All Courses & Retreats - Compassion Based Mindfulness - Mindfulness Association

The Seven Points of Mind Training

Helen — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 19:00:00 +0000

Tutors: Choden and Heather Regan-Addis

Dates: 29th October 2025 – 16th September 2026

Price: £330.00, payable in two monthly instalments of £165.00.

Times: Wednesday evenings from 19.00-21.00pm. The dates are the 29th October, 12th November, 17th December 2025, 21st January, 11th February, 11th March, 29th April, 27th May, 17th June, 15th July, 19th August and 16th September 2026.

Booking: contact info@mindfulnessassociation.net

Location: Online via Zoom

This course will explore the Seven Points of Mind Training (called Lojong in Tibetan) in a pragmatic step by step way. Lojong is a profound and famous text from Tibetan Buddhism that lays out specific guidelines for how to apply wisdom and compassion in our meditation practice and daily lives. It is characterised by pithy slogans for relating proactively to everyday issues and difficulties and seeing them as the fertile ground for living a wise and compassionate life.

It is based on the principle of regarding life obstacles and difficulties as the basis for deepening our awareness and strengthening our compassion rather than them being issues that drag us down. The well-known practice called Tonglen (taking and sending) comes from the Seven Points of Mind Training.

In the words of the Dalai Lama, “Lojong teaches us how to regard others with the dignity and care that they deserve, and also how to transcend the limitations of conventional ego-grasping.”

It challenges our default setting of ‘me’ and ‘mine’ – our ingrained egocentricity – by encouraging us to expand our hearts to include the pain and struggles of other living beings and see them as being just like our own. This is the basis for sacred outlook – seeing our life as an integral part of the rich fabric of life on this planet, rather than something separate and distinct.

During the course we will cover these key themes:

Explain each of the 7 Points in an experiential and pragmatic way

Explore the meaning of bodhicitta (awakening mind)

Explain the principle of relative and ultimate truth and how Lojong deepens our compassion at the relative level and awakens our wisdom at the ultimate level.

Apply awareness and compassion to the detail of our everyday lives through the pith instructions of Lojong.

Explore tonglen practice in the context of the Lojong teachings

This course will be taught in the experiential style of the Mindfulness Association that draws on wisdom traditions like Tibetan Buddhism but does not require adherence to any faith or religious tradition.

Choden and Heather will lead monthly online evening sessions and provide home practice guidelines between sessions including reading materials and guided audios of the practices.

We hope that you will join us on this one-year journey of mind training. This training is suitable for anyone who has trained in mindfulness meditation.

Mindfulness Meets Mystical Poetry

Helen — Wed, 27 May 2026 19:00:00 +0100

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6 Week Online Course With Fay Adams

Live weekly sessions on Zoom on Wednesday evenings 7pm – 8.30pm GMT

The online session dates are:

Wednesday 27th May 2026

Wednesday 3rd June 2026

Wednesday 17th June 2026

Wednesday 24th June 2026

Wednesday 1st July 2026

Wednesday 8th July 2026

To book please click ‘Book Here’

In this course we’ll be hovering at the crossover between mindfulness practice and spiritual or contemplative practice, and we’ll see what the words of mystics of the past and present can teach us.

Poetry has a special power to reach the heart, and mindfulness can clear a space to enable us to receive and digest the wisdom in a poem. What a marvellous combination! Letting the words of the world’s mystics into our practice may offer comfort, open the mind/heart, inspire insight, or touch us where we need to feel. Mystical poetry can reach within us to ignite a flame that connects us to the universal and the divine.

Though these poems may sometimes use religious terminology or ideas, we will be taking their teachings as wisdom that we can each relate to in our own way.

The course will be exploratory, with everyone relating to the poetry from the context of their own practice, whether they would consider it spiritual or secular. As such we will hold an attitude of ‘no right or wrong’ when it comes to interpreting or understanding a poem. We will also experiment with taking the poems as meditation instructions and there will be guidance on how to do this at home between meetings. We use the word ‘mystical’ in a loose way, to include all poetry that opens us to perspectives that take us beyond the personal and towards a universal wisdom – whether we call this by the name of a deity or whether we refer to it in another way.

Each week we will listen to poems and practise being present for a while, allowing the teachings in a poem to ferment and find their truth within us. After this we will have space either for journaling (or writing our own poem) in silence or for mindful sharing in small groups, followed by inquiry and discussion in the larger group. There will be opportunities for those who want to, to volunteer to read a poem (written or chosen by themselves) to the group at the end of the session.

Expect poetry from Sufi, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian mystics and from others that don’t identify with a particular tradition. We’ll draw from the likes of Hafiz, Rumi, St. Francis of Assisi, Saigyo, Mary Oliver, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Jeff Foster and many more.

This course is open to all. We welcome those with mindfulness experience or without, and those who haven’t done a Mindfulness meets Mystical Poetry course before, as well as those who have (for the latter there will be new poems).

I am making a home inside myself. A shelter

of kindness where everything

is forgiven, everything allowed—a quiet patch

of sunlight to stretch out without hurry,

where all that has been banished

and buried is welcomed, spoken, listened to—released.

I whisper hallelujah to the friendly

sky. Watch now as I burst into blossom.

Excerpt from The Most Important Thing – Julia Fehrenbacher

A message from Tutor Fay Adams

”I’ve always loved poetry, favourite poets being Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Andrea Gibson, Mary Oliver, Rumi, Hafiz and Rilke. But in recent years I’ve developed a new relationship to it, thanks to mindfulness. I just love it when I find a poem that gives me shivers down my spine, wakes up my heart or, in Emily Dickinson’s words, feels like it lifts the top of my head off!

This course has been running twice a year for many years now and is attracting people from all over the world! It’s a lot of fun to have your way of relating to poetry opened up by witnessing the diverse responses of others. I’m so happy to witness how the groups become a very precious space of contemplation and connection. Many of the participants stay in touch and continue with long-lasting (online) friendships and ongoing meetings sharing poetry and the poetry of daily life. ”

‘

Mindfulness Level 1 – Spring Intake

Helen — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 19:00:00 +0100

This is the introduction to our Level 1: Being Present Mindfulness Training taught on a Monday evening. It can be taken in isolation as a retreat or a refresher for those already with a Mindfulness practice or is a perfect way to begin a Mindfulness journey. After the first part you can choose to continue to complete the course over a further three parts.

Tutor: Alan Hughes

Dates on a Monday evening:

Part 1- 4th May, 11th May, 18th May, 25th May and 1st June 2026

Part 2- 15th June, 22nd June, 29th June, 6th July and 13th July 2026

Part 3- 27th July, 3rd August, 10th August, 17th August and 25th August 2026

Part 4- 7th September, 14th September, 21st September, 28th September and 5th October 2026

Price: Part 1 = £185.00 Parts 2 – 4 £555.00 = 6 monthly payments x £92.50

Times: 19.00pm-21.00pm

Booking: To book the first part of this Monday evening course please click the booking link. You will be contacted after attending the first part to book the following three parts, these can be paid for in six monthly instalments of £92.50.

Location: Online via Zoom

If you are making up for missed weekends, please email info@mindfulnessassociation.net to sign up.

Find out more about this course here.

Research

We are delighted to announce that a large scale, long term research study is about to start in relation to our Four Level Pathway. This research is led by Dr Oleg Medvedev (link: https://profiles.waikato.ac.nz/oleg.medvedev) and Katya Gus of Waikato University in New Zealand.

As a participant in this course you will be invited, with no obligation to do so, to take part in this research. Find out more here.

We are very excited to be developing a strong evidence base and hope that you will be willing to support us in this.

31 Day Charity Challenge

Helen — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0100

Please join us for the 31 Days of Summer to raise money for the Everyone Project!

This is an opportunity for the month of July, a chance to boost your mindfulness practice throughout summer whilst raising money for charity!

Every morning over July an email with a 10-15 minute mindfulness practice with a summer twist will arrive in your inbox led by a Mindfulness Association or Everyone Project Tutor. Practices include reflecting on happy summer memories, mindful movement including yoga and qigong, cooling self compassion, mindful barefoot walking, mindful paddling and kindness practice whilst taking in the warmth of the sun.

Please click the book now button and donate £31.00 to join! Please contact info@mindfulnessassociation.net if you have any questions.

About the Everyone Project

The Everyone Project is committed to offering evidence based mindfulness courses, such as the eight week Mindfulness Based Living Course (MBLC) to people who are not otherwise able to access a mindfulness course.

In particular we want to help disadvantaged and isolated groups, and those living with multiple stressors. We do this because we are passionate about the power of Mindfulness to empower all in our society to flourish and achieve their true potential. Please click here to see the people who have been helped so far.

To achieve this, we engage fully qualified BAMBA registered mindfulness teachers, working in partnership with charities and other community, voluntary and public sector organisations to deliver the MBLC courses.

To learn more and donate please click here.

Mystical Poetry Practice Day

Helen — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 10:00:00 +0100

Mystical Poetry for Slow Time

with Fay Adams

10-4pm Saturday 4^th July 2026

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” – Lao Tsu

This is a day to realign with natural timing. Nature shows us that some things cannot be hurried: the blossoming of a tree, the growth of an apple. As human beings, our own timing is often much slower than modern life would have us believe.

In a world of constant hurry, poetry can remind us of the graciousness and patience of slow time. It invites us to ‘stretch out without hurry’ (Julia Fehrenbacher), watch a grasshopper (Mary Oliver), or lie humming on the couch (William Stafford). Often in slow moments, something luminous can come upon us. Sometimes these moments can even transport us into what might be called ‘deep time’: a spacious perspective that sees our brief lives within a much larger unfolding of existence.

Central to our practice on this day will be the quality of patience: a gentle, kind ability to accept that we cannot control or rush things into being. When life is uncertain, uncomfortable, or decisions are unclear, it is often respectful patience, not meddling, that allows things to unfold. We may find relief in tending the unknown, confused, or tentative questions, and allowing the unresolved simply to be.

This day is open to both beginners and those with experience of mindfulness.

Join us for a guided online retreat day of mindfulness practice and poetry, with the option of time outside if that works you. We will begin by exploring the theme and connecting with each other, then we’ll sink into some friendly silence and stillness for the middle part of the day, followed by reflecting and connecting again in the last hour.

To book for £40.00 please click ‘Book Here”