compassionate mess Archives - Mindfulness Association

Alliance – Maya Stein

Kristine Mackenzie-Janson — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 16:44:31 +0000

“You have to make an alliance with your anguish,” he said,
“not wage war against it.” And I thought of all the fists
I had shaken at misfortune: games lost
because the shot clock ran out,
a good meal scorched in a forgotten oven,
money dropped on a dress worn only once,
the bully in 6th grade, the math test in 9th,
the wrong outfit at Halloween.
But of course, this isn’t what he meant.

If I were brave enough, I’d tell you how my heart
has raged for love, stretched thin as a high wire.
If I were brave enough, I’d tell you
how my body has been fighting to stay upright
on every precipitous downhill the city
throws at it. If I were brave enough,
I’d climb into your lap and weep with longing.
All I can say is that any attempt at beauty and hope
is land-mined with failure.
And so the dangerous track-making begins.
Wending our way through,
there are possible clutches at sunlight, at windows, at yes.
We are each of us inches from death.
We are each of us inches from life.
We are each of us inches from each other.

by Maya Stein

What does it mean, make an alliance with anguish? Making it your ally? Or even: to ally with it? That definitely sounds counterintuitive at first, yet it immediately makes me curious. What would happen if I tried more of that, rather than the habitual wrestling with anguish, trying to avoid or somehow conquer it?

Poet, writing guide and adventuress Maya Stein talks about what she would do if she were brave enough – daring to be more truthful, more vulnerable, risking the many varieties of failure. It inspired me to make my own list: if I were brave enough, I would… and yes, if I didn’t mind anguish as much, more choices would open up and I might inch my way closer to beauty and hope, to life and the important others in it…

But then of course, the question of how arises. How do I make an alliance with anguish? I guess that’s where the dangerous track-making begins, one step and one moment at the time, aware of the risk of the landmines of failure. And: maybe failure isn’t the end of everything, maybe that would just mean some more anguish which I can also be with, breathe with…

Although mindfulness is usually associated with becoming more calm and peaceful, it definitely also supports me towards living more courageously. Sitting undilutedly with myself, especially for longer periods in a retreat context, has undoubtedly required and further grown my braveness. Chogyam Trungpa said that “ultimately, that is the definition of bravery: not being afraid of yourself.” So here is to more practice!

PS. I love reading about brave and inspiring people, as if their courage and ability to think out of the box could be contageous somehow. Reading a bit about Maya’s adventures was definitely inspiring, and it made me wonder what adventures I could provide for myself…
And if you feel ready for an adventure in mindfulness and discovering what that can bring you, we have a four level pathway plus a number of themed courses to choose from!

Photo by Valentina Stanoaie on Unsplash

Boundless Compassion: Mahamudra, Compassion and Messy Humanity

Mindfulness Association — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 10:16:23 +0000

The Springer Mindfulness Journal has published the second article of the Mahamudra and Mindfulness Series, written by Mindfulness Association tutor and Buddhist monk Choden. As with the first article, Choden explores a central tenet of Mahamudra teaching – this time compassion – and how it is central to modern mindfulness practice.

Compassion is fundamental to the work of the Mindfulness Association. This is exemplified in the phrase “compassion is at the heart of everything we do”, and how it infuses all their work, from the free daily meditation guided practice to the MSc Studies in Mindfulness programme at the University of Aberdeen. This article helps us explore the meaning and practice of compassion in a way that allows it to be both grounded in its Buddhist past and relevant in helping us navigate the ups and downs of 21^st century life.

Choden acknowledges that the word “compassion” can carry a lot of baggage, making it seem like something unobtainable, especially as people can see it as “an ascent to holiness and perfection”. He gently and skilfully demystifies compassion, highlighting Rob Nairn’s teaching that compassion practice is not about being above others, pure or perfect, but instead about descending into our messy humanity, making peace with it and developing empathy and compassion for all aspects of ourselves. It is about allowing the mud of the messy humanity to germinate the seeds of compassion that bloom into the lotus flower.

This approach is liberating as it opens up the practice of compassion to all, even those who believe “I am just not a compassionate person”! It provides a boundless emotional context in which we can approach our messiness, our worries, our pains, our fears and our human imperfections with kindness.

Choden goes on to fuse the past and the present in his discussion of the Mandala Principle, its role in Mahamudra practice and how it closely relates to modern practices like “The Wheel of Awareness”. What Choden manages to do is take the traditional and transpose it onto the modern in a way that is natural, understandable and reinforces the importance of lineage, shared tradition and practice to all practitioners, spiritual or secular. The Mandala practice in the article expands on this discussion and makes it experiential, allowing the practitioner to get a taste of this for themselves.

The approach in this article and the series as a whole is a brave one. By focussing on the traditional roots of mindfulness, Choden is giving a voice to an aspect of the practice that has been ignored or quietly pushed aside after the briefest of acknowledgements in much of modern mindfulness writing. Choden is making a clear and coherent case for why the traditional and modern work hand in hand, and why the past can help us understand now. As they say, if you don’t know where you’ve come from, how can you know where you are going?

Read the full article here and look out for further posts as the series of articles are published.

She Who Reconciles – Rainer Maria Rilke

Fay Adams — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 09:58:48 +0000

She who reconciles the ill-matched threads
of her life, and weaves them gratefully
into a single cloth—
it’s she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
and clears it for a different celebration

where the one guest is you.
In the softness of evening
it’s you she receives.

You are the partner of her loneliness,
the unspeaking centre of her monologues.
With each disclosure you encompass more
and she stretches beyond what limits her,
to hold you.

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Imagine bringing the first three lines of this poem by Rainer Maria Rilke into your mindfulness sitting practice. Imagine witnessing the ill-matched threads of your life. First you might see them singularly, but then imagine them weaving together into a single cloth. How does this change the way you perceive your life and yourself?

And then imagine weaving the threads together gratefully. However ill-matched, however unwanted, however drab or prickly the threads may be. Entwining the bright and luminous ones in too.

In a way the threads are already a single cloth and it is only our preference – our rejection of some threads and our attachment to others, that creates a severance at all. Rather than presiding over the threads with judgement, how would it be to weave them together with gratitude? This feels like an aspiration I want to carry into my days forever and I know that with my mindfulness practice, I have a chance of gradually realising it.

And then the ‘different celebration’ becomes an honouring of this particular life. A celebration of our sovereignty over our one life, and of our singular potential.

If I follow this, I feel myself standing tall and full of the light of my own being in the middle of that hall. And there’s also a feeling of being both humbled and strengthened by the threads that have torn me, pushed me or tangled me. From here there’s a readiness to step forth as all of who I am. Such a contrast to how compromised, worn and frayed I can sometimes feel.

And here we end up with the last lines of the poem – encompassing more, stretching beyond limitations… to hold something sacred.

PS. We have lots of opportunities for beginning on the path of mindfulness:

Weekend online or at Samye Ling in March: Introduction to Mindfulness-in-Nature

Free one of weekend if you join the membership (£10) in March: Free Online Members Retreat

Photo by Stephane Gagnon on Unsplash

Lough Inagh – David Whyte

Fay Adams — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 09:57:56 +0000

Come with me now,
along the
beckoning path,
silvered in mist
toward the glimmering lake,
bring every grief
you have not said
and every tear
you have not shed
and every
sorrow you’ve carried alone.

‘There is a door
beneath everything
we’ll walk right by
if we don’t stop to look
with our troubled hearts
and a loving eye.’

by David Whyte

There’s something deeply affecting about this excerpt from the poem Lough Inagh, which appeared in the recent book of poetry ‘The Bell and the Blackbird‘ by David Whyte. It brings for me a feeling of poignant tenderness about our beautiful vulnerable humanity. We are so affected by life and love, so broken and scarred, but also so noble and full of a kind of grace in how we endure.

Of course, we tie ourselves in terrible self-defeating knots, but beneath every tangle there’s a valiant effort to survive and love and be ourselves.

What does it mean to look ‘with our troubled hearts and a loving eye’? I think this question deftly sums up the experience of training in compassion. Of course, it’s different for everyone, but sometimes it can feel like a deep tenderising of the heart to the suffering in ourselves and others, born of marinating in a growing awareness of the inner well of compassion we all have.

Of course, fear is what keeps us away from the ‘door beneath everything’. Fear shows up and we about-turn, then we get used to a life of avoidance. So gradually we can learn to see the fear and know that it is not usually a threat. In fact, if we look beneath the story it tells us we can see it is an

invitation to stay present and open* and bring a little more of the loving eye to bear. This is a sure way to find that door of transformation one way or another.

Although this ‘beckoning path’ of compassion training can sound daunting, I find it brings me closer to what I find most meaningful in life – to the possibility of living life fully, loving more truly and appreciating every moment as a doorway of possibility.

PS Join me for a gentle Introduction to Mindfulness Level 2 – Responding with Compassion in-person at Samye Ling Monastery in the Scottish Borders from the 12th – 14th August 2022, or dive straight in with our Level 2 Mindfulness Level 2 – Responding with Compassion course!

*Please note that there are times when staying present is not the wise choice. Part of the compassion training is to learn to flex within our comfort zone towards our learning zone, but to be gentle if an alarm begins to sound, returning then to safe ground and a place of outer or inner comfort.

Photo by Adrien Tutin on Unsplash

Let Love Go – Jeff Foster

Kristine Mackenzie-Janson — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 11:45:10 +0000

Forget about ‘transcending’ the body.
Love it instead!
Let go of the idea of ‘letting go’.
Instead, let love go deep into the tender places, the parts that ache.
Breathe into your sadness. Let your fear move deep within.
Bow to your uncertainty.
There is an untouchable place in you that fearlessly allows itself to be touched.
Here, even your unworthiness has worth!
And that old feeling that you are unloveable? It is loveable here!
There is so much room in you, friend.
So much room.
There is nothing wrong with you,
including the idea
that there is something wrong with you.
So stop trying to love yourself;
simply be the Self that loves.

by Jeff Foster

One of the things I love about the poems by teacher and author Jeff Foster (this one amongst many gems in his book You Were Never Broken), is the radical acceptance that embraces all the unacceptable things within it. The feeling of my unloveableness being lovable, and there being nothing wrong with having the feeling that there’s something wrong with me.

It allows this stepping back into the wider space around the feelings, shifting to a different layer or perspective, and there’s much more of a generous welcome there to whatever guest is currently visiting the guesthouse of my being. The final sentence really sums it up for me: stop trying to love yourself; simply be the Self that loves… here goes!

PS if you’d like to explore this practice of radical acceptance and self compassion, you will find elements of it in most of our trainings. Explicit self compassion is part of our Level 1 before becoming completely central in Level 2, and continues to weave into Levels 3 and 4. It’s a core ingredient in our approach to mindfulness, and in my experience, it makes all the difference!

Photo by Rachel Shillcock on Unsplash