Being of best service to others as an aspiration for mindful living and a mindfulness for life. Mindful Nation Scotland (MNS) was born on 17 September 2019 at a Holyrood Event in the Scottish Parliament. A wonderful, warm and excited audience welcomed its birth. The attendees were made up of MSPs, and people strongly connected…
This weekend I had a day trip to London on the train from Lockerbie to visit the Mind Body Soul experience at Alexandra Palace. It was an interesting day, with the train filled with thoughtful, serious and at times jolly looking people on their way to London for the People’s Vote march. Many with children…
I am excited that we now have confirmation for our 10th anniversary celebration of the Mindfulness Association. Ten years seems like a long time but seems to have passed in an instant. I vividly remember my first retreat teaching with Rob Nairn and Choden on Holy Isle in June 2009. For me this was a…
Yesterday I took my daughter back to University. Last night I experienced a scary and quite gruesome dream. This morning I woke up feeling sad. My body felt heavy, there was a pain in my heart and a heavy and pre-tear feeling in my eyes. So when I woke up, my inclination was to stay…
I had another experience of impermanence this weekend. I was anticipating a weekend at home, but then I found out on Thursday afternoon that I might be needed to stand in for the first half of the Insight weekend three which was taking place at Samye Ling. This was confirmed after lunch on Friday, with…
I have experienced a fundamental change in my future life, due to circumstances beyond my control. I am leaving my home, which I expected to live in for many years to come. I will be living on my own, which is also unexpected. It all came as quite a shock, but with hindsight the signs…
Kristine has been providing us with her wonderful Words of Wonder. Duncan and I are inspired by this and have decided to share some of our favourite poems, and those of our tutors and members too. This week we have a wonderful poem by Danna Faulds. This was introduced to me at my very first…
I very much enjoyed Charlie Morley’s keynote talk at the Mindfulness Association conference last month. His topic was stress and trauma related sleep problems and how to address them. For more information about his work, please see his new website. This was of interest to me as I am not a relaxed sleeper, but a…
I’ve been asking myself that question recently. Who am I? It’s a complicated thing it seems. Last week I caused myself and others to suffer. Why? Because I forgot my practice and I forgot who I was. For a moment, I got caught up in lots of stressful human stuff and it completely took over…