August 7, 2025
@
7:00 pm
–
9:00 pm
PDT
Insight Meditation and Dharma Talk with SIM Community Presenter Jeff Hardin
For biographical details of the teacher Jeff Hardin, click here.
* The teacher will present remotely via Zoom.
Hybrid events can be attended via Zoom or onsite at the Sacramento Dharma Center.
Embodied Compassion: Loving Awareness of the Aging, Ailing, and Mortal Body
The Buddha named old age, sickness, and death as divine messengers—undeniable truths that call us to practice and open the path to awakening. In this Dharma talk, we will explore how embodied compassion can become a liberating practice as we face the realities of an impermanent and mortal body.
Drawing from the early teachings of the Buddha, guided reflections, and stories from Jeff’s work as a physician, we’ll investigate how cultivating kind and mindful awareness of the body can support insight, soften fear, open the heart, and deepen our capacity to meet life and death with wisdom and love. The evening will include a guided meditation, Dharma reflections, and time for discussion.
JEFF HARDIN has practiced meditation since 2000, with a foundation in daily mindfulness, metta, and concentration practices, sutta study, and Dharma service. He has accumulated over 500 days of intensive residential retreat practice. Jeff began teaching the Dharma in 2008 and previously served as a faculty mentor and instructor at Sacramento Insight Meditation (SIM). He is a graduate of Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leader training, the SIM Mentor Training Program, and the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher training.
Jeff is a co-founder of Insight World Aid, a nonprofit insight meditation community organization that offers compassionate service to individuals in need, both locally and internationally. He has also held leadership and volunteer roles in several Dharma communities, including SIM, the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies, and Verde Valley Insight Meditation Center.
His teaching emphasizes the early Buddhist suttas, embodied awareness, and meditative concentration. Jeff lives in Charlotte, NC with his wife and 3 cats and works as an integrative, preventative and holistic medicine physician.
Offer a Teacher Donation
Jeff Hardin will receive at least 75% of your donation.
Use the following donate button and select Talk – Aug 7 Jeff from the dropdown list.
JEFF HARDIN has practiced meditation since 2000, with a foundation in daily mindfulness, metta, and concentration practices, sutta study, and Dharma service. He has accumulated over 500 days of intensive residential retreat practice. Jeff began teaching the Dharma in 2008 and previously served as a faculty mentor and instructor at Sacramento Insight Meditation (SIM). He is a graduate of Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leader training, the SIM Mentor Training Program, and the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher training.
Jeff is a co-founder of Insight World Aid, a nonprofit insight meditation community organization that offers compassionate service to individuals in need, both locally and internationally. He has also held leadership and volunteer roles in several Dharma communities, including SIM, the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies, and Verde Valley Insight Meditation Center.
His teaching emphasizes the early Buddhist suttas, embodied awareness, and meditative concentration. Jeff lives in Charlotte, NC with his wife and 3 cats and works as an integrative, preventative and holistic medicine physician.
How to Attend Remotely
Join online meeting: https://zoom.us/join or join by phone at 1-669-900-6833
( Meeting ID: 846 4947 9345 and Passcode: 111759)
For tips and instructions to join the meeting, click here to check this news blog.
6/26/2025 “Listening to the Cries of the World” with Rich Howard
Audio DharmaIt seems that the volume has been turned up in so many areas of modern life: political rhetoric, forceful opinions, horrific wars, …. Listening to an inner voice becomes harder, and listening to others nearly impossible. Yet sustaining and developing our practice of mindful awareness requires listening to our heart’s subtle whispers, and applying that practice in the world requires listening to the cries of the world to find where compassion is needed most. In addition, our relationships require a deep listening to spoken and silent expressions of connection. We will explore the inner and outer practices of listening and look for applications in our meditation practice and our daily life.
(Hybrid) Sit & Dharma Talk – Diana Clark – Equanimity: Holding Lightly, Living Fully
Online Remote, Weekly MeditationSeptember 25, 2025 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm PDT
Insight Meditation and Dharma Talk with SIM Teacher Diana Clark
For biographical details of the teacher Diana Clark, click here.
This talk is the final part of the six-week talk series The Buddha’s Antidotes for Challenging Times.
Holding Lightly, Living Fully
This talk explores equanimity—a steadiness of heart that allows us to meet life’s challenges. Through stories, similes, and reflections, we’ll see how equanimity is not indifference but a warm, caring presence that holds life lightly while engaging fully.
Offer a Teacher Donation
Diana Clark will receive at least 75% of your donation.
Use the following donate button and select Talk – Sep 25 Diana from the dropdown list.
How to Attend Remotely
Join online meeting: https://zoom.us/join or join by phone at 1-669-900-6833
( Meeting ID: 846 4947 9345 and Passcode: 111759)
For tips and instructions to join the meeting, click here to check this news blog.
Hybrid (in-person and online)
Sacramento, CA 95826 United States
(Hybrid) Sit & Dharma Talk – Dennis Warren – Generosity As an Antidote and a Doorway
Online Remote, Weekly MeditationSeptember 18, 2025 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm PDT
Insight Meditation and Dharma Talk with SIM Founding Teacher Dennis Warren
For biographical details of the teacher Dennis Warren, click here.
This talk is part of the six-week talk series The Buddha’s Antidotes for Challenging Times.
Generosity As an Antidote and a Doorway
The Historical Buddha considered Generosity the first and foundational parami (or essential quality of mind & heart that leads to awakening.) It’s use as an antidote, as well as a path of practice, can support a rich experience of daily life and the simultaneous development of gradual awakening.
This evening will place Generosity in the context of the Historical Buddha’s psychology and teachings. We’ll look closely at Generosity as an antidote to a number of problematic states of mind and habits of reactivity.
This will be the first of two related talks on Generosity. The second will be part of the two day SIM in person retreat on October 24 and 24. That second talk will explore a model of Generosity as a doorway and path moving from a sense of separation to connectedness and inter-relationship. This will include the Buddha’s advice that we should be generous in the way we think, and by thinking, create the world we live in
The subject matter of this evening will be appropriate for all stages of practice. You can attend in person or by ZOOM. Dennis will be presenting in person and encourages you to be there in person as well.
Offer a Teacher Donation
Dennis Warren will receive at least 75% of your donation.
Use the following donate button and select Talk – Sep 18 Dennis from the dropdown list.
How to Attend Remotely
Join online meeting: https://zoom.us/join or join by phone at 1-669-900-6833
( Meeting ID: 846 4947 9345 and Passcode: 111759)
For tips and instructions to join the meeting, click here to check this news blog.
Hybrid (in-person and online)
Sacramento, CA 95826 United States
(Hybrid) Sit & Dharma Talk – Diane Wilde – Why Is Offering Forgiveness So Difficult?
Online Remote, Weekly MeditationSeptember 11, 2025 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm PDT
Insight Meditation and Dharma Talk with SIM Teacher Diane Wilde
For biographical details of the teacher Diane Wilde, click here.
This talk is part of the six-week talk series The Buddha’s Antidotes for Challenging Times.
Why Is Offering Forgiveness So Difficult?
What happens when we refuse to forgive? We’ve all felt it—holding on to insults or painful actions done to us, or replaying the memory of harm caused to others. Old wounds harden into resentment, anger drains our energy, and self-blame keeps us stuck in the past. Buddhism offers another way: forgiveness as a path to freedom. By letting go of grudges, daring to ask for forgiveness, and softening toward ourselves, we release the poisons that cloud the heart. In doing so, we also loosen the grip of the restless ego.
Tonight’s talk will offer some inspirational stories of forgiveness and will invite you to explore forgiveness in your own lives. Genuine forgiveness is not a weakness or forgetting, but is a courageous practice that restores peace, clarity, and compassion.
Offer a Teacher Donation
Diane Wilde will receive at least 75% of your donation.
Use the following donate button and select Talk – Sep 11 Diane from the dropdown list.
How to Attend Remotely
Join online meeting: https://zoom.us/join or join by phone at 1-669-900-6833
( Meeting ID: 846 4947 9345 and Passcode: 111759)
For tips and instructions to join the meeting, click here to check this news blog.
Hybrid (in-person and online)
Sacramento, CA 95826 United States
(Hybrid) Sit & Dharma Talk – Walt Opie – The Buddha’s Antidotes for Challenging Times: Gratitude
Online Remote, Weekly MeditationSeptember 4, 2025 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm PDT
Insight Meditation and Dharma Talk with SIM Teacher Walt Opie
For biographical details of the teacher Walt Opie, click here.
This talk is part of the six-week talk series The Buddha’s Antidotes for Challenging Times.
The Buddha’s Antidotes for Challenging Times: Gratitude
In the suttas, the Buddha encouraged us to be grateful and thankful. Intentionally cultivating gratitude even during challenging times helps serve as an antidote to the negative bias of the mind. Otherwise, we often focus too much of our energy on what is wrong or lacking in our lives, rather than appreciating the many simple blessings all around us. Being grateful also counters tendencies towards greed, envy, jealousy and pride.
Offer a Teacher Donation
Walt Opie will receive at least 75% of your donation.
Use the following donate button and select Talk – Sep 4 Walt from the dropdown list.
How to Attend Remotely
Join online meeting: https://zoom.us/join or join by phone at 1-669-900-6833
( Meeting ID: 846 4947 9345 and Passcode: 111759)
For tips and instructions to join the meeting, click here to check this news blog.
Hybrid (in-person and online)
Sacramento, CA 95826 United States
(Hybrid) Sit & Dharma Talk – Vance Pryor – Metta as an Antidote to Challenging Times
Online Remote, Weekly MeditationAugust 28, 2025 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm PDT
Insight Meditation and Dharma Talk with SIM Teacher Vance Pryor
For biographical details of the teacher Vance Pryor, click here.
This talk is part of the six-week talk series The Buddha’s Antidotes for Challenging Times.
Metta as an Antidote to Challenging Times
In times of uncertainty, conflict, and distress, the ancient practice of metta—loving-kindness meditation—offers a pathway to tending to both our hearts and our world. This talk explores how cultivating friendliness and goodwill, beginning with ourselves and extending outward to all beings, can transform our relationship to difficulty and become a source of resilience, wisdom, and compassionate action.
Offer a Teacher Donation
Vance Pryor will receive at least 75% of your donation.
Use the following donate button and select Talk – Aug 28 Vance from the dropdown list.
How to Attend Remotely
Join online meeting: https://zoom.us/join or join by phone at 1-669-900-6833
( Meeting ID: 846 4947 9345 and Passcode: 111759)
For tips and instructions to join the meeting, click here to check this news blog.
Hybrid (in-person and online)
Sacramento, CA 95826 United States
(Hybrid) Sit & Dharma Talk – Rich Howard – The Buddhas’s Antidotes for Challenging Times: Introduction & Karuṇā (Compassion)
Online Remote, Weekly MeditationAugust 21, 2025 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm PDT
Insight Meditation and Dharma Talk with SIM Teacher Rich Howard
For biographical details of the teacher Rich Howard, click here.
This talk is first in the six-week talk series The Buddha’s Antidotes for Challenging Times.
This evening’s presentation is the first in a series of six offered by the SIM Faculty on “The Buddha’s Antidotes for Challenging Times.” Each presentation will explore a positive mind state that can be cultivated to bring happiness and contentment into our life while reducing the stress and dissatisfaction we cause ourselves and others. The faculty will conclude each session with questions for reflection, which will serve as prompts for the kalyāņamitta groups that SIM is forming (see the announcement elsewhere in this newsletter for details). From October 23 to 25, the faculty will offer an in-person mini-retreat to devote an extended practice period to each of these mind states, as well as further instruction on applying the practices in daily life.
In this first session, SIM Community Teacher Rich Howard will introduce the entire series, then focus on the quality of compassion (karunā in the ancient Pali language). With wisdom from Joanna Macy, Bhikkhu Anālayo, Andrea Gibson, the Dalai Lama, and others (offered as a handout for future reference), we will touch on what mindful compassion looks like, what it is not, and how to increase its appearance in our daily life.
Offer a Teacher Donation
Rich Howard will receive at least 75% of your donation.
Use the following donate button and select Talk – Aug 21 Rich from the dropdown list.
How to Attend Remotely
Join online meeting: https://zoom.us/join or join by phone at 1-669-900-6833
( Meeting ID: 846 4947 9345 and Passcode: 111759)
For tips and instructions to join the meeting, click here to check this news blog.
Hybrid (in-person and online)
Sacramento, CA 95826 United States
(Hybrid) Sit & Dharma Talk -Adam Stonebraker – The Wisdom of Release: Trusting the Flow of Impermanence
Online Remote, Weekly MeditationAugust 14, 2025 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm PDT
Insight Meditation and Dharma Talk with visiting presenter Adam Stonebraker
The Wisdom of Release: Trusting the Flow of Impermanence“
Just as a lump of foam is empty, void, and without substance…” — Phena Sutta (SN 22.95)
In this powerful teaching, the Buddha invites us to see the impermanent, insubstantial nature of all experience—not as a reason for despair, but as a gateway to freedom. When we meet the changing flow of life with wisdom and care, the burden of clinging begins to dissolve. This talk will explore the Phena Sutta’s radical view of the five aggregates as empty like foam, bubbles, mirages, and illusions—and how this vision can guide us toward release, peace, and the unshakable heart.
ADAM STONEBRAKER, a dedicated practitioner of Yoga and Meditation since 1999, serves as the Guiding Teacher for Mountain Stream Meditation, in Nevada City, CA. Adam’s teachings are deeply rooted in his extensive training in Yoga and a long-standing devotion to Buddhadharma, which inspire him to guide others towards realizing their unique potential in mind and body. His primary goal is to help individuals trust their innate wisdom and embrace the profound sense of interconnection that defines our existence.
In 2019, Adam completed a Master’s degree in the pioneering Mindfulness Studies Program at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, further enriching his understanding and teaching of mindfulness practices.
Offer a Teacher Donation
Adam Stonebraker will receive at least 75% of your donation.
Use the following donate button and select Talk – Aug 14 Adam from the dropdown list.
How to Attend Remotely
Join online meeting: https://zoom.us/join or join by phone at 1-669-900-6833
( Meeting ID: 846 4947 9345 and Passcode: 111759)
For tips and instructions to join the meeting, click here to check this news blog.
Hybrid (in-person and online)
Sacramento, CA 95826 United States
(Hybrid) Sit & Dharma Talk – Jeff Hardin – Embodied Compassion: Loving Awareness of the Aging, Ailing, and Mortal Body
Online Remote, Weekly MeditationAugust 7, 2025 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm PDT
Insight Meditation and Dharma Talk with SIM Community Presenter Jeff Hardin
For biographical details of the teacher Jeff Hardin, click here.
Embodied Compassion: Loving Awareness of the Aging, Ailing, and Mortal Body
The Buddha named old age, sickness, and death as divine messengers—undeniable truths that call us to practice and open the path to awakening. In this Dharma talk, we will explore how embodied compassion can become a liberating practice as we face the realities of an impermanent and mortal body.
Drawing from the early teachings of the Buddha, guided reflections, and stories from Jeff’s work as a physician, we’ll investigate how cultivating kind and mindful awareness of the body can support insight, soften fear, open the heart, and deepen our capacity to meet life and death with wisdom and love. The evening will include a guided meditation, Dharma reflections, and time for discussion.
JEFF HARDIN has practiced meditation since 2000, with a foundation in daily mindfulness, metta, and concentration practices, sutta study, and Dharma service. He has accumulated over 500 days of intensive residential retreat practice. Jeff began teaching the Dharma in 2008 and previously served as a faculty mentor and instructor at Sacramento Insight Meditation (SIM). He is a graduate of Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leader training, the SIM Mentor Training Program, and the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher training.
Jeff is a co-founder of Insight World Aid, a nonprofit insight meditation community organization that offers compassionate service to individuals in need, both locally and internationally. He has also held leadership and volunteer roles in several Dharma communities, including SIM, the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies, and Verde Valley Insight Meditation Center.
His teaching emphasizes the early Buddhist suttas, embodied awareness, and meditative concentration. Jeff lives in Charlotte, NC with his wife and 3 cats and works as an integrative, preventative and holistic medicine physician.
Offer a Teacher Donation
Jeff Hardin will receive at least 75% of your donation.
Use the following donate button and select Talk – Aug 7 Jeff from the dropdown list.
JEFF HARDIN has practiced meditation since 2000, with a foundation in daily mindfulness, metta, and concentration practices, sutta study, and Dharma service. He has accumulated over 500 days of intensive residential retreat practice. Jeff began teaching the Dharma in 2008 and previously served as a faculty mentor and instructor at Sacramento Insight Meditation (SIM). He is a graduate of Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leader training, the SIM Mentor Training Program, and the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher training.
Jeff is a co-founder of Insight World Aid, a nonprofit insight meditation community organization that offers compassionate service to individuals in need, both locally and internationally. He has also held leadership and volunteer roles in several Dharma communities, including SIM, the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies, and Verde Valley Insight Meditation Center.
His teaching emphasizes the early Buddhist suttas, embodied awareness, and meditative concentration. Jeff lives in Charlotte, NC with his wife and 3 cats and works as an integrative, preventative and holistic medicine physician.
How to Attend Remotely
Join online meeting: https://zoom.us/join or join by phone at 1-669-900-6833
( Meeting ID: 846 4947 9345 and Passcode: 111759)
For tips and instructions to join the meeting, click here to check this news blog.
Hybrid (in-person and online)
Sacramento, CA 95826 United States
(Hybrid) Sit & Dharma Talk – Rick Maddock – How Practice Changes Us, with a View from the Brain
Online Remote, Weekly MeditationJuly 31, 2025 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm PDT
Insight Meditation and Dharma Talk with SIM Community Presenter Rick Maddock
For biographical details of the teacher Rick Maddock, click here.
How Practice Changes Us, with a View from the Brain
In his teaching on the four foundations of mindfulness, the Buddha describes beneficial changes that result from cultivating these practices. This talk will explore many of the ways the mind can be shaped or transformed by our practice, including findings from modern neuroscience that converge with what the Buddha taught.
Offer a Teacher Donation
Rick Maddock will pass any donations he receives to Sacramento Insight Meditation
Use the following donate button and select Talk – Jul 31 SIM from the dropdown list.
How to Attend Remotely
Join online meeting: https://zoom.us/join or join by phone at 1-669-900-6833
( Meeting ID: 846 4947 9345 and Passcode: 111759)
For tips and instructions to join the meeting, click here to check this news blog.
Hybrid (in-person and online)
Sacramento, CA 95826 United States