Practice

This year we continue working against the backdrop of ongoing wars and a warming planet, with a new administration that is actively hostile toward efforts to address the climate crisis. What do you do when you feel your heart will break against the willful ignorance manifest in global and national politics, and the suffering brought about by the climate crisis and other overwhelming challenges? Does our effort even matter? Can we effectively combat paralysis in ourselves and those around us?

Members of the San Francisco Buddhist Center Green Sangha will hold a puja in our shrine room 7:00 pm Friday January 17, 2025. Doors open 6:45 - 7:00, and the puja starts promptly at 7:00.

We will invoke fearlessness and compassion with a Green Tara puja followed by time for silent meditation and contemplation. All are warmly invited. 

With thanks for your consideration and support, and in abiding solidarity as we move into a new moment in history.

(Please note that this puja is a special event, and not part of SFBC's rainy season retreat.)

Sangha (Community) Nights are open to anyone wishing to practice together and connect around Buddhist practices and Dharma teachings.  Our theme for 2024 is "Waking up to Imagination". (More information about Sangha Nights.)

Next Course Oct/Nov 2024

Four Tuesday evenings, in person at the SFBC

April 30 to May 21, 7pm to 9pm, with Padmatara

This new course integrates the profound wisdom of the body into the art of meditation.

Combining mindful movement and meditation helps us to establish a regular practice of both.

Next Course begins in Fall 2024

Buddhism is a vision of human existence. It is also a practical guide that we can apply to every aspect of our lives.  Meditation and buddhist principles, practiced together, bring us closer to our direct experience, dissolving our misperceptions to reveal the boundless potential and precious opportunity of life. 

Central to Buddhist practice is a deep desire to understand suffering and the means to end suffering; to discover the "magic of the ordinary";  and to live in harmony with ourselves and those around us.

4 Tuesday evenings, July 25 to August 15, 7pm to 9pm in person

This meditation course is guided by the Satipatthana Sutta - a teaching that describes a simple and direct way to lessen and end suffering through attending to our direct sensory connection to the world. The four approaches are: mindfulness of the body and changing sensations; mindfulness of feelings as an emotional experience of the present moment; mindfulness of thoughts as our mind imagines; and finally mindfulness of the very nature of experiencing.

Monday to Friday through Dec 20 2024. Meditations resume February 2025

Start your day with a peaceful 45 minutes of meditation in the lovely SFBC shrine room. No instruction, just bells at the beginning and end, and the priceless support of other people meditating.

PATHWAYS TO AWAKENING

SILENT MEDITATION DAY AUGUST 27

With Mokshasi

You are invited once again to join us at the SFBC for a very simple, silent day of meditation practice.  You can join for the whole day or any portion of it - just please be sure to arrive during a break, as we will be unable to let you in otherwise. Please pre-register so we have an idea of numbers. 

Meditations will be unguided, just bells, and the opportunity to sit together in our lovely shrine room. 

Monday to Saturday, 7:30am to 8:10am