Wednesday night live

The talks from 2023 onward have been uploaded to SoundCloud.

Find the audio from 2026 here:
https://soundcloud.com/saskatooninsight/sets/simc-wednesday-evening-2026
Find the audio from 2025 here:
https://soundcloud.com/saskatooninsight/sets/simc-wednesday-evening-2025
Find the audio from 2024 here:
https://soundcloud.com/saskatooninsight/sets/simc-wednesday-evening-2024
Find the audio from 2023 here:
https://soundcloud.com/saskatooninsight/sets/simc-wednesday-evening-2023

Select talks and retreats are also available on our Dharma Seed page:
https://simc.dharmaseed.org/

  • April 2026
    • April 22 (Andrea) – Understanding the Pull: Sense Desire and What Is Enough – This week we explore the first hindrance, kāmacchanda (sense desire). On Earth Day, we reflect on the movement of wanting and how awareness helps us discover what is enough – for ourselves and the world we share.
    • April 15 – The Hindrances and Snakes – Further lightness this week, as we bring a humorous touch to working with difficult states. This exploration will offer further ways to meet challenges in skillful, wholesome ways.
    • April 8 – The Hindrances and Bears – It can be a relief to know that the Buddha has helpful teachings about how to work with difficult states of mind and heart. This week, we will dive into these teachings – with lightness, humour, and good poetry. 😊.
    • April 1 – Bird’s Eye View of the Path as introduction to the Hindrances – This week we will offer an overview of the whole path – as best we can describe it from a bird’s eye view! As a good adult educator, the Buddha used a lot of lists to chunk information into understandable and memorable teachings. We will look at a large list of lists, as a way of getting a big picture of the teaching, and then dive into a new area – how to work very directly with challenging aspects of mind and heart: a list called the Hindrances. (SIMC Core Buddhist Lists)
  • March 2026
    • March 25 – Women in Buddhism: Sujata and other inspiriting women, including modern day Venerable Pannavati – In our kindness week, and in continued celebration of Women’s History Month, we will offer teachings and poems from a variety of women, including Sujata. Out of kindness and compassion, she offered a bowl of milk-rice to Siddhartha Gautama, when she saw him emaciated and near death, after six years of asceticism. Her care is a pivotal Buddhist story, giving him strength to carry on his search, and motivating his shift from extremes to the middle path that we practice today. Her teachings made it possible for the Buddha to carry on, and continue to inspire us today. Stories and poems from many other elder nuns as well as current day Venerable Pannavati, to close our month celebrating women.
    • March 18 – Women in Buddhism: Visakha – We are continuing to be inspired by women in the Buddhist stories, for Women’s History month. These elders can really come alive for us through stories, and this week we will lift up Visakha, one of the Buddha’s greatest benefactors. Her story is full of joy, overcoming hardship, generosity, and liberation, and is a direct teaching for us today.
    • March 11 – Women in Buddhism: Mahapajapati Gotami – To honour Women’s History Month, we continue with stories of the influential women in the Buddha’s life. His maternal aunt, Mahapajapati Gotami, stepped in to raise him when his biological mother, Queen Maya, died at birth. Both of these women of course had huge impact on the Buddha’s life and the unfolding of the teachings.
    • March 4 – Women in Buddhism: Yasodhara – In celebration of International Women’s Day March 8, we will dedicate this month to stories of women in the Buddhist canon. We begin with Yasodhara, the Buddha’s wife, a spiritually dedicated practitioner who became an awakened teacher and who supported a strong community of nuns. Her great dedication can inspire our practice today.

These teachings are offered in the spirit of generosity. If you are able to offer financial support to Jeanne or our guest teachers, please visit our dana page for details on sending an e-transfer, using PayPal, or making other arrangements.
https://saskatooninsight.com/wp/about/dana/

  • February 2026
    • February 25 – Kindness as a Wisdom Practice – We can see the wisdom of non-clinging, of freedom and peace, in all of the Buddhist teachings. This week during our kindness practice, we lift up Kindness Week in Canada (Feb 15-21). We will explore kindness as a wisdom practice – a wisdom that can guide our lives toward peace and freedom.
    • February 18 – Gratitude and Generosity as Wisdom Practices – When we understand wisdom and the taste of freedom it brings, we can see wisdom in all kinds of other practices. This week we will explore the twin practices of gratitude and generosity as wisdom, which can connect us to freedom even in the midst of challenges.
    • February 11 – Intentional and Mysterious Wisdom – When we talk about wisdom in the Buddhist framework, we mean the wisdom of non-clinging: the wisdom of renunciation of grasping, of good will, and of compassion. We can bring this wisdom into our lives with gradual, intentional cultivation, which can sometimes catalyse a rise of wisdom in sudden and mysterious ways. These two ways of experiencing wisdom – the intentional and the mysterious – can work together.
    • February 4 (Andrea) – Wisdom in Response – In the context of the Five Spiritual Faculties, wisdom shows up not as certainty, but as the capacity to respond, moment by moment, with clarity, steadiness, and care, even when conditions are uncertain or changing.
  • January 2026
    • January 28 – Kindness supports Wisdom and Wisdom kindles Kindness – These qualities are often described as working together as a pair, like a bird’s wings. This week our kindness practice will explore how these two aspects of heart/mind support each other and reflect on ways we can live these in the world today.
    • January 21 – Wisdom: the 5th Spiritual Power – What is wisdom in the Buddhist understanding? Can I be wise? How do we support it? How do we cultivate it? This talk explores these questions.
    • January 14 (Andrea) – The Five Spiritual Faculties: Samādhi in Balance – Samādhi doesn’t stand alone. Within the Five Faculties, it develops in relationship with energy, mindfulness, confidence, and wisdom. This talk explores samādhi as an ongoing balancing that steadies the mind and supports clear seeing in practice and daily life.
    • January 7 (Andrea) – The Five Spiritual Faculties: Samādhi as Gathering – Within the Five Spiritual Faculties, a quality of settling arises when confidence, energy, and mindfulness are in balance. We will explore how kindness, ease, and simplicity allow the mind and heart to come together naturally, offering steadiness that supports wisdom.
  • December 2025
    • December 31 (Andrea) – A Full Year, A Fresh Beginning: The Brahmavihārās and the Five Faculties at the Turn of the Year – As the year turns, we pause to reflect and begin again. This talk explores how the Brahmavihārās help us hold the past with kindness, and how the Five Spiritual Faculties guide us forward with clarity, courage, and intention.
    • December 17 – Five Reflections for the Season – Many spiritual paths that share holidays in December share the common threads of peace, goodwill, and generosity. Everything in the Buddhist tradition comes from these motivations. In this session we meditate with peace and goodwill, and reflect on 5 ways of living the practice in this season.
    • December 10 – The 5 Spiritual Faculties: Magic of Mindfulness – The Magic of Mindfulness: the Third Spiritual Power. This week we will continue to explore aspects of mindfulness, this powerful capacity that we often overlook. Mindfulness can support our equanimity, presence in life, our joy, and our freedom of mind and heart.
    • December 3 – The 5 Spiritual Faculties: Mindfulness as Embodied Presence – Mindfulness is a somatic practice better understood as body/mind/heartfulness. This week we will explore how mindfulness is sometimes misunderstood as dealing with just the “mind”, when it is really a full-on embodied heart/mind way of being. This way of knowing draws on the wisdom of the body and on the body/mind/heart connection, to live with deep engagement in the world. It is the third of the Five Spiritual Powers that we are exploring on our Wednesday evenings.
  • November 2025
    • November 26 – The 5 Spiritual Faculties and Forgiveness – Forgiveness belongs in the family of transformational heart qualities and capacities. This talk explores forgiveness as a protection, as freedom, and as a doorway to love.
    • November 19 (Andrea) – What Clouds the Mind, and What Clears It: The Five Hindrances and the Five Spiritual Faculties – The five spiritual faculties express the mind’s natural capacity for clarity and balance. The hindrances are temporary obscurations that arise from reactive patterns. By understanding how these two forces interact, we learn how to shift out of reactivity and recognize the steadiness, energy, and insight already available within us.
    • November 12 – Heart Medicine: The 4 Divine Abodes – Heart Medicine: this week Jeanne will summarize the teachings of the Wise Heart weekend retreat that we just held here in Saskatoon. She will summarize the four qualities of the wise heart and offer accessible practises for cultivating the capacity of the wise heart to meet all of our experience with care, balance, joy, and compassion.
    • November 5 – The 5 Spiritual Faculties: Energy – Energy is the second of the Five Spiritual Faculties – and can sometimes seem in short supply. This week we will explore sources of spiritual energy and the way this can spiral back to us in support; how to cultivate motivational energy, the benefits of spiritual energy for our heart and mind, and how to channel energy toward the highest happiness.
  • October 2025
    • October 29 – The 5 Spiritual Faculties: Love as a Natural Expression of Wisdom – The Five Spiritual Faculties are found in every day activities and in our practices, including in metta. In this kindness talk, we explore love as one of the expressions of the Wise Heart.
    • October 22 – The 5 Spiritual Faculties: The Wellspring of Faith – The 5 Spiritual Faculties begin with faith, which can be a source of nourishment for the practice; a source of energy which can be channeled into the 2nd Faculty of Effort. This is not a big, flashy, faith – but comes in different flavours, some very quiet and soft. This week we will explore where to look and how to tune into the wellspring of faith, and how this can serve the mind and heart.
    • October 15 – The 5 Spiritual Faculties: Faith as Confidence – Confidence can be a complex quality – we often wish we had more confidence, that the lack of it is an obstacle for us, or, we receive messages from society about not “tooting our own horn” and get it mixed up with egotism. The Buddhist teachings offer guidance on what confidence is, how it can energize and support us and those around us in wholesome ways, and easy ways to cultivate it.
    • October 8 – The Five Spiritual Faculties: Overview – The Five Spiritual Faculties are 5 wholesome qualities which we develop as we meditate, and as they mature, become known as the Five Spiritual Powers: faith (or confidence), energy (or effort), mindfulness, concentration (or deep settling) and wisdom. This list describes the path of our practice from the first moment of interest all the way to the flowering of liberating insight.
    • October 1 – Walking the Path Together: the Third Basket of Meditation – In the last weeks, we have set the compass of the heart with the first basket of wise view and wise intention, and begun to engage in the world from this wisdom. The first basket guides the mind and heart; the second basket of wise engagement settles it and gives it purpose and meaning; both prepare the mind/heart for meditation. This week we will wrap up our walk with the third basket of wise effort, mindfulness, and concentration.
  • September 2025
    • September 24 – Walking the Path Together: the Meditation Basket and Wise Effort – Walking the Path Together: Meditation. The third basket of the fold path is our meditation practice: Wise Effort, Wise Mindfulness, and Wise Concentration. Held in the context of wisdom and ethics, now we are ready to meditate! This week we will explore how this trio works together to support our mind and heart.
    • September 17 – Walking the Path Together: The Engagement Basket – The Second group of factors in the 8fold path are a trio describing our relationship with the world through wise speech, action, and livelihood. This week we will explore how the compass of the heart in the first basket of wisdom provides direction and guidance in walking the path in the world.
    • September 10 – Walking the Path Together: the Wisdom Basket – Wise view is the first path factor, and gives us our compass direction. This week we will explore the compass of the heart/mind and how we aim ourselves in the direction of peace.
    • September 3 – Walking the Path Together: an Overview of the Eightfold Path – In September our Wednesday theme will be Walking the Path Together. This week our Sutta Stories continue with a story about the importance of community, which is so relevant in our times. AND… this week will include a special song, written just for us by one of our community members. You are guaranteed to love it.
  • August 2025
    • August 27 – Sutta Story Series #9: Metta for the Difficult People and Situations – It is kindness night at SIMC – the last Wednesday of each month we offer practices of the heart for all beings. But, does this practice really include all beings? What about those who are causing harm? In our last Sutta Story in our summer series, we explore guidance from the metta sutta in how to wisely offer kindness to those who may be challenging for us. The method and benefits may surprise you.
    • August 20 (Andrea) – Sutta Story Series #8: Angulimala: Stopping Like the Moon Released – This week, we turn to the story of Angulimala – a feared murderer who, through meeting the Buddha, discovered the power of stopping and was transformed into an awakened being. We will explore how this sutta speaks to the dangers of unchecked stories, the courage to stop harmful habits, and the possibility of profound transformation in our own lives.
    • August 13 (Andrea) – Sutta Story Series #7: Bahiya: In the Seen, Just the Seen – We continue our favourite sutta series with Bahiya, a sincere seeker whose urgent request brought the Buddha’s briefest instruction – inviting us into direct contact with our experience, just as it is.
    • August 6 – Sutta Story Series #6: The Bamboo Acrobat – How do we take care of ourselves, and balance our heart and mind, in these times? How do we balance taking care of ourselves and others? The Buddha has guidance – in the form the Bamboo Acrobat Sutta, which we will explore this week.
  • July 2025
    • July 30 (Andrea) – Sutta Story Series #5: Boundless Kindness: The Karaniya Metta Sutta – Join us for an evening of meditation and reflection on one of the Buddha’s most cherished teachings. We will explore the Karaniya Metta Sutta, a timeless guide to cultivating loving-kindness toward all beings, and consider how this practice brings both inner peace and deep connection.
    • July 23 (Andrea) – Sutta Story Series #4: Honeyball Sutta: How the Mind Turns Experience Into Suffering – We will hear the Buddha reveal how sense contact leads to mental proliferation and stress. We will explore how mindfulness can interrupt this chain and bring clarity, calm, and freedom.
    • July 16 (Andrea) – Sutta Story Series #3: Rohitassa: You Don’t Have to Travel Far to Wake Up – This week, we will explore the Rohitassa Sutta, in which a celestial being asks the Buddha where freedom can be found. The Buddha’s reply invites us into an intimate path, right here in this body, this moment.
    • July 9 – Sutta Story Series #2: To Mahanama – This week we join householder Mahanama in receiving teachings on liberation in the home and at work.
    • July 2 – Sutta Story Series #1: Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta – Setting in Motion of the Wheel of Dharma – Sutta Stories: In July and August Jeanne and Andrea will share some of their favourite suttas and the stories behind them. We begin with the Buddha’s very first teaching – the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, translated as “The Setting in Motion of the Wheel of Dharma”. What was this first teaching? How did it go? Do we still practice it today? (Dharma talk only!)
  • February 2025
    • February 5 – Gratitude and Generosity: A Circle of Reciprocity and Belonging – We will summarize this theme from our weekend retreat and explore how the process of reciprocity can nurture our well being, strengthen our sense of connection, and support our capacity for engagement with the world, even in the midst of the current crises.
  • January 2025
    • January 29 – The Fourth Wise Effort: Maintaining wholesome states – It may come as a relief to know that there are ways we can sustain wholesome states. This can help us know that we have choice and influence and can build our confidence in how we meet experience. This week we explore the empowerment we can feel with this wise effort.
    • January 22 – Cultivating Wholesome states: the Third Wise Effort – The first two efforts of preventing and abandoning unhelpful states are balanced by the last two wise efforts of cultivating and maintaining wholesome ones. We will explore the importance of this third wise effort for supporting well being in our minds and hearts, and bring in ways to cultivate helpful states in our practice and daily life.
    • January 15 (Andrea) – Clearing the Path: Abandoning the Unwholesome with Skillful Effort and Energy – Join us for a session exploring the second wise effort: abandoning unwholesome states. Guided by the Buddha’s teachings in The Removal of Distracting Thoughts (MN20), we will delve into practical methods for meeting challenging mental states with wisdom and skill.
    • January 8 (Andrea) – Balancing Energy: The First Wise Effort in Meditation and Life – In this session, we will explore the first wise effort of preventing unwholesome states and balancing energy. We will delve into how energy (viriya) functions as a powerful factor on the path to awakening. How can we recognize and release unwholesome tendencies while cultivating mindful effort, both on and off the cushion.
    • January 1 (Andrea) – Living with Intention: Beginning the Year with Purpose – Aligning your actions with wholesome intentions can bring clarity and meaning to the year ahead. This week’s session invites reflection on the power of intention to shape our lives and benefit others.
  • January 2024
  • January 31 – Anukampa – Compassion and Care – talk by Andrea – recording available upon request. The we did chant was a homage to Quan Yin. Words by Mary Thanissara, melody by Caroline Jones.
  • January 24 – Find your true home on the Path – talk by Andrea – recording available upon request. The book referenced was A Whole-Life Path by Gregory Kramer.
  • January 17 – The Fourth Noble Truth: Leading to gathered attention – talk by Andrea – recording available upon request.
  • January 10 – The Fourth Noble Truth: Sila, or Ethical Action – The Eightfold Path is a beautiful invitation of a way to live our lives with integrity and peace as our guiding stars. Today Jeanne will share a STAR teaching that supports us to bring the path into our daily lives.
  • January 3 – The Fourth Noble Truth: practices to support our capacity for freedom – In January we will explore the Fourth Noble Truth, which is a collection of practices that support the mind and heart in freedom. This collection is called the Noble Eightfold Path. We begin with Wise Intention, perfect for the New Year. Please join us in learning how wise intention is different from New Year’s resolutions!
  • December 2023
    • December 27 – The Wise Heart – This is our kindness week, and we will practice all four heart qualities as we wish everyone kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity for the season.
    • December 20 – The Third Noble Truth: Equanimity – This week we explore the 4th aspect of the wise heart. This courageous, balanced quality deeply supports wisdom in the midst of things.
    • December 13 – The Third Noble Truth: Joy – Our heart quality this week is joy! The third of four qualities of the wise heart, joy strengthens our capacity for compassion, and is itself a doorway to happiness.
    • December 6 – The Third Noble Truth: Nibbana and Compassion – Each week throughout December we will practice a heart quality and explore it as a doorway to freedom in the heart and mind. These qualities of the wise heart can support us in all circumstances.
  • November 2023
    • November 29 – The Third Noble Truth: Nibbana and the heart practices – In our kindness practice night, Jeanne will offer practices of the heart which support the conditions for Nibbana. This will start a month of heart practices for liberation.
    • November 22 – Living Fully, Living Freely: Embracing our Impermanence – This week Jeanne will offer teachings from the recent retreat with Nikki Mirghafori, with the theme of Living Fully, Living Freely: Embracing our Impermanence.
    • November 15 – Why do you meditate? – Why is it that we practice meditation? This session starts with a special recording of the Satipatthana Sutta chanted in Pali (not included in this recording – see link instead). We then take a look at the varied ways that this sutta supports our wholehearted engagement with life, including the Buddha’s reason for practice: to cultivate the Highest Happiness.
    • November 8 – The Third Noble Truth: Accessible Every Day – This talk offers the profound teaching of temporary Nibbana, from Ajahn Buddhadasa. It looks at how we can experience this peace in the midst of aversion, grasping, and delusion.
    • November 1 – The Third Noble Truth: Peace in a Violent World – This session explores the profound wisdom of being able to be equanimous with discomfort, as a foundation for wise and strong effort in the world.
  • October 2023
    • October 25 – Metta and the Third Noble Truth (also on YouTube) – This week is the last Wednesday of the month, the week when we practice intentional kindness. We explore the connection between kindness and the third Noble Truth, which is the teaching that freedom in the heart and mind is possible.
    • October 18 – The Noble Truths: Each Conditions the Next One – The third noble truth is the possibility of contentment, as we release craving, or contention with the way things are. Then, we can act to support peace from a place of peace.
    • October 11 – The First Noble Truth with CARE – How do we let go, without letting go? We dive deeper into this central liberation teaching of Four Noble Truths this week.
    • October 4 – The First Noble Truth, Internally – Last week we explored the Four Noble Truths as an engaged practice in the world. This week we look at how we use it internally, to support our own hearts and minds in ease and peace. Especially, we will look at how to work with craving/resistance – do we resist it? Do we struggle to let it go? Is there another way that goes with the flow, but is not a giving up?
  • September 2023
    • September 27 – Awareness and the Wholesome Qualities – On the last Wednesday of each month, we practice intentional kindness practices – for ourselves, and all beings. This week, we explore the teaching of the Four Noble Truths as a kindness practice. The Four Noble Truths can be understood as the core liberation teaching of the Buddha, and kindness can be found at the very heart of this practice.
    • September 20 – Aware of Awareness Review + Four Noble Truths – “Aware of awareness” is a bit of a tongue twister. We recap this liberating practice again this week. We also turn to the last teaching in the Satipatthana Sutta, which describes the heart of the Buddha’s message of peace.
    • September 13 – Aware of Awareness: Five simple practices – The practice of being aware of awareness is a bit of a tongue twister and can be confusing. This week we take another look at this theme, which our special guests Devon and Nico explored two weeks ago. Spoiler alert: are you aware right now?
    • September 6 – The Satipatthana Sutta refrain: a refuge and support for engagement in the world – The smoke that we are experiencing in Canada is connecting us to beings around the planet who are all affected by climate disruption. How does the Satipatthana refrain help us practice peace and wise action in the midst of this?
  • August 2023
    • August 30 – The Magic of Awareness: Mindfulness of Consciousness – with guest teachers devon and nico hase
    • August 23 – An overview of the Satipatthana Sutta – We have been studying this profound teaching over the last year, covering 14 distinct liberation teachings and how to bring these into our everyday life. This week we will review, and set the stage for the last teaching in this series.
    • August 16 – What did Nature Teach the Buddha? – What did nature teach the Buddha? Jeanne is back from kayaking and explores this as we wrap up the teaching to Bahiya of the Bark Cloth.
    • August 9 – Why Study and Practice? – talk by Andrea – audio recording available upon request. (Note – due to a bad network connection at the time of recording, the audio has many lags, but it is mostly understandable.)
    • August 2 – The Six Sense Bases: The Shortest Teaching on Awakening – James Lowe joins Jeanne to explore the Buddha’s shortest discourse on Awakening! Both Venerable Malunkyaputta and the revered Bahiya of the Bark Cloth ask for and receive a nutshell teaching of liberation. We explore this teaching on the six sense bases, which can be an everyday practice supporting freedom in the mind and heart.
  • July 2023
    • July 26 – Metta, Spaciousness, and Not-self – talk by Andrea – audio recording available upon request.
    • July 19 – Not Self, Internally and Externally – This week we wrap up our exploration of the teachings of not-self with 5 invitations to liberation. These are practices we can bring into our daily life to support our ease and freedom.
    • July 12 – Give Your Self Back to Nature – No self, non self, not self? If there is no self, who is sitting here? And why is this liberating? We will continue to unravel these questions this week.
    • July 5 – An Introduction to the Five Aggregates – This talk gives a brief recap of the Satipatthana Sutta and contexts the five aggregates as part of the fourth foundation of mindfulness. We can see ‘selfing’ as normal, and not an enemy to be gotten rid of, but rather related to with wisdom. It also explores skills of a healthy sense of self that are important for the investigation of the not-self teaching.
  • June 2023
    • June 28 – Equanimity: The 7th Factor of Awakening – This talk explores the final factor of enlightenment as an invitation to balance in the midst of things and as practice of non-clinging and awakening.
    • June 21 – Choiceless Attention and Kinds of Knowing – talk by Andrea – audio recording available upon request.
    • June 14 – Samadhi: food for the heart – talk by Andrea – audio recording available upon request.
    • June 7 – Joy: the Fourth Factor of Awakening – The Buddhist teachings are full of joy, and this week we will learn about three sources of joy that are accessible in our lives. As part of this, we celebrate the joy of Pride month!
  • May 2023
    • May 31 – Metta as a support for Energy: the 3rd Factor of Awakening – Metta, or kindness, can support us in finding the easeful energy that can be both energizing and calming. This session begins with a guided meditation in kindness which taps into easeful, gentle energy. At the end of the talk, we explore how we can sense this energy during our meditation and also in activities which energize us. This energy, and the other factors, are considered treasures in the heart.
    • May 24 – Clinging and Non clinging with guest teacher Walt Opie – Walt begins this talk with his experience of the Golden Buddha, and goes on to explore non-clinging as a way of unveiling our own inner treasure. He offers concrete examples of impermanence in daily life which support letting go.
    • May 17 – Finding moments of ease in the midst of it all, with guest teacher Jill Shepherd – In this meditation and talk, Jill begins with a clear and concise description of the four noble truths and explores inner ease as one way of connecting with and understanding this core teaching. She offers accessible practices for cultivating it.
    • (No recording for May 10)
    • May 3 – Investigating Investigation – Friends, this week we dive more deeply into the map of liberation that is called the 7 Factors of Awakening. These factors can be called up individually, or, in groups, or, work together as a natural process that slides toward awakening the way streams and rivers slope and slide to the ocean… or, in our Saskatchewan experience, the way otters can slope and slide to the lake.
  • April 2023
    • April 26 – The Seven Factors of Awakening – This week we begin our exploration of the Seven Factors of Awakening – this natural process of mind and heart that we can learn to support and work with intentionally. A beautiful description of this process is found in the teachings: that cultivating these seven ordinary qualities of mind inclines the mind toward awakening just as the streams and rivers lead to the ocean.
    • April 19 – Is there a hindrance now? – The Satipatthana Sutta encourages not only to notice when hindrances are present, but also to notice when they are absent. We might notice there are more times when they are absent than we think!
    • April 12 – Befriending Doubt – This week we come to the last of the challenging states of mind, and the most difficult: Doubt. However, doubt can be both a hindrance and a support for our minds and hearts. This week we will explore both of these aspects of this state of mind.
    • April 5 – Meeting Restlessness – One of the misunderstandings that we often have is that a good meditator is able to stop thinking. In reality, our thoughts are often restless – this restlessness is the 4th challenging state that the Buddha also experienced. This week, we explore how to make peace with this state – and we don’t have to stop thinking in order to do it!
  • March 2023
    • March 29 – Friendliness toward Sloth and Torpor – Sloth and torpor: two more of the top seven difficult states that the Buddha named in his own experience. Yes, they are exactly as they sound! The mind and body when they have little energy and can feel like we are trying to move through wet cement. Do we try to push our way through? Or is there another way? We explore this this week.
      (P.S. We will also honour our friend, the sloth!)
    • March 22 – Aversion part 3: SIMC Similes – Got aversion? Tune in for our wrap up session on working with the mind when it wants to be anywhere but here!
    • March 15 – Aversion: The Cling Wrap Practice – How to practice peace when we really don’t like what’s going on? This is what we explore this week in our mindfulness practice.
    • March 8 – Liberation: the Doorway of Aversion – We all have difficult thoughts and emotions in our lives. Meditation can’t stop the painful aspects of life, but it can offer wise ways of surfing with the waves of challenge. We explore this way of peace this week.
    • March 1 – Liberation: Watching the Wanting mind – The first skillful way of working with the wanting mind – and all of the challenging states – is to switch our attention from what is wanted, to the wanting itself. This talk explores the liberation of wise mindfulness of wanting.
  • February 2023
    • February 22 – Processes of Liberation: The Fourth Foundation – The Buddhist teachings acknowledge that working with thoughts can be difficult. To assist with this, we will explore some strategies that befriend thoughts, rather than make them an enemy. We talk about these helpful ways to work with difficult mind states this week.
    • February 15 – Befriending the mind – Do you have the understanding that meditation means you have to stop thinking? The Buddhist way of relating to thoughts and to the mind is a radically different approach of befriending, rather than seeing thoughts as the enemy. Jeanne explores this through practice and teaching.
    • February 8 – Vedana: Reliable Feeling Tones – In exploring pleasant experiences, the Buddha found that some are more reliable than others. We take a look at these more dependable happiness and joys this week.
    • February 1 – Vedana: The teaching of the Second Dart – The Buddha gave us a key teaching about how to have a skillful relationship with vedana, which describes how to meet the feeling tones with wisdom. This teaching on the second dart is a training in how to meet pleasant, unpleasant, and more neutral experiences, as invitations to be intimate with our lives, and as doorways to release from reactivity.
  • January 2023
    • January 25 – Vedana: Making peace with the Unpleasant – This week we explore the paradox of making peace with unpleasant experiences. How is this possible, what does this really mean, and why would we want to do this?
    • January 18 – Introducing Vedana (Feeling Tones) – As our embodied mindfulness develops, we can become aware of the push and pull of experience – pleasant and unpleasant ones. Without mindfulness, these can drive us to greed, ill-will, or delusion. Recognizing vedana, these feeling tones, we can learn to respond in ways to foster more peace and calm.
    • January 11 – Mindfulness of death: living fully here and now – This week, we return to our Satipatthana Study – this foundational and liberating teaching. We have been immersing ourselves in the foundation of the body – first, as an embodied place of refuge, balance, and presence. Then, as a source of freedom through the elements and anatomy practices, which cultivate an embodied understanding that we are not separate, but part of the flow of all things. Now, we turn to the last body practice, gently considering the mortality of the body, which can motivate us to live fully, here and now. Please join us for this profound contemplation this week! Special guest Rachel Lewis, dharma teacher and music arranger, joins us this week to offer a live chant.
    • January 4 –Energizing Intention through the Wholesome – This week we celebrate the beginning of the (Gregorian) New Year with some of our favourite things – leaning our hearts and mind into the Wise Effort of cultivating the wholesome aspects of our practice.

For recordings from 2020-2022, please visit this page:
https://saskatooninsight.com/wp/resources/resources-recordings/wednesday-night-live-2020-2022/