Day-Long Retreat with SIM Community Mentor Diane Wilde and Ayya Santacitta

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The Middle Way: The Noble Eightfold Path – leading towards happiness and away from suffering

April 30
8:30 — 4:30

Ayya Santacitta Bhikkhuni and Diane Wilde

Ayya Santacitta, a Theravada Bhikkhuni nun of the Forest tradition of the West, who resides at http://saranaloka.org/ Placerville and SIM Community Mentor Diane Wilde will co-teach a daylong focused on the Buddha’s path that leads towards happiness and moves away from suffering. The Noble Eightfold path includes every aspect of our lives — as far-ranging as developing a beneficial meditation practice to the practicalities of how to speak with kindness in the face of hostility. Bhikkhu Bodhi describes coming to the realization about our lives this way, “Our lives for the most part are strung out between thirst for pleasure and the fear of pain. We pass our days running after one and avoiding the other, seldom enjoying peace and contentment.” The Noble Eightfold Path is the Buddha’s prescription for contentment and well-being here and now. It is the path to Awakening.

There will be sitting and walking meditation, as well as Dharma talks and periods set aside for questions and answers.

Please bring a vegetarian dish to share with others.

We will be offering Ayya Santacitta her main meal at noon.

There is no registration for this daylong.

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2016 SIM Residential Retreat

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SIM’s 2016 Residential Retreat at the Angela Center, Santa Rosa, CA, led by SIM Community Mentors Dennis Warren, Diane Wilde, and Rich Howard.  Please see the 2016 SIM Residential Retreat Flyer And Registration

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12/03/15: “Loss-Seeing it Coming, Living it, Reorganizing Afterward,” with Dennis Warren

The Five Daily Recollections .pdf

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

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11/19/15: “Hope and the Loss of Hope,” with Dennis Warren

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

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11/12/15: “Joy & Happiness in Buddhism,” with Diane Wilde

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

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Sit & Dharma Talk with Founding Teacher, Dennis Warren

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Thursday, December 3, 7:00-9:15 pm. Sitting and Dharma Talk, with Dennis Warren, SIM Founding Teacher.
LOSS – SEEING IT COMING, LIVING IT, REORGANIZING AFTERWARDS – WITH SIM’S FOUNDING TEACHER DENNIS WARREN

Loss brings us up against the limitations in understanding how the Dharma and practice apply to this painful aspect of being human. Loss not only helps, but forces us, to recognize where our understanding is conceptual or intellectual, rather than one that informs real life challenges.

How we respond to the losses in our individual lives, and losses in the lives of others, influences everything – how we experience the loss; how those around us experience the loss; how we reorganize our emotional, psychological and dharmic lives after the outward manifestations of the loss have taken place. Loss, and the way we work with it, change who we are.

This evening with SIM’s Founding Teacher, Dennis Warren, will examine this phenomenon that is one of the most common roots of difficult emotions and crisis. We’ll explore how loss fits into the framework of Buddhist psychology, the nature of loss and ways to work with it.

Please join us at 7:00 pm. The evening will take place at the Sacramento Friends Meetinghouse, 890 57th Street.

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Sit & Dharma Talk with SIM Community Mentor, Diane Wilde

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Thursday, December 10, 7-9 pm. Sitting and Dharma Discus with Diane Wilde, SIM Community Mentor
Anger… it’s not what you think!

It’s the holiday season! Anger? Not allowed now! Yet anger creeps into our lives uninvited, disguised in a variety of forms. There are a wide range of behaviors that signal anger, yet we don’t usually consider ourselves “angry” because traditionally anger is defined as an explosion of violent behavior, verbally or physically. Yet this is only the extreme form on a continuum of emotional manifestations which the Buddha defined as “ill-will.” One of the most difficult aspects of anger or ill-will is when it is self-directed, and may be experienced as disappointment, guilt, jealously as well as a variety of other emotions. This time of year often brings these feelings to a head when we are convinced that everyone has it all together, and we don’t. The Buddha defined ill-will as one of three states of mind that keeps us in samsara, or a state of unease. He also teaches that this painful emotion can be seen for what it really is, and with patience, can be experienced with insight and ultimately released.

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SIM Community Potluck

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Annual get-together of the SIM community during the holiday season. All are invited — bring a dish of your choosing to share with attendees! Please bring a potluck dish to share (for six or more.) Set up will begin at 6:30. This year there will be tables and chairs in the sangha room to enable everyone to socialize during the meal. To encourage “green” practices, please bring your own dinner plate, silverware, cup, and cloth napkin.

Following the meal, sangha members will have an opportunity to share creative/artistic expressions, original or other, such as readings, poetry, music, dance, skits, stories (Think “SIM Talent.”)  Presentations with a holiday, dharma, and/or seasonal theme—dramatic,  serious, humorous, spiritual or whatever—are encouraged. Presentations should be no more than three (3) to five (5) minutes. About an hour total will be allotted for the presentations. To maximize the number of presentations, please send your name, title, and length of presentation, to linda.franklin92@gmail.com.

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