Click on each event title to access the audio recordings
Weekly talks from Auckland Insight
A selection of talks and guided meditations given at the weekly meetings of Auckland Insight
Dharma talk for London Insight: Generosity as a radical dharma practice
7 December 2025
Nine-day retreat: The heart’s release – Cultivating the spiritual faculties
with Willa Thaniyā Reid and Jill Shepherd, 21 February – 2 March 2025
Te Moata Retreat Centre, Tairua, New Zealand
In Buddhist practice, confidence, energy, mindfulness, collectedness and insight are cultivated together as the five spiritual faculties (Indriya). These qualities exist naturally in the mind and have both a linear and dynamic interplay. By developing them in meditation practice, we more clearly understand what needs balancing in both our meditation and overall spiritual cultivation.
When all five faculties are brought to fulfilment they overflow in the heart’s release. A heart released from suffering and its causes has an embodied realisation of Nibbāna: freedom from the stress inherent in misunderstanding the world.
Two-day brahmavihāra workshop
20-21 July 2024
Southern Insight – Christchurch, Aotearoa / New Zealand
Rest, resilience, renewal, release:
Exploring the four brahmavihāra heart qualities in daily life
The four brahmavihāra heart practices of kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity are powerful tools that strengthen our inner resources, helping us to navigate the individual and collective challenges of our times.
Although the brahmavihāra are often taught as formal meditation practices to develop concentration, in this weekend workshop, we will explore a range of different approaches aimed at cultivating these skillful qualities in the midst of everyday life. Through a mix of guided meditations, dharma talks and small group discussion, we will develop the capacity to rest in kindness, strengthen resilience through compassion, orient to appreciative joy for renewal of our energy, and experience the peace of equanimity that comes through the release of reactivity.
Four-week insight meditation retreat – Forest Refuge
co-teaching with Caroline Jones 1-31 May 2024
Insight Meditation Society – Forest Refuge, Barre, Massachusetts USA
Theme: Clinging and Release
Two-day insight meditation and Insight Dialogue workshop
13-14 January 2024
Newcastle, NSW, Australia
Six-week insight meditation retreat
co-teaching with Rebecca Bradshaw, Bhante Buddharakkhita, Brian LeSage, DaRa Williams and Tuere Sala, assisted by Shelly Graf
24 October – 5 December 2023
Insight Meditation Society – Retreat Centre, Barre, Massachusetts USA
Two-week insight meditation retreat
A two-week retreat for experienced meditators led by Willa Thaniya Reid, Elizabeth Day and Jill Shepherd, combining approaches from the Thai Forest and Western Insight traditions.
Te Moata Retreat Centre, Tairua, Aotearoa / New Zealand, August 2023
Online brahmavihāra retreat for London Insight
Some short talks and guided meditations exploring all four brahmavihāra practices of kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity, at an online weekend reteat for London Insight, May 2023
Six-week insight meditation retreat
co-teaching with Rebecca Bradshaw, Winnie Nazarko, Bhante Buddharakkhita, Brian LeSage, assisted by Kim Allen and Diana Clark
25 October – 6 December 2022
Insight Meditation Society – Retreat Centre, Barre, Massachusetts USA
This six-week partial of the three-month course is a special time for practice. Because of its extended length and ongoing guidance, it is an opportunity for students to deepen the powers of concentration, wisdom and compassion. Based on the meditation instructions of Mahāsi Sayadaw and supplemented by a range of skillful means, this silent retreat will encourage a balanced attitude of relaxation and alertness, and the continuity of practice based on the Buddha’s Four Foundations of Mindfulness.
Four-week insight meditation retreat – Forest Refuge
co-teaching with Caroline Jones 1-30 April 2022
Insight Meditation Society – Forest Refuge, Barre, Massachusetts USA
Theme: Seven Factors of Awakening
Celebrating Vesak and the Auckland Insight community
A series of short talks on the theme of Vesak and spiritual friendship
Auckland Insight, Auckland, New Zealand
30 May 2021
Living a Life of Mutual Benefit: Exploring the Noble Eightfold Path
A series of talks on the Noble Eightfold Path
Auckland Insight, Auckland, New Zealand
18 February – June 2021
Intro to Insight Meditation
A series of talks for beginning meditators, given to the Mahurangi West community
October-November 2020
Mahurangi West, Auckland, New Zealand
Six-week study and practice course
Transforming Fear into Fearlessness
The Four Noble Truths that form the heart of the Buddha’s teaching invite us to examine our relationship to dukkha: stress, distress, unsatisfactoriness, suffering. Most of us though, have an instinctive resistance to suffering, so we need to practice working skilfully with the different levels of fear that often show up along the path to freedom. As we learn how to release ourselves from the confines of these fears, we’re able to live with greater ease, happiness, and peace, and to connect with the wisdom and compassion that are our true nature.
June – July 2019
Sydney and Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre, NSW Australia
Noble Eightfold Path study course
Six-week study course
15 January – 19 February 2017
Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre, NSW Australia
The path to freedom laid out by the Buddha is a very holistic one, comprising ethical action, meditative development and wisdom. Although the Buddha emphasised the importance of developing all three of these aspects together, meditation practice is often given the most importance and the other two aspects are sometimes overlooked.
During this six-week course, we explored the Noble Eightfold Path as a comprehensive training to integrate dharma understanding into our daily lives. This integration then supports the deepening of insight and wisdom, which in turn, refines our capacity to live skillfully in the world, with greater ease and freedom.
Recordings plus recommended reading list
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Jill Shepherd: insight meditation 