What is Chan? About the group Meetings An Evening with the Chan Group Where we meet Flyers for Weekend retreats and Sitting days: PDF MS-Word Bookings Policy Reading list Western Chan Fellowship (WCF) WCF Retreat Programme Personal Retreats at Winterhead Hill Farm Chan Meditation Center (NY) Network of Buddhist Organisations Dharma words at the time of great tragedy (9/11 but suitable also for more recent events) Details of Spring Walk Flyer: MS-Word or Flyer: pdf. Map.jpg

Bristol Chan Group Dharma Advisor: The Venerable Chan Master Dr. Sheng-yen  Teacher: Dr John Crook (Ch'uan Teng Chien Ti)  Welcome to the Bristol Chan Group. We are a small loosely-defined group formed about twenty years ago to practise Chan meditation. ('About the group'). As you'd expect from our name, we are based in Bristol. Chan is the Chinese forerunner of Japanese Zen and we draw on the wisdom and meditation techniques of both traditions.  We welcome anybody to our meetings who is interested in meditation, whether or not they have meditated before. For details of our weekly meditation evenings and other events please go to 'Meetings' .  'An evening with the Chan Group describes what we do during these meditation evenings.  We are affiliated to the Western Chan Fellowship , through which we have links with other Chan groups, throughout the UK and Europe and with the  Chan Meditation Center of the Institute of Chung Hwa Buddhist Culture in New York. The WCF runs a programme of 5 and 7 day intensive retreats in a variety of styles at the Maenllywd, a retreat centre in central Wales. See WCF Retreat Programme Personal retreats under the guidance of John Crook may be undertaken at Winterhead Hill Farm near Shipham in the Mendips, about 45 minutes to drive from Bristol. Follow the link (WHF) or phone 01934 842231 for details. We actively encourage newcomers to the Bristol Chan Group. If you would like to find out more about it, please telephone :- Sally and Mike Masheder (0117 924 8819) Or email : enquiries@bristolchan.co.uk (Please mention 'Bristol Chan' in the 'Subject' of your email and please put your message in line rather than as an attachment. This avoids it being deleted as a possible virus carrier or being treated as unwanted spam.) Note: recently there have been occasional delays in forwarding email via bristol-chan.co.uk so if you don't get a response within a few days, please try again or use the phone. Latest News (12th April 2008) Our next sitting retreat day will be on 11th May. Hughie Carroll of the Swindon group will lead the day, focussing on some Pali scriptures. Further details are now available to download from Sitting_day.pdf or Sitting_day.doc (MS-Word). Please book by email at bookings<at>bristolchan.co.uk or by phone on 01749 676248. Please be prepared to give an email address by which you can receive the sutra readings that Hughie would like us to prepare before the day. Alysun Jones is continuing to run a Dharma Discussion Group at her house in Winscombe. A new series exploring the Heart Sutra started on Tuesday February 5th. Please contact her (01934 842017) if you are interested in joining the group. See a flyer supplied by Alysun at MS-doc or pdf . Events in the recent past: CONFERENCE: On 1st March, The Western Chan Fellowship (WCF) and the Bristol Chan Group hosted a one-day conference in Bristol: "Mind the Gap - Learning It and Living It" in which we examined the relationship between the academic study of Buddhism and the practice of Buddism in daily life.  Our Spring Walk and Tea social event in the afternoon of Sunday March 30th was well attended and enjoyed by about twenty people. The Met Office had forecast heavy showers, but in the end could only manage half a dozen raindrops. We were able to walk from Alysun Jones's house in Winscombe to John Crook's house, have a tea party and return in fair weather. The next event of this kind will probably be in the Autumn. Please note the change in domain name to bristolchan.co.uk . Please change any reference to bristol-chan.co.uk in any bookmark file or in any email address books. However, you have plenty of time and the old domain name will continue in parallel until it expires in November 2008 and maybe beyond. Comments, reports of difficulties with this site and helpful suggestions to   webmaster@bristolchan.co.uk please. Last update on 12th April 2008