What is Chan?

About the group

Meetings

Jin-Ho's meetings :
 One-day retreats

An Evening with the Chan Group

Where we meet

Bookings Policy

Reading list

Western Chan Fellowship (WCF)

WCF Retreat Programme

Personal Retreats
at
Winterhead
Hill Farm

Chan Meditation Center (NY)

Chan Meditation Center (Taiwan)

Network of Buddhist Organisations

Dharma words at the time of great tragedy (9/11 but suitable also for more recent events)



 

Bristol Chan Group


Dharma Advisor: The Venerable Chan Master Dr. Sheng-yen 
(Please see below )

Teacher: Dr John Crook (Ch'uan Teng Chien Ti)
Visiting nun: Venerable Jin-Ho, from Dharma Drum Mountain, Taiwan
 

Welcome to the Bristol Chan Group. We are a small loosely-defined group formed in 1989 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 and Dharma Drum Mountain Chan Centre in Taiwan. 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


We are very pleased to have The Ven. Jin-Ho in our group, a nun from Dharma Drum Mountain who is studying in Bristol. She runs a meditation evening every Saturday at the University of Bristol Chaplaincy at No.1 Woodland Road and weekend one-day retreats. Please see entries in 'Latest News' below about this. 


From time to time, there is a  Dharma Discussion Group,  usually  organised and run by Alysun Jones. Please see occasional entries in 'Latest  News' below about this.


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.)


We are very sorry to announce the passing of our Dharma Advisor, The Venerable Chan Master Dr. Sheng-yen on Monday 2nd Feb. at Dharma Drum Mountain in Taiwan. He was the mentor and spiritual inspiration for many members of the Western Chan Fellowship. For a fuller account, please see the news panel on the WCF website at WCF. Various Chan Groups around the country held memorial events and/or dedicating their meditation meetings to the remembrance of Master Sheng-yen and to graditude for his teaching of the Dharma. There was a special memorial event at the Coach House at 2:30pm on Sunday 15th February. Please see below.



Latest News (1st December
2009)


  • We are pleased that our "Living and Loving" conference on the weekend 31st Oct to 1st Nov 2009, went so extremely well. The 70 delegates who came seemed to enjoy the talks and the workshops and discussions. We were pleased to see that we attracted a good number of people from outside the  BCG and WCF.
      The full title of the event was 'Living and Loving in the 21st Century- Buddhist Enquiries' and it aimed to explore the role of Buddhist and Buddhistic teachings in the 21st century global society and how they may help to illuminate the nature of the mindsets that have led us to where we are today.
      It is intended to publish transcripts of the talks in a special edition of the New Chan Forum, probably the issue after the next one. We also hope to publish the talks in audio format on this website or on the WCF one.
      If you visit the conference website at  Living and Loving
    you can see some further reflections on the weekend's doings.
    Alternatively, look at Reflections. Should you have any further enquiries, please email bookings(at)bristolchan.co.uk


  • Jin-Ho is planning two one-day retreats on 19th December 2009 and 3rd January 2010. For details please see the flyer at  pdf  or  MS-Word


    Events in the recent past - last six months or so :
  • See above or the links Reflections and Living and Loving for a report of our recent conference, "Living and Loving"

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. The old domain name will continue in parallel until it expires in November 2008 and maybe beyond. Later: it has been renewed and therefore continues for the time being.



Comments, reports of difficulties with this site and helpful suggestions to   webmaster@bristolchan.co.uk   please.

Last update on 1st December 2009