The Bozeman Insight Community
Thursdays 7-8:30 PM and Tuesdays 10:30-11:30 AM
Newcomers and beginners are always welcome!
See BIC Website for details on meeting in-person and online
About the Bozeman Insight Community (BIC)
The Bozeman Insight Community is a welcoming community that offers the Buddha’s priceless teachings on wisdom and compassion to all those who seek them. Centered on a commitment to personal practice we support the development and expression of our inherent wisdom and compassion for the benefit of all beings.
Thursday evenings: 7:00 – 8:30 PM
IN PERSON & ONLINE
Developing the practices of Insight
Everyone is warmly welcome! The program usually begins with a 30-40 minute silent sitting, followed by a sharing of teachings from the leader and discussion. Occasionally there is instruction before the sit and/or some guidance during the sitting. Topics and more about our Thursday programming is listed here.
Tuesday mornings: 10:30 – 11:30
ONLINE
Meeting our Lives with Kindhearted Awareness
This program offers the meditation practices that expand our capacity to meet life with an open, stable heart-mind. Guided meditations will vary week to week, providing an opportunity to try new practices and techniques. The four heart qualities known as the Brahma Viharas (Noble Abodes) will be cultivated with variations on ways to evoke and develop them: Kindness, Compassion, Joy and Equanimity. More about this program here.
For more information, please see the Bozeman Insight Community’s own website here.
Please also check the calendar and classes pages for events sponsored by this group or in the Insight Tradition (in blue on this website’s calendar).
About the BIC
The Bozeman Insight Community was founded in 1996 to offer resources and support for people seeking to enhance their Insight/Mindfulness (Vipassana) Meditation practice. Vipassana is insight into mind and matter from a perspective beyond conventions; insight into the impermanent nature of our experiences; and insight into the nature of our experience as arising from causes and conditions. Vipassana is insight into the truth that no actions or set of conditions will give rise to permanent happiness — thus striving for this leads only to suffering.
What is Vipassana/Insight Meditation?
Vipassana is a Pali word which is often translated as “insight” or “clear seeing.” Vipassana is insight into mind and matter from a perspective beyond conventions; insight into the impermanent nature of our experiences; and insight into the nature of our experience as arising from causes and conditions. Vipassana is insight into the truth that no actions or set of conditions will give rise to permanent happiness-thus striving for this leads only to suffering. Seeing and realizing this truth leads to the falling away of all forms of attachment; when this occurs, the mind is in its natural luminous and awakened state. Vispassana is beyond the mundane, beyond concepts like birth and death.
Vipassana Meditation is focused on awareness (mindfulness) of the present moment. The instructions direct us to observe mind and body without judgment or commentary. This meditation technique was discovered by the Buddha over 2500 years ago. It is a system of training (Bhavana) that cultivates wisdom, concentration and ethics/virtue.
Notes: Events sponsored by this group or in the Insight Tradition appear in blue on this website’s calendar. The leaf of the Bodhi tree is often used as symbol of Insight or Theravada groups, a trend started by the Insight Meditation society in Barre, Massachusetts 40 years ago.
