Mindfulness & Buddhism

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The winter months have been tough in terms of colds and flu-like illness that have kept me from walking all the days I’d wanted. Nothing particularly bad but enough that I’ve had to take care of my body and get the bus one way or the other across town. I continue to walk in the…

Read More Marathon Monk: To 23rd March 2020 – 441 days & 2,646 mindful miles & into Covid-19 Lockdown

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I went to a lecture on The Walking Dead (a TV series about zombie apocalypse living) and photography at Stills by David Grinly last week. It was heavy post modern, French philosopher type stuff but also entertaining. David expounded in a semi random fashion. When I left after two hours the discussion was still going…

Read More From Zombies to Tattoos

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Three months to do one months worth of walking. What a start to the year! January walking didn’t start till 7th because of the way the New Year holiday fell. I walked normally for a week and a half but then came down with a horrible cold. I think it was the one that many…

Read More Marathon Monk: January to March 2019 – 281 days & 1,686 mindful miles

Old College War Memorial

Another month already! Towards the end of the month I’ve been finding joy again in walking and in mundane things – the true test of happiness. The extra energy has allowed me to cut back on my media consumption so I’m not looking at Twitter, Facebook or news websites just at the moment. It doesn’t…

Read More Marathon Monk: October 2018 – 233 days & 1,398 mindful miles

Pinhole photo of nearby the Meadows shrine at the beginning of the month.

A quiet month again. Lost a few days to my sinuses playing up. Had to get the bus back or work at home. There is a general feeling of embeddedness. I feel the period of being really low has past. Perhaps 2018 will just be a year I remember for dipping my toe in more…

Read More Marathon Monk: September 2018 – 217 days & 1,302 mindful miles

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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 a blog post on the Wild Geese website inviting people to join me and occasionally they have. I’ve managed to stick with it through all weathers although I don’t always…

Read More Marathon Monk: April 2018 – 137 days & 822 mindful miles

Path at National Trust property in the lakes - would be lovely to walk this every day.

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 I started which is around 132 miles. It feels like they are taking the town apart around me which increases my sense of solidity in a weird way. The Three…

Read More Marathon Monk: July 2017 – 22 days & 132 mindful miles

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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 total of the days I’ve walked other times I’ll reflect on how it is going. I started by using Google Fit on my phone to deliberately measure the distance. I…

Read More Marathon Monk: June 2017 – 8 days & 48 mindful miles

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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 to work as a Buddhist training exercise inspired by the Tendai  Buddhist Marathon Monks of Mt Hiei in Japan. This is the Marathon Monk Index page so the associated posts…

Read More Marathon Monk Index