May is the month that I lead the Two Feet, One Mind walking workshops in the Botanics so, strangely, I do a few less marathon…
Category: Mindfulness & Buddhism
Five years ago I made a commitment to do a 20 minute mindfulness walk ever day during my lunch hour at the Botanics. I put…
Finally coming to the end of taking excess holiday allowance. Married Gustaf and Ainsley on Saturday 31st at St Marks Marathon Monk Posts by Date…
On Tuesday 6th February I passed the 100 walks mark when, if I was a real Japanese Marathon Monk, I would have asked formal permission…
This is a quick recording of my thoughts on the Four Nutriments discourse of the Buddha. I had written some notes and couldn’t face typing the…
Another short month as far as marathon monking is concerned. After the Christmas and New Year break took a chunk off the start of the…
I was really losing it at work in the run up to Christmas. No motivation, just staring at the screen or surfing the web. I…
Not quite 500 miles. I had a slow week near the beginning with the virus still coming back occasionally but am now back to 100%.…
A bit of a wipeout month. The first few weeks I went down with a virus that made me very weak. I had my…
September has been a busy busy month with many distractions around running the Project Soothe Exhibition. Rewarding but tiring. As I reached the end…
Quite a month for distractions both good and bad so I’ve only increased my total to 33 days or about 198 miles since starting on the…
I’ve completed the first full calendar month of walking with a break for a week in the English Lake district. I’ve walked 22 days since…
How does meditation work? I’m sure there are loads of scientific papers and sutra commentaries on the subject but I have one mundane theory I’d…
Having started on the Summer Solstice I’m going to blog each month to keep track of the progress. Sometimes this might just be posting a…
Just to reiterate I’m not a monk and I’m not running 26.219 mile marathons – which makes the title a bit of lie. I’m walking…
Pick a date, any date. I pick this one. A nice astronomical date. This is when the series of “marathons” begins. Summer Solstice 05:24 Wednesday…
By far the most common metaphor for a life is that of a journey. After all it has a beginning, middle and end. It appears…
There’s a great art house film called Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter. It is about a Japanese woman who obsessively watches a flaky video of an…
I remember a story about a guy who set off to walk from the centre of the USA to the ocean relying on the kindness…
I’m just back from a four day retreat at Wiston Lodge lead by Dene Donalds that I found very powerful. My sinuses were playing up…
These trees are the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh were a vivid yellow/green and just a red filter in post process produces this effect. They were…
To encounter something living that is massively larger than you are on your way to nursery but change you.
I took lay ordination into the Order of Interbeing as True Embracing Oak (Chân Sồi Bao Dung) on 28th August 2015 – a year ago today.…
I enjoyed this video from Veritasium it complements a blog post I wrote back in 2010 – The present moment does not exist – which does a…
I’ve been reading Christian literature again. This is an odd experience. Thomas Merton, C.S. Lewis and now Abbot Christopher Jamison have been working to make…
In searching around for a subject to talk on at FameLab Scotland in January I stumbled across the fact that I had possibly been misusing…
I came to see that the human imagination is not paramount in the creative process: that what is paramount is “The Creation” and He who…
We are constrained by the choices we have made but the most constraining choice is choosing not to choose.
I’m just back from a week at Plum Village. I’d hoped to do some portraiture but didn’t really have time. Retreats are busy places what…
I gave a talk to the Uniting for Peace Inter-Faith group meeting at the Theosophical Society in Edinburgh. I made a recording so I can…