I am on the beautiful Holy Isle this week delivering the year end retreat for the first years of the University of Aberdeen’s MSc in Studies in Mindfulness. There can be no better place on the planet to practice mindfulness! It is a pilgrimage to get here. A wonderful journey, at each stage meeting up…
Life is good. And yet, I seem to allow myself to suffer. The cause of my suffering? My mind of course! I notice I have been quite serious lately. A bit weighed down with my negative thought patterns. The resistance in this feels like sticky dark treacle clouding my mind – clinging to negative thoughts. …
Mindfulness in nature
One of the things I love about my home in Scotland is the birds. The little birds that come to feed on sunflower seeds and peanuts outside my kitchen window. The crows cawing in the tall trees as I practice in the morning. The starlings that roll across the sky in their flocks. The birds…
It is my last day in India. We have empowerments this morning with Tai Situpa Rinpoche and then our teachings for this year are ended. This afternoon we have a massage booked and then online check in, packing and hotel check out. I feel immensely fortunate to have received the teachings and to have spent…
I am in India this week for year four of a six or seven year training in Mahamudra meditation. The teachings are from Tai Situpa Rinpoche, the latest in a lineage of teachers that can be traced back to the historical Buddha Shakyamuni. The teachings were systematised 500 years ago, based on teachings brought to…
On a recent retreat a well-intentioned participant informed me that my drive system was overactive. She was referring to the three-circle model of Prof. Paul Gilbert which is part of our Mindfulness Level 2 – Responding with Compassion. This model postulates three psychological systems: a threat system, which triggers the fight, flight, freeze response when…
I am a week into a two week winter sun getaway to Cyprus. Away from the busyness of work I am noticing a lot of inner-critic dialogue along with an underlying feeling of being a failure. I am aware of a constant vigilance for instances where I might be subject to humiliation. Moreover I appear…
Oh, to meet the Joy and Pain of Christmas with Compassion by Bill Paterson Suddenly Christmas is on the horizon again! Is it really a year since the last one? Interestingly, I’ve noticed a pattern of contrasting thoughts and emotions wrapped in this winter celebration. Yes, the darkness of winter will be punctured with light,…