Category Archives: Insight

Guest Teacher: Anushka Fernadopulle

Insight

We’re thrilled to welcome guest teacher, Anushka Fernandopulle, a guiding teacher at Spirit Rock and IMS, who’s featured on many apps and mindfulness pods. During her stay in Bozeman, Anushka is offering many opportunities for practice:

Guest at MindSpace on Tuesday, May 14

Two Wings of the Dharma: Classes on Wednesdays, May 15 & 22:

Over two Wednesday classes evenings, Anushka will share teachings and meditations that develop the two wings of dharma practice: Wisdom and Compassion. This first one will explore the essentials of Wisdom or Insight practice that reveals to us the nature of our experience and ‘purifies’ the heart-mind. Appropriate for all levels of meditation experience.

Come to one or both as your schedule allows, prior registration requested. Zoom option. PLEASE REGISTER HERE

Guest at Bozeman Insight, Thursday May 16: Q&A with the Insight sangha to hear stories, highs and lows from Anushka’s journey in the dharma. These informal, conversational evenings are entertaining and inspiring and help us get to know the teacher. Everyone welcome to drop in, room or zoom.

Mindfulness for LGBTQI+ Community, Friday, May 17: This evening is for queer meditators or wanna-learn meditators of all stripes and rainbow colors. Anushka will offer an evening of Mindfulness instruction, practice and Q&A just for LGBTQI+ people. Come meet other mindful folks and let’s see if there’s interest in launching a Queer sangha at the Dharma Center. Offered freely.

Mindfulness in Nature: Daylong retreat on Saturday, May 18 (In person only):

Anushka will teach the art of savoring nature’s beauty with mindfulness. There will be a long lunch break for hiking and being out on the Triple Tree trails.

This day is appropriate for those new to meditation or practitioners with experience. Please pre-register through the Dharma Center’s website. Zoom option will not be available. Registration is now open here.

Anushka Fernandopulle
Anushka describes her background:

I have trained in Buddhist meditation for over 30 years, primarily Vipassana or Insight Meditation (the source of secular Mindfulness).  After studying Buddhism at Harvard, I spent four years in full-time meditation training in the US, India and Sri Lanka. I was invited to teach Dharma in 1998 and later went through a four year meditation teacher training program with Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg and other leading Western Buddhist meditation teachers. I joined the Teacher’s Council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in 2011.  My work has been featured in publications like Tricycle, Lion’s Roar, Turning Wheel, Inquiring Mind, as well as on my blog on the Huffington Post about dharma and politics.

Event: Insight Teacher Jill Shepherd

Insight

Join the Bozeman and Butte Insight Communities in welcoming Insight Teacher Jill Shepherd (via Butte’s Zoom Room-see below) for a morning of meditation, instruction, and conversation on Sunday, May 5 from 10-11:30 AM.

Jill Shepherd

Jill Shepherd began practicing insight meditation in Thailand in 1999, and since that time has lived and worked at several meditation centers and monasteries in the US, Australia, England, and Thailand.

She recently spent seven years on staff at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts, where she participated in several long retreats and Buddhist study programs, as well as offering weekly meditation classes at a nearby men’s prison.

She is a graduate of the IMS / Spirit Rock teacher training program in the US, under the guidance of Joseph Goldstein and Gil Fronsdal.

Currently, she divides her time mostly between the USA, Australia and New Zealand, teaching vipassana and brahma vihara retreats and offering ongoing study and practice groups focused on bringing the dharma into daily life. She also leads courses and non-residential workshops exploring the relational practice of Insight Dialogue, as developed by Gregory Kramer and colleagues.

You can learn more about Jill here.

Freely offered over the Butte sangha’s zoom (no need to register). Donations to support the teacher gratefully accepted.

https://zoom.us/j/567641174
Meeting ID: 567 641 174
pass code 628468

Event: Meditation with Ying Chen

Insight
meditation with Ying Chen

Enjoy a morning of meditation with Ying Chen on Sunday, April 28 at 10 AM. Ying Chen was born in China and immigrated to US as a young adult. She took refuge with Venerable Ji Ru in 1995. After coming to the US, she first practiced Chinese Mahayana Buddhism. Since 2001, she’s been drawn to the Theravada tradition and has been practicing primarily under the guidance of Gil Fronsdal at his center in California.  Ying is a graduate of the Sati Center Chaplaincy program and Local Dharma Leader program from Insight Meditation Center (IMC). She currently facilitates the IMC support group for people living with illness and co-leads IMC’s Asian Dharma Circle with Lilu Chen.

This morning of meditation with Ying Chen is brought to you by the Bozeman and Butte Insight Communities. This event is freely offered. You do not need to pre-register. Donations to support the teacher are gratefully accepted. Instructions for how to do so will be detailed on Sunday.

You can sample Ying Chen’s guided meditations and dharma talks on IMC’s archives here.

Please note that this event will occur over Zoom but NOT the BDC’s normal Zoom number. Please use the Butte Zoom Meeting # 567 641 174 (or click on the button below) and enter password: 628468

Class: Dependent Origination

Classes, Insight
Wheel of Dependent Origination

This Dependent Origination class, designed for meditators with some experience, will be offered over five weeks in the weekly Bozeman Insight Community‘s Thursday meetings on a drop-in basis beginning April 4. We welcome anyone who’d like to explore the nuances of these intricate teachings of the Buddha’s.

There’s an essential paradox at the heart of Buddhist practice: We must get exquisitely intimate with the moment-to-moment mind-body experience of the (small, relative) self in order to transcend it. The boat to ‘the far shore’ is built of our messy, frustrating stuff of life on this shore. The way beyond our reactivity, our back pain, our nagging inner commentary is to equanimously and compassionately embrace it. This is Alan Watts’ “backwards law” and the meaning of Dogen’s Genjo Koan.

This class will begin with the teachings on the Five Aggregates and build up to an understanding of the chain of Dependent Origination – the Buddha’s map for what’s going on in human experience, how we get caught and why we suffer. We will explore the practices that intimately “study the self” and how those lead to “forgetting the self.” The chain becomes a liberative cycle of expanding wisdom and freedom.

Each week there will be a suggested home practice to deepen our experiential knowledge of the concepts. The series is designed to be sequential but anyone is welcome to attend sporadically or singly as their schedule and interests allow.

Class Schedule

April 4: The Five Aggregates and the Importance of Vedana (feeling tone)
April 11: Perception, Mis-perception, Mental Formations and the mind’s reactivity
April 18: Further links in the chain: how we get hooked and how we can unhook
April 25: The Chain of Dependent Origination and how it illustrates the Four Noble Truths
May 2: The Liberative chain spiraling toward wisdom, insight, compassion and freedom

Drop in to one, some or all five sessions of the series. No prior registration is necessary.

Zoom connection will be available as per usual on our Thursday evenings.

This course is offered on a dana basis, meaning it is our gift to you, freely offered. We gratefully accept support and gratitude to pay the bills and keep the sangha going. (For those that want it: the suggestion donation would be  $5-15 per session)

Class: Dependent Origination

Classes, Insight

Designed for meditators with some experience, this class, taught by Suzanne Colón, will begin with the teachings on the Five Aggregates and build up to an understanding of the chain of Dependent Origination – the Buddha’s map for what’s going on in human experience, how we get caught and why we suffer. The series is designed to be sequential but anyone is welcome to attend sporadically or singly as their schedule and interests allow. No registration necessary.

  • March 14: The Five Aggregates and the Importance of Vedana (feeling tone)
  • March 21: With guest Pamela Weiss: the Genjo Koan exploring paradox and different ways to view this whole enterprise (Zen vs Insight perspectives)
  • March 28: Perception and Mental Formations/Reactivity
  • April 4: The Chain of Dependent Origination, how we get hooked and how we can unhook
  • April 11: The Liberative chain spiraling toward wisdom, insight, compassion and freedom

Half-Day: Inner Critic Workshop

Half-Day Retreat, Insight

Hosted by Bozeman Insight Community and led by Suzanne Colón, this Inner Critic workshop on Saturday, March 2, will clarify the difference between Wise Discernment and Self-Judgement. We can motivate ourselves, work toward behavior change, and hold ourselves accountable with an Inner Compassionate Voice rather than by beating up on ourselves. Register here.

Event: Resolutions & Intentions

Half-Day Retreat, Insight

Join Suzanne Colón for a workshop on New Year’s Resolutions, Intentions, and New Beginnings on Saturday, January 6 from 9AM – 1PM.

This workshop will include guided meditations, journal exercises and a meditative inquiry from Tara Brach’s book Radical Compassion. The day will be held in companionable silence to allow us to each stay tucked into our own experience. Please bring a journal. 

Designed for all levels of meditation experience and all persons, identities, sizes, genders, ages, races and abilities are very welcome. 

Retreat: Dave Smith

Daylong Retreat, Insight

On Saturday, October 21 from 10 AM – 4 PM, visiting Insight teacher, Dave Smith, will offer a daylong retreat in person and via Zoom. Dave will reflect on both the early traditions of Buddhism and secular practices based on happiness research. How can we use our practice of the Dharma to create genuine happiness for ourselves, for others and for this world?

More Info
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