The Sati Center for Buddhist Studies is sponsoring the following events:
Exploring Samadhi and Jhana in Buddhist Meditation with Richard Shankman
2 Saturdays – September 23 & 30: 9:00 am – 12:00 pm Pacific
Online via Zoom
There is a wide range of views among teachers about the place of samadhi (concentration) in insight meditation. Some stress the importance of concentration while others teach that insight arises through mindfulness alone and do not give concentration any particular emphasis.Unraveling the mix of ideas about what proper concentration is and its place in dharma practice can be difficult. Students may become confused about the degree or type of samadhi they should cultivate or how to incorporate it into their meditation practice.
In these two Saturday mornings of teaching and discussion we will explore the various ways samadhi (concentration) and jhana are presented in the foundational Pali texts and the range of ways they are practiced and taught today. We will explore how concentration is understood in relation to insight, and how they can be brought together in a mutually supportive way.
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Living Kindness: Buddhist Teachings for a Troubled World with Kevin Griffin
Saturday, October 7: 10:00 am – 5:00 pm Pacific
In Person at the Insight Meditation Center & Online via Zoom
Lovingkindness, or metta, is sometimes depicted as a simple “open your heart and love everybody” practice, but a closer look at the Buddha’s teachings reveals a more complex and nuanced picture. In a time of great conflict and contention in our society, it can be extremely valuable to see how the Buddha addressed these relevant topics:
- the challenges of living with other people;
- the risk of hating anyone, even your enemies;
- and the dangers inherent to conventional loving relationships.
Kevin uses his teachings on lovingkindness to emphasize the importance of sila, or ethical behavior, the potential for opening into deeper meditative states of peace and equanimity, and the importance of developing a non-discriminating, unconditional love on the path of awakening.
The retreat will include meditation, lecture, small group discussion, and Q&A.
On this daylong we will:
- explore several suttas that will open up our understanding of lovingkindess;
- practice metta as well as mindfulness meditation;
- look at how these teachings and practices can transform the way we live in the world through the commitment to non-ill will and selfless activity.
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Realizing Our Embeddedness in Nature with Chris Ives
Saturday, October 14: 10:00 am – 12:00 pm Pacific
Online via Zoom
Chris Ives, scholar and author of Zen on the Trail: Hiking as Pilgrimage and Meditations on the Trail: A Guidebook for Self-Discovery, will explore Buddhist resources for helping us overcome our sense of being separate from nature and realizing our embeddedness in nature as nature. Drawing especially from the Zen tradition, we will discuss such practices as directing our attention to our senses, giving ourselves fully to the breath and other actions (in Japanese, gūjin), emptying the mind, presencing (genjō), being filled by what we experience as it presents itself in its suchness, directing our attention to how we are part of a vast system of conditioned arising (interbeing), and recognizing our kinship with other-than-human animals. With regard to realizing our embeddedness, we will consider “realizing” in two senses: becoming aware of our embeddedness, and actualizing our embeddedness through our embodiedness.
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Learning to Help: A Buddhist Journey into Chaplaincy with Reverend Max Hokai Swanger
October 21 @ 9:00 am – 10:00 am Pacifc
Online via Zoom
Max was raised Jewish and Presbyterian and later converted to Buddhism in College. After college, he lived in a Buddhist communities for fifteen years and ordained as a Zen Buddhist Priest. Later he began training to be a chaplain: first in the SATI program, then as a Clinical Pastoral Educational (CPE) Resident for a year at UCSF. While starting to work as a chaplain, he earned a Masters of Divinity degree, and became Board Certified. Prior to serving at his current job at Santa Clara Valley Medial Center, he worked at Stanford Children’s hospital and VITAS hospice for three years. In addition to being a chaplain at Valley Medical, Max provides Buddhist ministry and teachings. He lives with his wife Katie in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Right Listening — The Chaplain’s Empathic Stethoscope with Pamela Ayo Yetunde
November 4 @ 9:00 am – 10:00 am Pacific
Online via Zoom
The Noble Eightfold Path is a remarkable and inspirational “prescription” for individual healing. Why individual? Maybe because it is usually not written about as a relational path practice. What if we used the “compass” of the Noble Eightfold Path to point us in the direction of enhancing our listening/understanding abilities when in the acts of spiritual care and friendship? Can the chaplain’s embodiment of the Noble Eightfold Path alter the sense-doors of our ears and other modes of perception? In this conversation, we’ll discuss the possibility of Right Listening (which can be beyond the capacity to hear) as a path factor for healing.
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Sanathavihari Bhikkhu
November 11 @ 8:00 am – 11:00 pm Pacific
Online via Zoom
Sanathavihari Bhikkhu is a Mexican-American Theravāda monk at the Sarathchandra Buddhist Center in North Hollywood, a Sri Lankan center. He is a student of the late Dr. Bhante Madawela Punnaji, and the founder of Casa De Bhavana – an outreach project to bring the Dhamma to the Spanish-speaking world. He is also the co-author of Buddhism in 10 Steps. Bhante is a U.S. Air Force veteran who served in the Air Force for nine years and was deployed three times. He was ordained as a novice at the age of 30 in 2015 at Sarathchandra Buddhist Center in North Hollywood, California. In 2018, he received his higher ordination at Maharagama Bhikkhu Training Center (Maharagama Dharmayathanaya) in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Bhante has a B.A. in Religion and an M.S. in Counseling Psychology (Marriage Family Therapy). Bhante is currently enrolled in the Buddhist Chaplaincy program at Upaya Zen Center.
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Spiritual Friendship and Right View: An Exploration through Dharma Contemplation
Gregory Kramer and Kim Allen
December 2 @ 9:00 am – 12:30 pm PST
Online via Zoom
The Pāli suttas name the voice of another and wise attention as the key factors for the arising of right view, or wisdom. This defines speaking and listening practice as foundational to the Eightfold Path. We can see why spiritual friendship (kalyanamitta) is named as the most important external factor for walking the Eightfold Path, and wise attention the most important internal factor.
On this retreat, we will learn to meditate together with the root wisdom texts. The multi-layered, methodical, and relational meditation practice of Dharma Contemplation is a potent practice by which the discourses of the Buddha can come alive for us. The layers of DC help us to embrace and aim the power of the sensate body, the conceiving mind, and intuitive understanding. Dharma Contemplation directly engages the meditative qualities cultivated in silent meditation and the relational power of spiritual friendship in a deep encounter with the Dhamma. The practice, evolved in this form by Gregory Kramer, was developed within the ancient spiritual traditions of reading sacred texts and the establishment of the relational meditation practice of Insight Dialogue. (Experience with ID is not required for this program).
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Fear, Dread, and Freedom
David Lorey, Ying Chen, Diana Clark, and Kim Allen
Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday
December 5, 7 & 9
8:30 am – 10:00 am PST
Online via Zoom
The Buddha faced immense challenges along his path to Awakening, including fear, dread, and persistent distractions. How might we learn from his experience and teachings to engage our own challenges in practice or in life? In this course, we will read suttas in which people encounter difficulties along the path, as well as suttas treating challenging topics like death. The Buddha’s compassion and wisdom come forth as he encourages skillful engagement with even the deepest difficulties – those with the potential to transform the mind.
This course includes teachings, meditation, and small group discussion.
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