Online: Building a Relevant and Transformative Meditation Practice
with Dave Smith
Sunday, April 6th, 2025 | 10:00am – 1:00 pm ET
Many of us turn to mindfulness looking for more clarity, ease, or steadiness in our daily lives—but it’s not always obvious how to get there.
The Buddhist path offers practical, time-tested guidance: cultivate what’s helpful and let go of what isn’t. This simple but powerful principle can bring a sense of direction to our practice and help us make real progress, both on and off the cushion.
This core idea is at the heart of the teachings on Right Effort, and is further clarified in the Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness, where the practice becomes about observing and transforming the state of the mind itself.
In this half-day workshop, meditation teacher Dave Smith will guide us through these essential teachings, offering practical tools and frameworks for how to work skillfully with our own minds.
Through guided meditation, discussion, and Q&A, we’ll explore how to move past confusion or stagnation and develop a practice that’s genuinely transformative—something that helps us meet our everyday lives with more confidence, steadiness, and insight.
This event is open to all. No prior experience is needed.
You may also be interested in Dave Smith’s upcoming online course at NYInsight, Mindfulness and the Middle Way – Cultivating an Authentic Dharma, starting May 20.
Registration:
Please register below. If you are able, registering at the “Supporter” level enables others to attend at the “Subsidized” level. Thank you for your generosity! (Please note that the registration price includes a base level of teacher support, and you will have the opportunity to donate more after the program.)
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Volunteering
All of our programs rely on volunteers to support our teachers and staff with various tasks and responsibilities. Volunteering allows you to participate in our programs at no cost. To inquire about volunteering opportunities, please fill out our inquiry form, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Teacher(s)
Dave Smith
For nearly 30 years, Dave Smith has held a practice rooted in the Insight Meditation (Vipassana) tradition. He was empowered to teach through the Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society, is a certified teacher for Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB) which combines contemporary emotion based scientific research with contemplative practices and psychology drawn from Buddhism.
Dave teaches residential meditation retreats, weekly live dharma classes, online courses, and workshops. He has developed educational tools and resources, including mindfulness and emotional skills training, in both secular and Buddhist contexts. Dave also works with students 1:1 through his dharma mentoring program.
In 2016 he founded the Secular Dharma Foundation to foster the advancement of emotional and psychological well-being through the education and integration of mindfulness, psychology, and various therapeutic modalities. Dave lives in Paonia, CO with his wife and two sons.