Welcome
At Bristol Insight, we support the practice and study of Buddhist Insight Meditation also known as Vipassana (literally translated as ‘seeing deeply or clearly’). This is the practice of developing a calm and mindful investigation into the nature of experience, leading to wisdom, compassion and the end of suffering. Through our groups and activities, we aspire to build a community that nurtures wisdom and compassion: for ourselves, for others and for the world we live in.
We offer a range of regular activities and a programme of day retreats and occasional longer courses to support meditation practice. Our longstanding association with Gaia House, a well-known retreat centre for Insight Meditation, means we regularly invite their teachers, as well as those from other linked traditions, to lead our own retreat days and courses. These are reputable, highly experienced teachers who commit to a code of ethics.
You can find out more about our story, our aims and values and our organisation here.
Our approach emphasises inquiry, experiential exploration and mindfulness amongst many other influences. It is not important to hold particular beliefs or to consider yourself a Buddhist to attend our activities and events, all are welcome.
If you like the sound of what we do, then please feel free to come and check us out.
New
Have a look at our current three month programme of ‘Cultivating Our Practice’ sessions on Tuesday Nights. These sessions follow on from the Tuesday evening sit. All are welcome.
Our 2017 Teacher-Led Day Retreat programme is well underway now. We are very excited to have yet another year of retreats led by very experienced and well respected teachers from near and far. Please go to our day retreats page for more details.
We are now posting the recorded dharma talks that we have listened to at our Self Led Day Retreats. You can listen to these here.
Coming up
Saturday 1st July from 10am to 5.00pm
Self-Led Day Retreat
These popular, well-supported day retreats are based on Theravada Vipassana (Insight) meditation practice of sitting and walking. The retreats are not led by a teacher and no meditation guidance is given, so they suit participants who are comfortable with a basic meditation practice; for example, as experienced on a group retreat at Gaia House, a teacher-led day retreat in Bristol or an eight-week mindfulness course. More information can be found on our regular activities page.
This month’s recorded talk will be by Tara Brach. It is called “Landlocked in Fur” – Three Domains of Formless Presence. Tara explores with humour and insight how we can find the space behind our habitual behaviour. She brings this to life with poems and anecdotes. Some about cats! You can find a link to this talk and previous recorded talks here.
Please consider making a donation to help Dharmaseed.org who make these recordings available free of charge. Details of how to do this are give at the end of the recorded talk. Thank you.
Our next Day Retreat is with Jaya Rudgard on Saturday 21st October 2017
A Day with Jaya Rudgard
“Living Deeply”. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” -Mary Oliver. How do we discover and stay connected with what we value most in our lives? A retreat day centred around the qualities of wise resolve and balanced effort, and how we can practise these to support a life that honours our deepest aspirations. The day will include periods of sitting and walking meditation, dharma reflections and time for questions and discussion.
Jaya Karen Rudgard began meditating in the 1980s and practised for eight years as a nun in the Thai Forest tradition in England with Ven. Ajahn Sumedho as her teacher. She is a graduate of the IMS/Spirit Rock Teacher Training and teaches Insight Meditation and mindfulness in the UK and internationally.
To make a booking for this Day Retreat go to http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2898177 Please see our Day Retreats page for general information about our day retreats.
‘How we live is important, particularly at the level of mind. Every time you’re willing to acknowledge your thoughts, let them go, and come back to the freshness of the present moment, you’re sowing seeds of wakefulness in your unconscious. After a while what comes up is a more wakeful, more open thought. You’re conditioning yourself toward openness rather than sleepiness. You might find yourself caught, but you can extricate yourself by how you use your mind, how you actually are willing to come back just to nowness, the immediacy of the moment. Every time you’re willing to do that, you’re sowing seeds for your own future, cultivating this innate fundamental wakefulness by aspiring to let go of the habitual way you proceed and do something fresh.’
Pema Chodron