Practice Guides April 1, 2022

New to Spirit Rock

Welcome, and blessings on your path.

Spirit Rock is a spiritual training center that welcomes people of all backgrounds and faiths to practice and study the teachings of the Buddha. We are dedicated to bringing the wisdom of the Buddhist tradition to contemporary spiritual seekers at all levels of experience and practice.

Our primary practice is Insight Meditation, or vipassanā, as developed in the great Buddhist traditions of South and Southeast Asia. We serve a diverse and beloved community at our retreat center in the coastal hills north of San Francisco, and online worldwide.

Founded by Jack Kornfield in 1986, we are guided by a lineage of respected teachers with some of the deepest training in Western Buddhism. Our practice and study programs train students to deepen in loving awareness, find freedom from suffering, and engage skillfully with a complex world.

Through practice, we can learn to make our own hearts a place of peace and integrity. With a quiet mind and an open heart we can sense the reality of interdependence. Inner and outer are not separate. Once we see this clearly, we can extend the same principles of love and mindfulness to every area.

 
Jack Kornfield, Spirit Rock Founder

The Practice of Insight Meditation

Insight Meditation is an English translation of the word vipassanā, which means “seeing clearly” in the early Buddhist language of Pāli. There are many different styles of vipassanā meditation, but all develop the inner qualities of mindfulness and lovingkindness. Together these qualities of heart and mind reduce stress, bring clarity, and grow our ability to be present and resilient throughout our lives.

Beginning Meditations on Breath & Body

The Mindfulness of the Buddha

Mindfulness teaches us to be aware of our experience as it unfolds in the present moment, and to understand our emotions, sensations, and thoughts with patience and perspective instead of reactivity.

Explore Mindfulness Practice