hi guys,

It was recently suggested to me from a very experienced vipassana practitioner from australia that I would do well to find myself a Vipassana teacher / mentor in London. I have been practicing vipassana with varying intensity and commitment for about 2 years meditating most days anywhere between an 30-60 mins. ive done a 10 day Goenka retreat and looking to do another soon but just reading Jack Kornfields A path with heart and he mentions the importance of a good teacher also and it reminded me of the recent discussion I had with the guy from australia (who has now returned unfortunately for me!)

so any advice on how to find someone in London,UK and what should I look for? I am not massively fussed about which style but I think i would like to stick with thereveda vipassana of some flavour.

cheers,

Will

Hi B Man,

If I were in your position I would start with the resources you have available online. I am not from England, but I would imagine there are a decent number of meditative resources/support/teachers in your area, gauging by the raw numbers.

A quick survey of google indeed shows many different groups you could try out until you found a good fit. This is how I found my local teacher..

Also, if you are so inclined Daniel offers some good advice in the following section of his book:

MCTB - Teachers


Best of luck

If you're willing to pay $70 an hour, I can name a bunch of experienced teachers will probably be willing to teach you via Skype, or the phone. Sans that though, you are going to have a harder time. For some reason, $70 seems to be the agreed upon going rate. Considering that teachers seem to think that once a week is a productive frequency with which to confer with them, it starts getting absolutely prohibitively expensive. I've send emails to a few teachers seeking council -- teachers who claim to offer discounts for poorer yogis -- but I usually just end up getting no reply. If you got the cash though, you are good to go...

You're pretty lucky with living in London, you should be able to find whatever you're looking for there!


Have you tried this group?: http://www.londoninsight.org/


I get their emails and they seem like a good group


I live way down in westcountry and have nothing like that close - I'd jump at the chance to get involved with them!

If you've been doing vipassana for two years what more do you need to learn about it?

http://kennethfolkdharma.com/personal-instruction/

I also strongly recommend Kenneth Folk. If he's fully booked or you can't afford it, I can give you an intro course over skype for the "1st gear" of his presentation of vipassana, which is a very effective way of doing Mahasi-style vipassana. I don't charge anything, but I'm also extremely short on time at the moment, so I could probably only offer one or two sessions to make sure that you understand the technique and can practice it correctly. I've taught noting to 4 people so far, and I've found it takes about 3 to 4 hours to properly pass on the technique and at least one follow-up session. It's enough to learn to do it properly (I define "properly" as knowing how to get stream entry), but it's not enough to help someone build practice habits, which are key to actually getting stream entry. Working with someone like Kenneth or posting practice journals here would really help to get you to the first path.

I'm also not yet qualified to teach jhanas, as mine need quite a lot of work, so you'd need someone else's help or would need to figure things out on your own and post a lot if you want to explore jhanas at times when they are easier to access, such as during Review right after the first path.

Let me know if you're interested.

Thanks for all the input guys - its muchly appreciated.


Paul - you said " - well I checked out that website and as it turns out the majority of the people that teach in this group actually travel up from the westcountry to do so, it appears that they are actually based out of a place in Devon - Our main affiliation is with Gaia House, where many of our teachers are based. so you might be in luck after all!




Jigme Sengye - thats a great offer. I thank you warmly for it and I will certainly take you up on it. I also have very little time so it might be a problem us finding a slot together but I am indeed keen to try! if you can spare the time that would be great. Is it best to try and cover everything in one go or can it be in a couple of sessions?

I would add that if you want to talk dharma with someone and can't squeeze in time with Jigme I am also available and have tons of time as I am not currently working.

Haha, instant karma! I contacted them a couple of years ago, but then completely forgot they even existed – many thanks for the reminder!

You're very welcome. I like going over the noting technique for the four foundations of mindfulness in one session. Once you've had a few days to actually practice, it would be good to do a long session of ping-pong noting, where I note something and then you note something, back and forth, for a long enough period of time that it actually feels like meditation. I would want to make sure that you get enough time doing that over Skype to come up with whatever questions that might come to mind about how to do the technique properly. Besides for that, I also have a few handy tips and tricks that are useful to introduce once the basic technique is clear.

You can reach me at jigmesengye at gmail dot com (listed this way to avoid spam).

Are there any pragmatic dharma teachers in the UK or sitting groups? I haven't heard of any.