10/06/2016 “Depends on What?” with Rich Howard

Depends on What?: An Exploration of Causes and Conditions

You may have heard about the importance of “causes and conditions” but what does that mean to our practice in formal meditation and daily life? Can we learn to recognize how causes and conditions work in our lives experientially without making it into an intellectual analysis? What would it be like to know a peace that does not depend on outside circumstances?

Rich Howard will lead this evening exploring the practical application of the Buddhist understanding of conditionality. As a start, notice how the experience of finding a parking place near the Friends’ Meeting House affects your mood!
If you would like to download this talk, please right click and select “save as” here

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Celebration of Life for Roseanne de Vlaming

For the SIM Community, All are invited to the Celebration of Life for Roseanne de Vlaming. Roseanne passed away on August 10, 2016. SIM friends are invited to a celebration of life memorial service scheduled for Tuesday, October 4, 2016 beginning at 2 PM. The service will be held at 4281 Winding Woods Way, Fair Oaks (a private residence). Parking may be a challenge, so if you plan to attend the service allow sufficient time for that possibility. For more information contact Victor at 916-718-8290.

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Board Meeting Minutes Posted

The SIM Board Meeting Minutes from Aug 22, 2016, is now available.

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Climate Sangha

The Climate Sangha will devote the evening to working with our fears and other feelings resulting from the election and to discuss avenues for Right Action and Right View.

Meeting the 4th Tuesday of each month, the Sacramento Climate Sangha provides a refuge for exploration of our hopes and fears about climate change and how our dharma practice can address them.

For more information, email SBMG’s Susan Orr or SIM’s Rich Howard. Want to join our mailing list? Email Margaret Buss.

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Climate Sangha

Meeting the 4th Tuesday of each month, the Sacramento Climate Sangha provides a refuge for exploration of our hopes and fears about climate change and how our dharma practice can address them.

For more information, email SBMG’s Susan Orr or SIM’s Rich Howard. Want to join our mailing list?  Email Margaret Buss.

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Location changed for Climate Sangha meetings

The monthly Climate Sangha meetings have changed location from the Friends Meeting House to the Sacramento Dharma Center at 3111 Wissemann Dr., Sacramento, CA.  The next meeting is Tuesday, September 27 from 7 to 9 PM.

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Sit & Dharma Talk with Long-time SIM Community Member, Laura Rosenthal

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Faith and Challenges/Sustaining Practice

In the Insight Meditation tradition as practiced at SIM, faith is an experiential quality of engagement rather than doctrinaire adherence to a top-down belief system. And obstacles to practice, however unwelcome they may feel, are the field of practice through which we learn about our own minds and the path away from “suffering” (the experience of “unsatisfactoriness”). Join Laura Rosenthal, a long-time SIM participant, for a group discussion about how we sustain our engagement with practice in the face of the obstacles, many of them self-generated, that we encounter. Laura will set the stage with a very brief overview of faith and “the hindrances” as well as basic principles of “dharma dialog,” and will then facilitate a group discussion. We will sit in a circle to support active listening and sharing.
Laura is a graduate of Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Dedicated Practitioners’ Program. She is currently participating in Spirit Rock’s Advanced Practitioners’ Program and Heather Sundberg’s Committed Students’ Program.
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09/22/2016 “Being Of Service to Ourselves and Others” with Dennis Warren

BEING OF SERVICE TO OTHERS & OURSELVES

It’s not unusual to think of “service” as something special we do: working at a soup kitchen, homeless shelter, dog shelter, the pediatric unit in a hospital, a clothing donation center. But “service”, in a Buddhist sense, is a much bigger idea that encompasses even small acts of supporting or helping a relative, a friend or our spiritual community, such as SIM.

This evening will explore the nature of service, its values and its benefits. Dennis has been leading a year-long course entitled “How Can I Help” which includes each participant doing service in the community each month. A number of the insights and experiences from the course will be included in the discussion.

Dennis will also discuss a new effort by SIM to establish a sound, new SIM volunteer infra-structure in anticipation of moving to the Sacramento Dharma Center building sometime in October.


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

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Location changed for Buddhist Recovery Group meeting

The Monday meetings will be changed from the Friends Meeting House to the Sacramento Dharma Center at 3111 Wissemann Dr., Sacramento, CA. Enter through the front doors and it’s the 5th room to the right. Signs will be posted.

For additional information please call, text, or email Brian McKinsey at (916) 225-7251.

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SIM 2016 Residential Retreat

SIM 2016 Residential Retreat with Dennis Warren, Diane Wilde, and Rich Howard.2016 SIM Retreat Summary

** If you would like to download any of the following dharma talks, please right click on the talk’s link “talk x of y” and select “save as”.

“An integrated path of practice (1)” – talk 1 of 7 with Dennis Warren

“Metta” – talk 2 of 7 with Diane Wilde

“Compassion” – talk 3 of 7 with Rich Howard

“An integrated path of practice (2) Key elements” – talk 4 of 7 with Dennis Warren

“Sympathetic joy” – talk 5 of 7 with Diane Wilde

“Equanimity” – talk 6 of 7 with Rich Howard

“An integrated path of practice (3) Spiritual and Daily Life” – talk 7 of 7 with Dennis Warren

 

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