Welcome

Our group is based in Bristol and runs activities aimed at supporting the practice of Insight Meditation. Occasionally we arrange for teachers to come and lead one-day retreats, but there is no resident teacher who guides the group.

We operate on a non-profit basis and our aspiration is to develop a sense of community and create an environment that fosters awareness. If that sounds like your kind of thing, then please feel free to come and check us out.

OUR ACTIVITIES
We hold a sitting group every week, where we come together to meditate and to discuss how different aspects of Buddhism relate to our lives and our practice.

We also hold a Focusing group once a month and regularly organise walks together in the countryside. For more information, please see our activities page and subscribe to our e-newsletter. We can also be found on Facebook – please click here to visit our page.

Throughout the year we hold several teacher-led meditation days with guided meditations, dharma talks and interviews, more details of which can be found on our day retreats page.

We also hold self-led meditation days where people come together to practice sitting and walking meditation without a guiding teacher. These are open to those with some experience of meditation and further details are available on our activities page.

WHAT IS INSIGHT MEDITATION?
Insight Meditation, or Vipassana, is a method of meditation that is present in all of the Buddhist traditions. We are particularly familiar with a technique which is from the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as it is taught by the teachers at Gaia House. Vipassana practice usually begins with calming and collecting the mind, by focusing on the breath. This mindfulness of breathing can then open up to include all of the sensations that make up our life, and this in turn can allow us to gradually cultivate a sense of wisdom and compassion.

It is worth noting that our weekly sitting group is not any kind of class — we come together simply to practise, and so we do not offer any instruction in meditation. However, we have compiled some information about a range of resources available to those new to Insight Meditation who would like to learn more. This is in the form of a PDF document which you can download by clicking here. (You will need Adobe Acrobat software to read this PDF – if you do not already have this software, it is available free of charge at the Adobe website).

‘To undertake a genuine spiritual path is not to avoid difficulties but to learn the art of making mistakes wakefully, to bring to them the transformative power of our heart.’Jack Kornfield