SIM Board of Directors Meeting

The SIM Board of Directors meets every month and all are welcome. If you can’t attend this meeting, please join us for one of our other up-coming meetings. For details on contacting any of the board members, click here.

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SIM Board of Directors Meeting

The SIM Board of Directors meets every month and all are welcome. If you can’t attend this meeting, please join us for one of our other up-coming meetings. For details on contacting any of the board members, click here.

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SIM Board of Directors Meeting

The SIM Board of Directors meets every month and all are welcome. If you can’t attend this meeting, please join us for one of our other up-coming meetings. For details on contacting any of the board members, click here.

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Introduction to Meditation with SIM Community Mentor, Rich Howard

This 45-minute course is suitable for beginners or anyone who would like a refresher. It is offered on the fourth Thursday of every month before the regular sitting and dharma talk. There is no fee.

RICH HOWARD has been an active practitioner and volunteer at SIM since 2004. His area of interest is bringing meditative awareness into everyday life. He participated in SIM’s 2007 India Pilgrimage and is a graduate of SIM’s second Practice Development and Leadership (PDL) program. The pilgrimage and the PDL program led to an interest in establishing the SIM Kalyana Mitta (Pali for spiritual friends) groups. He coordinated SIM’s network of Kalyana Mitta groups until he joined the SIM Board in 2010. He was one of the SIM representatives to the Inter-Sangha Coordinating Committee, predecessor to the Sacramento Dharma Center Board, which seeks to establish a shared space for Buddhist sanghas in Sacramento. He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in southern Africa in the 1970s and is fluent in Spanish. He is a past president of the SIM Board. Rich is trained professionally as a soil scientist and is an environmental consultant. His teachers are Dennis Warren and Steve Armstrong.

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Bilingual Day-long Retreat with Andrea Castillo and Rich Howard

The Five Spiritual Faculties/Las Cinco Facultades Espirituales

In this daylong, we will explore the Five Spiritual Faculties through brief talks, exercises, and discussion. These qualities – faith (confidence), energy (effort), mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom – support our intention to be freed from suffering. They are pragmatic skills that can be developed and implemented in every day life as well as formal meditation.

The talks will be in English; discussion groups will be in Spanish (hosted by Andrea) and English (hosted by Rich). There will also be periods of silent meditation and mindful movement. Bring a potluck lunch item from your culture to share and plan to stay on the Sacramento Dharma Center (SDC) property to make the most of this day. There will be an opportunity to offer dana to the teacher.

We aspire to welcome all to this day of community and practice, including the human varieties of gender identity, sexual orientation, cultural and ethnic background, family situation, and citizenship or immigration status.

ANDREA CASTILLO, originaria de la ciudad de México, ha practicado la meditación introspectiva (Insight o Vipassana) desde 1998 con su maestro Gil Fronsdal y ha participado en aproximadamente un total de 9 meses de retiros residenciales. Andrea ha impartido el dharma en español desde 2011 en el Insight Meditation Center (IMC) y desde 2015 en Against the Stream, San Francisco y en el Insight Santa Cruz. Obtuvo el doctorado en las Humanidades en 2009 de la Universidad de Stanford. También se graduó del Sati Center Chaplaincy Training Program, y del Dharma Mentoring Training Program ofrecido en IMC por Gil Fronsdal y Andrea Fella. Actualmente participa en dos cursos para maestros: IMC Local Dharma Leaders en CA y el Insight Meditation Society Teacher Training en Massachusetts.

RICH HOWARD has been an active practitioner and volunteer at SIM since 2004. His area of interest is bringing meditative awareness into everyday life. He participated in SIM’s 2007 India Pilgrimage and is a graduate of SIM’s second Practice Development and Leadership (PDL) program. He is a past president of the SIM Board. He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in southern Africa in the 1970s. His ancestors are from Ireland, Mexico, and Costa Rica.

 

Questions for the Registrar?

Use the form below only if you need to contact the retreat registrar with any questions. Expect a reply within 48 hours. If you are ready to register for the retreat, click here.

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Day-long Retreat with Visiting Teacher Ayyas Santacitta

For details about Ayya Santacitta from Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery, click here.

The retreat theme is “Entering the Heart of Practice“.

At the heart of Buddhist practice is the union of wisdom & compassion, cultivated through mindfulness and a skillful response to live. Through developing the qualities of the heart and seeing clearly, we can transform ingrained habits that limit our experience and open hearts and minds to greater freedom. During this daylong we come together as a community to support each other by keeping Noble Silence. There will be a shared vegetarian meal; you are invited to bring……..

Questions for the Registrar?

Use the form below only if you need to contact the retreat registrar with any questions. Expect a reply within 48 hours. If you are ready to register for the retreat, click here.

[contact-form to=’website@sactoinsight.org’ subject=’Question about July Day-long Retreat’][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Comments/Questions’ type=’textarea’/][contact-field label=’Yes, subscribe me to the eNews.’ type=’checkbox’/][/contact-form]

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*Sit & Dharma Talk – Diane Wilde – A Fortunate Rebirth

A Fortunate Rebirth… 

A talk and discussion on what rebirth means, both in the future and in this lifetime, with Diane Wilde.

Raphael Calix will share his own story of rebirth as a former “lifer” in prison and the changes that came with his mediation practice.
Diane Wilde will lead a Dharma talk/discussion on rebirth, both from the orthodox viewpoint, as stated in the Pali Cannon, and as the rebirth of our authentic selves when we courageously look at our lives. We will discuss the importance of recognizing what is “kusala” (skillful) and what is “akusala” (unskillful) karma, and the importance of investigating our lives on and off the cushion.

Raphael Calix has been invited to share his own story.  Raphael was an inmate at San Quentin prison until January 2017.  As a “lifer,” he was told he would never be released. He created his own akusala karma as a young man, and yet found “freedom” with his mediation practice while incarcerated.   As he pursued meditation and daily mindfulness practice, he began courageously facing the harm he caused others, as well as his own self-hatred. His story is a profound statement on the changes that can take place when each of us we are able to investigate ourselves with “scales falling from our eyes.”
If you are so inclined, please read pages 145 – through the first paragraph on page 147 In Bikkhu Bodhi’s book “In the Buddha’s Own Words”; the chapter on “The Way to a Fortunate Rebirth.”  Please read the first sutta, “The Law of Karma” on page 155-156.

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Introduction to Meditation with SIM Community Member, Laura Rosenthal

This 45-minute course is suitable for beginners or anyone who would like a refresher. It is offered on the fourth Thursday of every month before the regular sitting and dharma talk. There is no fee.

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*Sit & Dharma Talk – Dennis Warren – The Five Aggregates: Part 2

The Arising Of Wisdom Through Engaging “The Five Aggregates” – Part 2

Sit & Dharma Talk with SIM Founding Teacher Dennis Warren.

Wisdom (Insight), from a Buddhist perspective, arises from “hearing” (listening to the Dharma), study and reflection capped by non-conceptual direct experience. This formula involves intentionally focusing the mind and attention on a number of different experiences, supported by the underlying psychology outlined by the historical Buddha.
This will be the second in a series of interlocking talks about the arising of Wisdom (Insight). The first talk focused on the dilemma of suffering thru clinging (becoming attached) to, then identifying with five separate, but tightly related features of human experience – form, feeling, perception, volitional or mental formations (deeply embedded habits of mind) and consciousness. It will be helpful to review the first talk in this series https://sactoinsight.org/06292017-engaging-the-five-aggregates-with-dennis-warren/.

For those who are using the book In The Buddha’s Words – An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Cannon, edited by Bhikkhu Bodhi as a reference, please read the following: VII. The Path To Liberation – Introduction, pages 301-309, and the sutta at pages 335 to 337.

In the alternative, follow these links to see Samyutta Nikaya 22, The Connected Discourses on the Aggregates, 56 (on https://suttacentral.net/):

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*Sit & Dharma Talk – Rich Howard – Approaching the Dhamma

In the Buddha’s Words:  Approaching the Dhamma

“It is fitting for you to be perplexed, O Kalamas.” These words spoken by the Buddha to the citizens of Kesaputta ring true for us today. How do we approach the teachings of the Buddha, when there are so many competing spiritual, philosophical, and secular teachings, so many schools of Buddhism, and so many interpretations and teachers even within our own Insight (vipassana) tradition?

Dennis, Diane, and Rich have chosen a book called “In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon” edited and introduced by Bhikkhu Bodhi (Wisdom Publications, 2005) as the theme for presentations at SIM through the end of this year. This evening, we will explore Chapter III, Approaching the Dhamma. As a starting point, Rich will lead a discussion of the Buddha’s teaching to the Kalamas (AN 3:65), including Bhikkhu Bodhi’s point of view on the message of this sutta.

To prepare for this evening, please read the first half of the Introduction to Chapter III (pages 81-85, first paragraph), and texts III,1 and III,2 (pages 88-91).  If you do not have the book yet, here are some alternative citations from accesstoinsight.org:

You’ll enjoy the talk even if you do not have the book or haven’t had time to read the suggested preparatory passages.

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