Sacramento Dharma Center Movie Night – Perfect Days Unexpected encounters reveal more of his story in a deeply moving and poetic reflection … For screening details, click here.
Sacramento Dharma Center Building
3111 Wissemann Drive Sacramento,
CA
95826United States+ Google Map
To download this talk, right-click and select ‘save audio as’ or select the 3-dot menu to the right of the speaker icon.
More and more ethical questions are arising in society due to the rapid “advancement” of AI technology. Spiritual leaders, philosophers, politicians and individuals are cautioning that a moral code has to be developed which addresses the rapid implementation of AI technology.
A few of the many, many issues of concern are:
Students using AI to write essays and term papers and claiming the results as their own. Blatant lying by individuals, corporations and politicians, by creating harmful AI versions of others. The acceleration of climate catastrophes due to a lack of concern for other life forms as well the earth herself. Individuals seeking revenge on others by threatening to expose private online conversations and videos.
Navigating everyday ethical challenges is a challenge. Now we must face the consequences of unethical behavior due to technological advances. Do our individual ethical choices even make a difference any longer?
Tonight we will discuss ethics and morality in today’s world. In other words: “What Would the Buddha Do?”
https://sactoinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SIM-logo-trans.png00David Guerrierihttps://sactoinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SIM-logo-trans.pngDavid Guerrieri2026-09-17 22:00:002026-09-17 22:03:389/17/2026 “What Would the Buddha Do?” with Diane Wilde
To download this talk, right-click and select ‘save audio as’ or select the 3-dot menu to the right of the speaker icon.
There are so many crisis happening simultaneously, at the personal as well as collective level. Learning to practice with the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion is essential to transform suffering into healing and liberation.
https://sactoinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SIM-logo-trans.png00David Guerrierihttps://sactoinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SIM-logo-trans.pngDavid Guerrieri2026-09-10 22:00:002026-09-10 21:15:559/10/2026 “Practicing with a World on Fire” with JD Doyle
Registration is now open for this four week online course facilitated by SIM Teacher Diana Clark.
The Noble Eightfold Path invites us to discover for ourselves what helps us live with less suffering and more freedom. In this four-week course, we’ll explore the path not simply as a Buddhist teaching to learn and follow, but as a path to engage with. Please join us as we’ll consider how the path can inform the ways we understand our experience, relate to others, and cultivate our minds.
This course meets remotely via Zoom for four consecutive Tuesday evenings: Nov 3, 10, 17, 24, 2026 from 7pm to 8:30pm. For registration details, visit https://sactoinsight.org/event/8-fold-path-2026/.
https://sactoinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SIM-logo-trans.png00Sabitrehttps://sactoinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SIM-logo-trans.pngSabitre2026-09-08 10:16:162026-09-08 10:16:17Registration Now Open (The Eightfold Path: A Practical Path to Freedom)
To download this talk, right-click and select ‘save audio as’ or select the 3-dot menu to the right of the speaker icon.
Choice plays a pivotal role in the architecture of Buddhist practice. For example, it surfaces in the five strategies for dealing with distracting thoughts, the four types of Right Effort, and the five ways of letting go or abandoning unskillful states of mind. Each set of options asks that we weight the circumstances and select a course of action.
And yet, curiously, the Pali Canon — that vast record of the Historical Buddha’s psychology, teachings and methods — contains no word or phrase equivalent to our conventional sense of “choice.”
This reflects the Historical Buddha’s tendency to redirect attention away from the surface of a question towards what he considered its root. If choice, as commonly understood, is not the true axis of decision-making, then what is? And what might this reveal, as a practical matter, about the nature of skillful decision making and how it can be embodied in practice and life?
https://sactoinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SIM-logo-trans.png00David Guerrierihttps://sactoinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SIM-logo-trans.pngDavid Guerrieri2026-09-03 22:00:002026-09-03 22:25:189/3/2026 “Intention: The Factor Animating Choice and Karma” 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.
The Jataka Tales are folksy stories of the past lives of the being who would become Siddhattha Gotama and eventually the historical Buddha. To become a Buddha, this being had to perfect the ten qualities known as “Paramis” (or “Perfections”), and each tale tells how one or more of the Paramis was developed in a particular past life, as an animal or human. The Mahā-Sīlava Jātaka is particularly rich in its inclusion of the Paramis, so we will listen to the story and reflect on which qualities are illustrated and how the story informs our understanding of them.
https://sactoinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SIM-logo-trans.png00David Guerrierihttps://sactoinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SIM-logo-trans.pngDavid Guerrieri2026-08-27 22:00:002026-08-27 21:29:118/27/2026 “Mahā-Sīlava Jātaka (“Not One Drop of Blood”)” with Rich Howard
To download this talk, right-click and select ‘save audio as’ or select the 3-dot menu to the right of the speaker icon.
This will be a talk on how to work skillfully with thoughts while we are practicing insight meditation. The Buddha warned us about how mental proliferation (papanca in Pali) can be a formidable obstacle to progress on the path.
https://sactoinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SIM-logo-trans.png00David Guerrierihttps://sactoinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SIM-logo-trans.pngDavid Guerrieri2026-08-20 22:00:002026-08-20 21:28:568/20/2026 “Working with the Thinking Mind” with Walt Opie
To download this talk, right-click and select ‘save audio as’ or select the 3-dot menu to the right of the speaker icon.
We will explore the Buddhist teaching of Mudita: what it is, what it isn’t and how to cultivate it. In watering the seeds of delight and joy in our lives as part of our spiritual practice, we begin to recognize that happiness grows when it is shared.
https://sactoinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SIM-logo-trans.png00David Guerrierihttps://sactoinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SIM-logo-trans.pngDavid Guerrieri2026-08-13 22:00:002026-08-13 21:07:598/13/2026 “The Practice of Delight” with JD Doyle
https://sactoinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SIM-logo-trans.png00Sabitrehttps://sactoinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SIM-logo-trans.pngSabitre2026-08-09 11:48:422026-10-10 13:59:00Save the Date – Residential Retreat – June 2027
As more retreat details become finalized, we’ll post the information here. Meanwhile, please save the date (Sunday, June 20 through Sunday, June 27, 2027) for your planning purposes. For general information about SIM’s residential retreats, visit https://sactoinsight.org/retreats/residential-retreat/.
Our 2027 Residential Retreat will be with Diana Clark and Walt Opie in the peaceful setting of Mercy Center in Auburn. Registration opens in Spring 2027.
Reminder List
Complete this form and SIM will send you a reminder email regarding the event you’re interested in.
Sacramento Dharma Center Building
3111 Wissemann Drive Sacramento,
CA
95826United States+ Google Map
https://sactoinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Buddha-holding-Lotus.jpg6671000Sabitrehttps://sactoinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SIM-logo-trans.pngSabitre2026-08-09 11:41:082026-10-10 13:57:472027 SIM Residential Retreat – Save the Date
Film Screening: Perfect Days
SDCSeptember 18 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm PDT
Sacramento Dharma Center Movie Night – Perfect Days
Unexpected encounters reveal more of his story in a deeply moving and poetic reflection … For screening details, click here.
Sacramento Dharma Center Building
Sacramento, CA 95826 United States + Google Map
9/17/2026 “What Would the Buddha Do?” with Diane Wilde
Audio DharmaMore and more ethical questions are arising in society due to the rapid “advancement” of AI technology. Spiritual leaders, philosophers, politicians and individuals are cautioning that a moral code has to be developed which addresses the rapid implementation of AI technology.
A few of the many, many issues of concern are:
Students using AI to write essays and term papers and claiming the results as their own.
Blatant lying by individuals, corporations and politicians, by creating harmful AI versions of others.
The acceleration of climate catastrophes due to a lack of concern for other life forms as well the earth herself.
Individuals seeking revenge on others by threatening to expose private online conversations and videos.
Navigating everyday ethical challenges is a challenge. Now we must face the
consequences of unethical behavior due to technological advances. Do our individual ethical choices even make a difference any longer?
Tonight we will discuss ethics and morality in today’s world. In other words: “What Would the Buddha Do?”
9/10/2026 “Practicing with a World on Fire” with JD Doyle
Audio DharmaThere are so many crisis happening simultaneously, at the personal as well as collective level. Learning to practice with the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion is essential to transform suffering into healing and liberation.
Registration Now Open (The Eightfold Path: A Practical Path to Freedom)
Course Portal, NewsRegistration is now open for this four week online course facilitated by SIM Teacher Diana Clark.
The Noble Eightfold Path invites us to discover for ourselves what helps us live with less suffering and more freedom. In this four-week course, we’ll explore the path not simply as a Buddhist teaching to learn and follow, but as a path to engage with. Please join us as we’ll consider how the path can inform the ways we understand our experience, relate to others, and cultivate our minds.
This course meets remotely via Zoom for four consecutive Tuesday evenings: Nov 3, 10, 17, 24, 2026 from 7pm to 8:30pm.
For registration details, visit https://sactoinsight.org/event/8-fold-path-2026/.
9/3/2026 “Intention: The Factor Animating Choice and Karma” with Dennis Warren
Audio DharmaChoice plays a pivotal role in the architecture of Buddhist practice. For example, it surfaces in the five strategies for dealing with distracting thoughts, the four types of Right Effort, and the five ways of letting go or abandoning unskillful states of mind. Each set of options asks that we weight the circumstances and select a course of action.
And yet, curiously, the Pali Canon — that vast record of the Historical Buddha’s psychology, teachings and methods — contains no word or phrase equivalent to our conventional sense of “choice.”
This reflects the Historical Buddha’s tendency to redirect attention away from the surface of a question towards what he considered its root. If choice, as commonly understood, is not the true axis of decision-making, then what is? And what might this reveal, as a practical matter, about the nature of skillful decision making and how it can be embodied in practice and life?
8/27/2026 “Mahā-Sīlava Jātaka (“Not One Drop of Blood”)” with Rich Howard
Audio DharmaThe Jataka Tales are folksy stories of the past lives of the being who would become Siddhattha Gotama and eventually the historical Buddha. To become a Buddha, this being had to perfect the ten qualities known as “Paramis” (or “Perfections”), and each tale tells how one or more of the Paramis was developed in a particular past life, as an animal or human. The Mahā-Sīlava Jātaka is particularly rich in its inclusion of the Paramis, so we will listen to the story and reflect on which qualities are illustrated and how the story informs our understanding of them.
8/20/2026 “Working with the Thinking Mind” with Walt Opie
Audio DharmaThis will be a talk on how to work skillfully with thoughts while we are practicing insight meditation. The Buddha warned us about how mental proliferation (papanca in Pali) can be a formidable obstacle to progress on the path.
8/13/2026 “The Practice of Delight” with JD Doyle
Audio DharmaWe will explore the Buddhist teaching of Mudita: what it is, what it isn’t and how to cultivate it. In watering the seeds of delight and joy in our lives as part of our spiritual practice, we begin to recognize that happiness grows when it is shared.
Save the Date – Residential Retreat – June 2027
NewsSIM Residential Retreat
Sunday, June 20 through Sunday, June 27, 2027
Please hold these dates for Sacramento Insight Meditation’s next residential retreat. Details to come.
Reminder List
Complete this form and SIM will send you a reminder email regarding the event you’re interested in.
2027 SIM Residential Retreat – Save the Date
RetreatJune 20, 2027 – June 27, 2027 PDT
Our 2027 Residential Retreat will be with Diana Clark and Walt Opie in the peaceful setting of Mercy Center in Auburn.
Registration opens in Spring 2027.
Reminder List
Complete this form and SIM will send you a reminder email regarding the event you’re interested in.
Sacramento Dharma Center Building
Sacramento, CA 95826 United States + Google Map