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…
Let your eyes fall easy upon me, And gaze without intention or preconceived idea of what I am. My shape is not me, as yours is not you. There is more to it than that. More to it than meets the eye, or the precept. Think more of what I may be, of what I…
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…
The mindfulness conspiracy. It condemns all mindfulness practitioners/teachers as being obsessed with happiness and acquiescence to the causes of inequality, environmental degradation and oppression. In essence the article is all conjecture – it is based on opinion and without evidence. So, I invite you to consider a few points that I think may cause more…
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…
I was on retreat last week at Purelands retreat centre near to Samye Ling. The retreat was led very skilfully by Lama Zangmo and the main theme was impermanence. The problem with us humans is that we believe things will stay the same and don’t generally like change. We also believe we can control our…
I had a wonderful time at our conference earlier this month. It felt like a coming of age. We were our own keynotes, without needing to import big names in from the US. We acknowledged our roots with warm and insightful sessions with Rob Nairn. We acknowledged the success of our Masters students and their…
I have just completed delivering the 6 day Mindfulness Based Living Course teaching skills retreat and seen a new cohort of embodied mindfulness teachers committed to sharing the benefits of compassion based mindfulness with their communities. It was a wonderful week working with my friends and colleagues Choden, Barbara Reid and Alan Hughes – what…