Big Heart City Meditation SF

05/20/2026

Big Heart City is delighted to welcome back Rhonda V. Magee to lead the group this week on Zoom with a talk titled “Mindfulness as Humanity 2.0.”

Join us Friday, May 22
7:30pm - 9pm Pacific

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84347954523

Meeting ID: 843 4795 4523

Rhonda V. Magee is a Professor, Emeritus and founding Director of the Center for Contemplative Law and Ethics at the University of San Francisco, and the Founder of the Mount Iris Meditation Community, dedicated to “Soulhearted Mindfulness” for healing ourselves and transforming the world. Professor Magee is a leading mindfulness teacher and practice innovator with a focus on applying mindfulness to the multiple interlocking challenges of our times, including climate distress, political polarization, migration, war and their effects on us all. She draws on law and legal history to weave storytelling, poetry, analysis and practices into inspiration for changing how we think, act and live better together in a rapidly changing world. Learn more at mountiris.com and rhondavmagee.com.

05/18/2026

These days, it can feel like there is so much to track. So much to respond to, manage, worry about, carry, and somehow metabolize. This level of vigilance takes a toll; not just on the body and mind, but on the heart.
When we’re constantly scanning for what’s wrong, what needs fixing, or what might fall apart, it can become harder to access the very qualities that matter most. Kindness. Compassion. Patience. Love. Not because they’re gone, but because the mind gets loud, busy, and so convincing.
Insight practice offers a real reprieve from the relentless world of the mind, from concept, judgment, comparison, and the exhausting belief that things should be other than they are. It gives us a way to pause the machinery of wanting, not by getting rid of desire or thought, but by learning how to relate to them with more wisdom and less reactivity.
Join us Saturday, May 23 to slow down and explore this together. Practicing in community can remind us that we don’t have to meet all of this alone.
Through periods of guided sitting and walking meditation, Dharma reflections, and time for questions, we’ll practice meeting experience with balance and care. Together, we’ll explore how to meet the mind’s urgency without letting it pull us away from the wisdom of the heart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
$40 Registration fee + dana to Vinny
Learn more at bigheartcity.org/daylong-retreat
If the registration fee is prohibitive for you, email info@bigheartcity.org and we will get you registered.
This is a live online retreat. It will NOT be recorded.

05/13/2026

Cara Lai leads the group this week on Zoom with a talk titled “Determination without Self-Flagellation.”

Join us Friday, May 15
7:30 PM Pacific

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87853600300

Meeting ID: 878 5360 0300

Cara Lai once worked as a psychotherapist, social worker, and wilderness guide, but traded it in for an all-out mindfulness rampage. She is authorized to teach in the Theravada Buddhist Lineage through IMS/Spirit Rock, and she teaches at centers across the country, for Ten Percent Happier, Hatch Sleep, and more. She’s explored what it means to be alive through many adventures in consciousness, including a full year of solitary retreat, living with chronic illness, and having two whole humans come out through her va**na. She lives with her husband and their two young children in northern Vermont. To learn more about Cara, please visit caralai.org.

05/06/2026

Vinny Ferraro leads the group this week on Zoom!
Join us Friday, May 8

7:30 PM Pacific

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87178876025

Meeting ID: 871 7887 6025

05/05/2026

These days, it can feel like there is so much to track. So much to respond to, manage, worry about, carry, and somehow metabolize. This level of vigilance takes a toll; not just on the body and mind, but on the heart.

When we’re constantly scanning for what’s wrong, what needs fixing, or what might fall apart, it can become harder to access the very qualities that matter most. Kindness. Compassion. Patience. Love. Not because they’re gone, but because the mind gets loud, busy, and so convincing.

Insight practice offers a real reprieve from the relentless world of the mind, from concept, judgment, comparison, and the exhausting belief that things should be other than they are. It gives us a way to pause the machinery of wanting, not by getting rid of desire or thought, but by learning how to relate to them with more wisdom and less reactivity.

Join us Saturday, May 23 to slow down and explore this together. Practicing in community can remind us that we don’t have to meet all of this alone.

Through periods of guided sitting and walking meditation, Dharma reflections, and time for questions, we’ll practice meeting experience with balance and care. Together, we’ll explore how to meet the mind’s urgency without letting it pull us away from the wisdom of the heart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
$40 Registration fee + dana to Vinny

Learn more at bigheartcity.org/daylong-retreat

If the registration fee is prohibitive for you, email info@bigheartcity.org and we will get you registered.

This is a live online retreat. It will NOT be recorded.

Online daylong retreat with VINNY FERRAROLet the Heart Meet the MindSaturday, April 4, 202610am-4pm Pacific on Zoom Register Here Many of us feel pulled in different directions by what’s happening around us and by the stories the mind builds in response. It’s easy to become reactive, overwhelmed...

04/29/2026

Big Heart City is thrilled to welcome Frank Ostaseski to lead the group IN PERSON this week in San Francisco!

He'll share a talk titled "The Heart of Forgiveness."
Forgiveness isn’t about excusing, forgetting, condoning harmful actions, or even reconciling with a wrongdoer. It’s a relative practice that can open us to an ultimate truth. We will explore what prevents forgiveness, how it’s not right for everyone and the ways self-forgiveness. can release the armoring around our hearts.

Join us Friday, May 1 • 7:30pm - 9pm Pacific

St. Gregory of Nyssa
500 De Haro Street at Mariposa
Potrero Hill, San Francisco

There is plenty of street parking and MUNI bus lines 10, 19, 22 and 55 stop within one block. (Please double check MUNI schedules.)

Not in San Francisco? Tune into the live stream on our YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSTwQ1vM2h5gMmrdjEtCqNg)

Frank Ostaseski is a pioneer in end of life care. In 1987, he cofounded the Zen Hospice Project, the first Buddhist hospice in America. He guided that groundbreaking work for almost 20 years establishing a longstanding model for mindful and compassionate care. In 2005, he founded the Metta Institute training countless healthcare clinicians and caregivers and building a national network of educators, advocates and guides for those facing life-threatening illness. He is the author of The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully. To learn more about Frank, please visit: mettainstitute.org

04/22/2026

Rhonda V. Magee leads the group this week on Zoom with a talk titled “Letting Go, Beginning Again.”

Join us Friday, April 24
7:30 PM Pacific

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85694813841

Meeting ID: 856 9481 3841

Rhonda V. Magee is a Professor, Emeritus and founding Director of the Center for Contemplative Law and Ethics at the University of San Francisco, and the Founder of the Mount Iris Meditation Community, dedicated to “Soulhearted Mindfulness” for healing ourselves and transforming the world. Professor Magee is a leading mindfulness teacher and practice innovator with a focus on applying mindfulness to the multiple interlocking challenges of our times, including climate distress, political polarization, migration, war and their effects on us all. She draws on law and legal history to weave storytelling, poetry, analysis and practices into inspiration for changing how we think, act and live better together in a rapidly changing world. Learn more at mountiris.com and rhondavmagee.com.

04/15/2026

Vinny Ferraro leads the group this week on Zoom!

Join us Friday, April 17

7:30-9:00PM Pacific

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86772978743

Meeting ID: 867 7297 8743

04/08/2026

Matthew Brensilver leads the group IN PERSON this week in San Francisco.

He’ll share a talk titled “Ways of Approaching Emotional Pain”.

Join us Friday, April 10
7:30pm - 9pm Pacific

St. Gregory of Nyssa
500 De Haro Street at Mariposa
Potrero Hill, San Francisco

There is plenty of street parking and MUNI bus lines 10, 19, 22 and 55 stop within one block. (Please double check MUNI schedules.)

Not in San Francisco? Tune into the live stream on our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/

04/02/2026

We’re on ZOOM this week with Vinny Ferraro!

Join us Friday, April 3
7:30-9pm Pacific

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83169872447

Meeting ID: 831 6987 2447
sangha

03/25/2026

Sydney Reece leads the group this week on Zoom with a talk titled “Stand Up in It; It’s Just Us.”

Join us Friday, March 27
7:30pm - 9pm Pacific

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88350400362

Meeting ID: 883 5040 0362

Sydney Reece, M.Ed., is an international educator, meditation teacher, and social justice advocate whose work lives at the intersection of trauma healing, addiction recovery, and collective liberation. She creates spaces where people can slow down enough to feel—where awareness becomes embodied, equanimity becomes lived experience, and compassion begins to take root from the inside out. Her work bridges inner development with social context, with a particular focus on loosening trauma responses, navigating addiction triggers, and tending to the embodied impact of American racial history. She has worked across school districts, nonprofit organizations, meditation centers, and universities, expanding access to mindfulness-based practices and training others to carry this work forward. To learn more about Sydney, visit: sydneyreece.com