A friend just introduced me to BuddhistGeek which looks like a wonderful source. I enjoyed listening to this podcast on The Practice of Contemplative Photography – which I would highly recommend. It certainly chimes with how I have felt about my own photography.
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Mixed feelings at the ending of the last weekend of the Bangor Mindfulness course. It doesn’t look like I will continue next year for a whole host of reasons that’ll I will no doubt blog about once I have the assignments out of the way.
Read More Last Weekend @ BangorI chew through a lot of popular science writing on the web. It is nice to have someone dig out the sparky bits of research that may not hold up in the long run but that are fun to think about and just might be the next big thing. I stumbled on an article in…
Read More Colour / Mindfulness / DepressionI just noticed that our Foundation Module first assignment has been marked and in the spirit of openness can now post my assignment here. I got a B- for it. The comments were that I could have said more on my experiences in turning towards a new way of practicing and that I should have…
Read More Bangor Mindfulness: Foundation Assignment 1In an attempt to keep up with a policy of putting all of my appropriate ‘outputs’ on the blog here is my first assignment for the Research module of the Bangor Mindfulness MSc course. It has been marked and I think I got a B- or possibly an A-. There is some complex thing they…
Read More Bangor Mindfulness: Research Assignment 1Just listened to Claudia Hammond’s BBC programme on happiness. I like Claudia’s reporting and this is a good programme but it still surfs closed to the edge of the Moral Maze debate I took exception to. We have all the usual suspects: Martin Siegelman and Wellington College plus a token philosopher (Julian Baggini – who…
Read More Random thoughts on Latest BBC ‘Happiness’ ProgrammeBBC Radio 4 have a programme called the Moral Maze in which a small team of people question expert witnesses and discuss the moral aspects of a particular topical issue. I don’t usually listen because it typically produces ‘more heat than light’ with people shouting things like ‘It is me that asks the questions!’. Last…
Read More Moral Maze: Happiness is 40 Minutes with a Straw ManWonderful weekend. Voluteered for EEG experiment on Thursday. All day John Peacock lecture on Friday covering the early Buddhist background to mindfulness. Foundation module on Saturday and Research module Sunday.
Read More Bangor Mindfulness Course – Second WeekendI just ready “A Model of Mindful Parenting: Implications for Parent–Child Relationships and Prevention Research” Duncan” Duncan et al Clin Child Fam Psychol Rev (2009) 12:255–270 DOI 10.1007/s10567-009-0046-3 in a quest to find some papers on mindfulness in adolescents for my research assignment. I feel uncomfortable with the notions of both parenting and mindfulness it presents.
Read More Neither Parenting Nor Mindfulness?I just completed my first weekend on the MSc in Mindfulness Based Approaches at Bangor University. It was a wonderful three days. I enjoyed communing with like minded people and learnt a great deal – notably some of the major differences between psychology research and taxonomy. In response to one of my questions the lecturer…
Read More Biological Diversity & Motivational DiversityIt took two transatlantic flights but I have just finished “What the Buddha Thought” by Richard Gombrich. I was inspired to read it by my boss, Charles Hussey, who kindly took me to a lecture for the old boys of St Paul’s School in London given by Richard. My first piece of advice is –…
Read More What the Buddha Thought – Finished!This sketch from Mitchell and Webb is just so good I have to reproduce it here (sorry lawyers). It sums up why I meditate in 90 seconds without me having to wave my arms about and explain it. The iReckon – MP3
Read More The iReckon – “Drowning Out the Screaming Void”I have just been accepted onto the course in Mindfulness-Based Approaches at Bangor University. Starting in October this year I’ll be travelling to Bangor for 5 weekends a year and studying from home to develop my practice and knowledge of mindfulness based approaches to mental health and general well being. Here is a quote from…
Read More MSc Mindfulness-Based ApproachesIt is just past Christmas and the turning of the decade so I thought it would be worth capturing a train of thought on time and space. The future doesn’t exist yet. The past no longer exists. The present moment is vanishingly small. Consider the sounds you hear in a piece of music. Sound is…
Read More The Present Moment Does Not ExistI have just come to the end of “Mindfulness and Mental Health: Therapy, Theory and Science” by Chris Mace. My motivation for tackling such a book is to learn more about the link between mindfulness meditation and the mental health/psychotherapy field. The book has been an interesting but challenging read. I have a scientific training…
Read More Mindfulness and Mental Health – a glimps of the madness?Recently I have been sitting with the The Community of Interbeing in Edinburgh – that’s Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh‘s students to you. The Edinburgh sangha has a wonderful atmosphere. As part of the Festival of Spirituality and Peace the sangha ran a Mindful Peace Walk around Prince’s Street Gardens. I arrived a little late…
Read More Mindful Peace Walk: ‘Peace Begins With You’This programme, in the generally brilliant BBC Analysis series, is a fascinating discussion of a ‘new’ approach to philosophy where researchers actually do experiments and are exploring the relationship between our ‘morals’ and our reason. What is great about it is that one is continuously wanting to chip in and say “yes but…”. The thesis…
Read More Is Buddhism Experimental Philosophy?Most people are familiar with a few Zen kōans – the ‘nonsense’ sayings of the great Zen masters that are designed to make us think or rather not think. Their aim is to point more directly to what can’t be said in words. Examples include: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” and “Does…
Read More GUID Persistence as Zen kōanThe nice thing about blogging is that you get to mix-n-match your thoughts together in a way that you couldn’t do in the constituant parts of your life. This post brings together the notion of Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs) from my world of work and Buddhist notions of identity. It isn’t really acceptable to talk…
Read More Identifiers, Identity and MeI am an ethical vegetarian who perhaps one day, when the kids have grown a little, will become vegan or nearly so. I also have an allergy to fish. Back in the days when I was a flesh eater I would throw up and have a histamine reaction within thirty minutes of eating even white…
Read More Fish – I wish I could see this in myself.So I start writing iZendo from scratch and make quite good progress in simplifying it down. Just four pages and some AJAX to update the lists. All looks good till my crisis of faith! Could I do this with twitter? Could I ‘just’ have a Twitter feed that is the virtual zendo? It would certainly…
Read More Twitter as a virtual zendo?Expressing gratitude makes me feel good. I believe others get similar pleasure form saying thanks. It could be that we have this response hardwired by our genes or that it is beaten in by our parents as a kind of important social meme. Either way it appears to lead to a more harmonious society so…
Read More Thank you