“The temple bell stops, but the sounds keeps coming out of the flowers”
“Coming, going, the water birds don’t leave a trace, don’t follow a path”
Mountain Bell Sangha
The start of a “we“ grew out of one of our members organising yearly retreats with Flint Sparks, whom she met in a Hakomi training. The depth and richness of his teachings of Zen buddhism led her to organising retreats in Switzerland from 2009 until 2019, inviting people from the UK, Switzerland and other places to experience it. It took some time for the group to grow.
The retreats in Switzerland resumed after 9 years, some of us travelled to the UK to continue to receive dharma teachings.
We began weekly meetings, mostly online as we live in the French and the German speaking part of Switzerland. In 2026 we again organised a retreat in Switzerland with our teachers from the UK Trudy Johnston and Josh Gifford, as well as with Roshi Flint Sparks. This was an important step for our group and demonstarted the blossoming of our sangha.
(Who we are)
We reached out to Flint on our search for a name. The sound of a bell was somehow in the air and Flint suggested Mountain Bell, joining the esoteric meaning of the sound of bells from the mountain temples in China and Japan, calling the people to practice, as well as the bells of the Swiss cows representing the everyday grounded aspect of life.
In our weekly meetings, we begin by 30 minutes of zazen, followed by shared reading and an exchange of what resonated within us. Everybody is welcome to join us. We start at 8:30 CHTime.
From time to time we meet in each other’s homes, which deepens our: connections, intimacy with each other, zazen and the relationship with the dharma.