I just read “Vietnam: The Lotus in the Sea of Fire”. This small book was written at the height of the Vietnam war by my Zen Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. My first sensation on receiving the book was one of gratitude. I had been wanting to read it for some time…
Category: Mindfulness & Buddhism
Mindfulness: The Ultimage Not-Quite-Getting-It Example?
I just came across an ad for a Introduction for Mindfulness on Eventbrite and I wanted to capture it here. I guess that it will disappear off Eventbrite once the event has gone by and I want to be able to quote it in the future. Here is the text:
Implicit vs Explicit Ethics in Mindfulness Teaching
A few weeks back I wrote the blog post Is Secular Mindfulness Shoehorning in the “Other” Seven? in which I bemoaned the fact that secular mindfulness courses included most of the parts of the Buddhist Eight Fold path but only claimed to include one of them. Last week BBC Radio…
Is Secular Mindfulness Shoehorning in the “Other” Seven?
I went to a set of evening lectures at the University of Edinburgh last week called “Mindfulness for Depression: Theory and Practice”. It was a really good evening as an introduction to the subject. Prof. Stephen Lawrie presented an overview of depression and what a bad thing it was both…
Walking Home: What I do when I do a Mindfulness Walk
Life can feel as if it is made up of a series of episodes; as if we are living from moment to moment. This is an illusion. There is only one, all encompassing moment. We are fooled because we don’t pay attention to it the whole time. This one, absolute…
World View -> Right View -> Compassion
We construct the notions that we name as things (e.g. this computer, this desk, me, you, the cat) as a way of dealing with reality. It is not that stuff doesn’t exist “out there” and that we are just making everything up. It is that we model the world by…
1st Mindfulness Training: Openness
This is the First of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing: Aware of the suffering created by fanaticism and intolerance, we are determined not to be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. We are committed to seeing the Buddhist teachings…
Buddha Dharma in Pharrell Williams “Happy”
I am fortunate to have teenage daughters who occasionally point out incredibly positive contemporary music videos. I think the last one was Macklemore & Ryan Lewis “Thrift Shop” . Normally I’m a traditional “shut that noise off” dad. I listen to BBC Radio 3 if anything. Today they managed to…
Richard Gere’s Buddhism BBC Everyman Documentary
I really enjoyed watching this documentary from back in 2003. Some really insightful comments but maybe slightly over simplified the historical perspective on Tibet. What a shame the BBC cut the Everyman documentary series.
Scottish Buddhists: Few but diverse and growing fast
The 27th February saw the launch of the latest set of figures from the 2011 Scottish census. I had been waiting for this release partly because it arrived in time for my birthday on the 28th but also because I had been in correspondence with the census team and they…
Many kinds of atheism
I just had my letter to the Guardian Weekly published. I was responding to Zoe Williams article “Come on, atheists: we must show some faith in ourselves” which took the very narrow view of religion vs atheism that seems to be popular at the moment. You can see my letter…
Living as an Embedded Buddhist
When I first heard of Engaged Buddhism I made a common mistake. I presumed it was all campaigns and demonstrations. I didn’t think it was for me. I’d been on a few demos and sat on some committees but they all felt far too confrontational for my newly developed sensibilities….
Quantified Self – Back To Front
Such a frustrating programme on Radio 4 Analysis. The quantified self: can life be measured? The “quantified self” movement promises that life-logging and data-tracking can make us smarter. Frances Stonor Saunders asks whether by measuring what we do we miss who we are. You can listen to the MP3 Podcast…
Practicing Back To Front
As with many of the best things I can’t remember how I stumbled on it but a few weeks ago I came across a TED talk by Simon Sinek called “How great leaders inspire action“. I was so impressed with this simple idea that I went on to buy Simon’s…
Mindful Portrait Photography – A Manifesto
I would like to reconnect with my photography but I would like to do it in a way that is informed by my Buddhist practice and that becomes part of that practice. This topic has been in the back of my mind for some time but has now crystallized into…
Stumbled on this and really liked it: The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference. Elie Wiesel (1986) This chimes with…
Wealth and Well-being
I recently had a couple of exchanges on the ONS StatsUser Discussion Forum on measuring Well-Being particularly on the relationship between wealth and well-being. This is really stuff of blog posting not forum contribution. I should write a blog and link to it from the forum not the other way…
Time Warped Addendum: Mindfulness
I just finished reading Claudia Hammond‘s latest book “Time Warped“. Claudia is a psychologist who presents programmes on health (particularly mental health) on BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service. Chief amongst these is All in the Mind and my favourite Mind Changers. Time Warped is a fun read. I…
Anātman as a Telephone Conversation
I was trying to explain the Buddhist notion of not-self or anātman to a friend and found myself using a new metaphor that I haven’t heard before – the self as telephone conversation. Hinduism has the notion of Ātman. Jainism has a similar notion (same word) and, of course, the…
Goenka Vipassana Washes Whiter
I have just returned from a ten day Goenka Vipassana retreat at Damma Dipa in Herefordshire. It was a challenging, rewarding and inspiring experience and I am finding it something of a challenge to write a blog about it. Firstly a description of what a ten day Goenka Vipassana retreat…
Brief Intro To Mindfulness Now Available on Kindle Store
My pamphlet “A Brief Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation” is now available on the Kindle store worldwide. There has to be a nominal charge for it but it does make it available to a wide audience. Visit the UK or US Amazon stores to purchase. In other territories you will have…
A Brief Introduction To Mindfulness Meditation
Today I launch the first version of my “A Brief Introduction To Mindfulness Meditation” pamphlet with a massive print run of fourteen! Plus availability on-line and the possibility of printing as many as needed of course. Download a digital copy to read and freely distribute from the downloads page. Near…
Remembrance not Remembering
We took the camper van to France in the summer and, as we were passing, decided to visit the grave of my uncle Eric. I say my uncle but I feel uneasy calling him an uncle. He died a good twenty years before I was born and would have had…
MindfulnessTree: Support Your Practice With Your Smart Phone
Last winter, whilst exploring ideas for a possible research proposal, I wrote a prototype desktop web application to help people learn the Mindfulness of Breathing. It formed the basis of an assignment that you can read about in a previous blog post. The application, BreathFollower, is still running on Google…
Why I am Quitting the Bangor Mindfulness MSc
Edit: 2014-04-24 ~ Three Years Later ~ A friend just pointed out that this post is now coming second on a Google search for “Bangor Mindfulness”. I am somewhat amazed at this and slightly disturbed. It makes the post appear far more significant than it is. I considered taking it…
Bangor Mindfulness 2nd Research Assignment
Find attached my fourth and final assignment for the Bangor Mindfulness course. This one is for the Research module. It is supposed to be a description of a research project that you intend to do later in the course in a form close to what would be suitable for submission…
Bangor Foundation Assignment 2 Results
Attached is my second assignment from the Bangor Mindfulness course which has now been marked. This is the document as submitted but with my name and copyright information added. Foundation_Assigment_2_blog_version.pdf. I got 64% which translates as a ‘B’. The marker made some kind comments about my “highly original ideas” but…
An areligious (not “A religious”) justification for meditation
If I start to talk about how the world is and therefore how we should best live there is a danger you will dismiss what I say as either playing with ideas that have no relation to real life (philosophy) or trying to impose some mumbo jumbo from a possible…
Being, Doing and Doing-Being
Cognitive dissonance is a wonderful thing. At least it is a wonderful thing once you know about it and can enjoy the way it wags your opions and actions around against your will. It is amazing what we can’t see because it is simply too unpleasant to contemplate. Of course…