1-669-900-6833 ( Meeting ID: 540 557 536 )
For tips and instructions on how to use the access methods listed above, check this news blog.

Thursday Night Talk Dana

[give_form id=”10310″ show_title=”false” show_content=”none” display_style=”reveal”] “Generosity is the virtue that leads to peace.” – The Historical Buddha
We recognize that donating by cash or check at the time you attend this event may not always be convenient for you. If that’s the case, please use this form to donate by credit card or your PayPal account. Enter the amount you’d like to give and your donation will be shared with Dennis Warren and SIM.

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*Sit & Dharma Talk – Rich Howard – Awareness, Effort, Right View

Awareness, Effort, and Right View

Sit & Dharma Talk with SIM Community Teacher Rich Howard

Google “mindfulness” and you’ll find this definition (from Psychology Today): “Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention to the present.” On the other hand, Burmese monk and meditation teacher Sayadaw U Tejaniya titled one of his books “Awareness Alone is Not Enough.” What else is needed? Won’t it be complicated? With all the approaches to mindfulness floating around, it may be a challenge to know how to practice a simple yet effective form of awareness that leads to insight and eventually freedom. With reminders from Sayadaw’s two most recent books, “Collecting Gold Dust” and “Relax and Be Aware” as well as his classics, we will look at the wider context of Awareness/Mindfulness/Attention: how it might differ from some of the popular notions, how it fits in the Noble Eightfold Path, and how it supports our search for freedom. This evening will be a good preparation for Rich’s Saturday, February 29 daylong, Awareness Practice and Inquiry.

Sacramento Insight Meditation events are sustained by the generosity of instructors in offering teachings freely and on the generosity of students and members of the meditative community in the form of financial support, service and participation in events. With our practice of dana, we support our Sangha.

Thursday Night Talk Dana
“Generosity is the virtue that leads to peace.” – The Historical Buddha
We recognize that donating by cash or check at the time you attend this event may not always be convenient for you. If that’s the case, please use the form below to donate by credit card or your PayPal account. Enter the amount you’d like to give and your donation will be shared with Rich Howard and SIM.

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(Remote) Sit & Dharma Talk – Diane Wilde

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To join this remote meeting, note the following:
Online access: https://zoom.us/j/3261953359 
Phone access: 1-669-900-6833 ( Meeting ID: 326 195 3359 ) 
For instructions on how to use the access methods listed above, check our news blog.

Buddhist Practice During Challenging Times
Welcome to the Zoom Experiment!

Sit & Dharma Talk with SIM Community Teacher Diane Wilde

 

Tonight will be an experiment on working together in a “virtual” setting. We hope that it will be a useful mechanism for us to come together as a community as we navigate these times of “social distancing” and economic uncertainty. Buddhism provides some solid practical advise for times like this. Practical because our tradition anticipates challenges such as this. We will discuss two facets of practice which need cultivation right now… heedfulness and metta. Please join us!

Sacramento Insight Meditation events are sustained by the generosity of instructors in offering teachings freely and on the generosity of students and members of the meditative community in the form of financial support, service and participation in events. With our practice of dana, we support our Sangha.

Thursday Night Talk Dana
“Generosity is the virtue that leads to peace.” – The Historical Buddha
We recognize that donating by cash or check at the time you attend this event may not always be convenient for you. If that’s the case, please use the form below to donate by credit card or your PayPal account. Enter the amount you’d like to give and your donation will be shared with Rev. Diane Wilde and SIM.

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*Sit & Dharma Talk – Diane Wilde – The Truth About Lying

The Truth About Lying

Sit & Dharma Talk with SIM Community Teacher Diane Wilde

Do you lie? Yes you do. Research shows we all lie on a daily basis… often many times a day! Yet, truthfulness, and the avoidance of falsehood is emphasized over and over again in the Buddha’s teachings. Truthfulness is the first factor of Right Speech with specific guidelines on how to evaluate when, and how, to speak truthfully. Speaking truthfully is also the fourth of the Five Training Precepts, which are the basic virtues to be cultivated on our path to ease and happiness. Yet, we lie so frequently and for such a variety of reasons, that lying becomes an acceptable “necessity.” We maintain that we have plausible reasoning for our lies. Did the Buddha mean we must always be truthful? Let’s find out!

Sacramento Insight Meditation events are sustained by the generosity of instructors in offering teachings freely and on the generosity of students and members of the meditative community in the form of financial support, service and participation in events. With our practice of dana, we support our Sangha.

Thursday Night Talk Dana
“Generosity is the virtue that leads to peace.” – The Historical Buddha
We recognize that donating by cash or check at the time you attend this event may not always be convenient for you. If that’s the case, please use the form below to donate by credit card or your PayPal account. Enter the amount you’d like to give and your donation will be shared with Rev. Diane Wilde and SIM.

[give_form id=”9758″ show_title=”false” show_content=”none” display_style=”reveal”]
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*Sit & Dharma Talk – Heather Sundberg – the Fire Sermon

Sit & Dharma Talk with Visiting Teacher Heather Sundberg

Heather will be teaching on the Fire Sermon from the Buddha.  “The world is burning with reactivity. How do we practice to cool the fires?”

This talk will not be recorded.

Sacramento Insight Meditation events are sustained by the generosity of instructors in offering teachings freely and on the generosity of students and members of the meditative community in the form of financial support, service and participation in events. With our practice of dana, we support our Sangha.

Thursday Night Talk Dana
“Generosity is the virtue that leads to peace.” – The Historical Buddha
We recognize that donating by cash or check at the time you attend this Heather Sundberg event may not always be convenient for you. If that’s the case, please use the form below to donate by credit card or your PayPal account. Enter the amount you’d like to give.

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01/09/2020 “The Five Reflections” with Rich Howard

The Five Reflections: The Adult Facts of Life

To download this talk, right-click and select ‘save audio as’ or select the 3-dot menu to the right of the speaker icon.
Handout: Five Reflections (.pdf)Download

The Five Reflections are that we are subject (1) to aging, (2) to illness, and (3) to death; (4) that we will be separated from all that is dear to us; and (5) that we are responsible for our own actions and destiny. Many Buddhists throughout the world take these as a daily practice, a reminder that everything is impermanent and that loss is never far away. The historical Buddha recommended reflecting often on these facts “whether one is a woman or a man, lay or ordained.” On this evening of reflection and discussion, we will examine each of these “adult facts of life” and explore our relationship to them.

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Living Other Side of Suffering (10-week course) INTEREST LIST

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September 30, 2025 All day

Living On The Other Side of Suffering:

A Ten Week Course and One Day Retreat with SIM’s Founding Teacher Dennis Warren

For more information about this course, visit the course overview page (click here).

We invite you to add your name to the interest notification list at no cost. When the course is scheduled again, we’ll email you a reminder about the schedule that we’ve set.

Getting On the Notify List

To submit an RSVP, select the button “Going“. Enter your contact details and then select the button “Finished“. After you RSVP you’ll receive a “Ticket” via email however there’s no need to print it. The “You Are Going” email is your confirmation that you are going to be notified as soon as we setup the 2024 course schedule. 

Your RSVP is not a registration to the course.

Thank you for your interest in this course offering. If you’re not yet ready to RSVP and would like to contact the course registrar for any reason, click here.


Details

Remote Meeting Zoom

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01/02/2020 “Starting Anew – Expectations For Practice” with Dennis Warren

To download this talk, right-click and select ‘save audio as’ or select the 3-dot menu to the right of the speaker icon.
CHART HANDOUT: The-Arch-of-Practice-DevelopmentDownload
CHART HANDOUT: Buddhas-Journey-of-AwakeningDownload

With the start of a new decade, there is real value in looking at what we can reasonably expect from our individual practices as community level practitioners? What tests or standards did the historical Buddha recommend for assessing how we have done in the last decade, and what we may achieve in the new decade?
This evening will involve an examination of the historical context the lead to the Buddha’s approaches to psychological, emotional and spiritual development. It will also involve an investigation of guidelines for creating a sound practice and assessing it impact in our lives.
The discussion this evening will build on a number of themes explored in Dennis’ presentation on December 19 “Craving and Clinging – Stepping Stones on The Path of Both Suffering & Awakening.” You can listen to the December 19th talk that’s posted to our audio dharma library (click here).

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12/26/2019 “Dana in Theory and Practice” with Rich Howard

If you would like to download this talk, please right click and select “save as” here.

Dana is one of the core practices of our Insight/Vipassana tradition, and it is fraught with potential baggage. On this evening, we will examine dana and related concepts (giving, generosity, renunciation), its place on various Buddhist lists, and how it might fit into our contemporary practice. Rich will include some of the classical stories of dana from the Pali Canon and invite discussion of how this practice, which like many Buddhist practices runs “against the stream” of current American culture, has been working for you.

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