Expanding Light Sangha prioritizes young adult and middle-aged practitioners by leaning into the voices and energy of an age group that is less visible in many sanghas. We meet in a circular format with collaborative leadership and member-led practice, organized by a lead facilitator.

This month, the group discussion and practice will be on the parami of truthfulness (sacca)

Reference: Sylvia Boorstein’s Pay Attention, for Goodness’ Sake

The Map Is Not the Road

We all know the moment: following the blue dot through an unfamiliar place, we take a wrong turn. The app quietly recalculates, without judgment, and the map snaps back to You are here. Join us for a guided meditation in which we press the “re-center” button on our own experience, followed by an exploration of what the maps app on our phones can teach us about the inner journey.

A contemplative tradition gives us maps: formal instructions, practices, stages, teachings, lineages, and precepts. But practice, the road we actually travel, unfolds moment by moment in a living body, in a particular mind, and under conditions that were not fully predictable when the map was drawn. IMCC teacher and Board member Matt Fritts will draw on his recent cross-country move to the Bay Area to explore, metaphorically, how the maps app on our phones can illuminate our inner journey and help us find answers to questions familiar to any traveler:

• Where have I been?

• Where am I now?

• Where do I go next?

• What if the road leads somewhere unexpected?

Together, we’ll consider how teachers (guides) and fellow travelers (sangha) can support us when we lose our way, knowing that the journey itself may change both the traveler and the destination we had in mind.

A map can tell us where we intended to go. Awareness tells us where we actually are. Wisdom emerges in the conversation between the two.

To join by zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/380465452?pwd=SjdqQUh0aW4xQzJMTG9pOUJHTnl2dz09

Meeting ID: 380 465 452
Password: 041087

Dial by your location +1 929 205 6099
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Unshakeable Peace

The whole reason to study and practice the Dhamma is to find peace from suffering. Unshakeable peace is not found in agreeable external conditions. It is cultivated as an internal ground. It is the resilience needed to fully show up in the world in the midst of agreeable and disagreeable external conditions. We tend to conceive ourselves in the world through our senses which makes us reactive. This reactivity keeps us in movement. Unshakeable peace is about cultivating awareness of the natural stillness of the heart. When we conceive ourselves in the world through our hearts, we can be responsive rather than reactive.

To join by zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/380465452?pwd=SjdqQUh0aW4xQzJMTG9pOUJHTnl2dz09

Meeting ID: 380 465 452
Password: 041087

Dial by your location +1 929 205 6099
 +1 301 715 8592

Engaged Buddhist Practice….a Beginning

“We live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality. We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all.”  - Kalu Rinpoche

When we try to bring our spiritual practice directly into the challenges of our personal relationships and our public lives, it is easy to become confused and distracted, maybe even overwhelmed. We wonder: How can we fully live the teachings: trusting in and nourished by the love that is “abundant, exalted and immeasurable." At the very same time, how can we find our way to wise speech and strong and effective action in the chaotic world of forms and clouds and confusion? 

 In this evening’s talk, we will rest this question in the paradox of Buddhist teachings on form and emptiness: teachings which offer both comfort and guidance as we bring our personal practice deeply into engaged social action.

“Words and experience are of different cloth. Words are pointers. Our job is to live what they’re pointing to.”  - Susan Stone in The Yes Sayers: Affirmation in the Time of the Buddha 

To join by zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/380465452?pwd=SjdqQUh0aW4xQzJMTG9pOUJHTnl2dz09

Meeting ID: 380 465 452
Password: 041087

Dial by your location +1 929 205 6099
 +1 301 715 8592

An Evening of Practice with Anna Vanhoy offering Letting Go and Letting Be, and Phil Dupont offering a Gratitude Practice.

To join by zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/380465452?pwd=SjdqQUh0aW4xQzJMTG9pOUJHTnl2dz09

Meeting ID: 380 465 452
Password: 041087

Dial by your location +1 929 205 6099
 +1 301 715 8592

Group discussion and practice on the parami of aditthana (determination/resolve)

Reference: Sylvia Boorstein’s Pay Attention, for Goodness’ Sake

Kevin will lead a guided meditation. Susan will offer comments and insights about her experiences living with two residences and no home. She'll discuss how the benediction of the Dharma lives as deeply in stress, exhaustion, and less-than-skillful behavior as it does in mindfulness, compassion, lovingkindness, and skillful means. And she will consider the power of the question "why is this happening for me?" rather than "why is this happening to me?". A group conversation inviting comments and questions will follow the talk.

To join by zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/380465452?pwd=SjdqQUh0aW4xQzJMTG9pOUJHTnl2dz09

Meeting ID: 380 465 452
Password: 041087

Dial by your location +1 929 205 6099
 +1 301 715 8592