Us Brits are famous for our stiff upper lip and like many of us, I have been holding it together with as much optimism as I can muster through these weeks of lockdown. However, any emotions we are feeling need space to move through us, or else they get suppressed, they fester and then they…
The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the…
We had our annual Board meeting for the Mindfulness Association in Edinburgh yesterday. I travelled over there with Choden from Lockerbie and Norton travelled down from Aberdeen for the day. Kristine, who lives locally, and who is going to be taking on half of my management role in the new year joined us in the…
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…
Life is good. And yet, I seem to allow myself to suffer. The cause of my suffering? My mind of course! I notice I have been quite serious lately. A bit weighed down with my negative thought patterns. The resistance in this feels like sticky dark treacle clouding my mind – clinging to negative thoughts. …
This week, Choden and I are at the Oblate retreat centre in Crewe for a strategy meeting of the UK Network of Mindfulness Teacher Training Organisations. The meeting is for representatives of the teacher training organisations that are members of the UK Network, including Bangor and Oxford University, Breathworks, NHS and the MA. Also, we…
This week I am writing my blog from Cape Town in South Africa. I am here on a short visit to see my meditation teacher and founder of the Mindfulness Association, Rob Nairn. He did not visit Europe this year due to poor health and so I wanted to visit him. We have had a…
Recently, I have been very busy conducting research for an assignment for the MSc in Studies in Mindfulness. The area of research that I have been focusing on is comparative mindfulness/insight traditions. In particular, I have been analysing Buddhist, Christian and Secular methods. As you can imagine, there is a rich diversity of practices and…