The supreme good is like water, which nourishes all things without trying to. It is content with the low places that people disdain. Thus it is like the Tao. In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don’t try to control. In…
The latest sticky note on my computer screen reads : ‘remember to be kind in feedback’. Do you ever fire back an email to someone only to read it back and realise you missed the etiquette of a polite ‘hello’ ‘how are you?’ I do. I’m hoping it’s just a symptom of a busy work-focused…
In July I will be attending the Mindfulness Based Living Course (MBLC) Level 2 Teacher Training Retreat and I have found out that as part of that training I will be delivering a ten-minute talk on settling the mind. I thought I would share my thoughts here about what I have learned so far from…
It is a kind of love, is it not? How the cup holds the tea, How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare, How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes Or toes. How soles of feet know Where they’re supposed to be. I’ve been thinking about the patience Of ordinary things, how clothes Wait respectfully…
This week the Default-Mode Network that is my wandering mind, or undercurrent, has mainly amused itself by waiting for a strange blood clot to kill me after having the Oxford Vaccine on the 4th of April. Despite my ability to focus well on work, and to practice mindfulness – my mind is perpetually reminding me,…
If you read my blog last week, you will know that I will shortly be moving house. Last week all was going ahead well, but since then there has been – another – spanner in the works. Despite how many times I tell myself that things will work out for the best in their own…
Over the last few weeks every day feels like groundhog day (Actually, I recommend this as a great movie with Bill Murray for cheering yourself up!). I wake up, turn the electric heater on, press the snooze button on my phone three times to give the room time to warm up, get up, put something…
Who shall bear hope, who else but us? After us is the long wind blowing off the ash pit of blasted genes, or after, the remarrying of the earth and the water. We must begin with the stone of mass resistance, and pile stone on stone on stone, begin cranking out whirlwinds of paper, the…
I led the free daily sit on Friday evening and we did a practice using a mantra of ‘Body like a mountain, breath like the wind, heart of compassion like sunshine and mind like the sky’. At the end of the practice an interesting discussion ensued about anger and fear. A first participant shared their…