So I am in 5 star hotel in Delhi to attend teachings by Situ Rinpoche here at the hotel. We have had a few days of rest and recuperation after our journey – laughing and sharing meals with friends, visiting the gym and pool, plus plenty of practice to prepare us for the teachings.

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That was great!

Now the hotel is filled to bursting with those attending the teachings, bustling about between teaching, practice sessions and meals. Noticing our habitual patterns about queuing for meals and being in a large group.

I have met many friends here from UK, Spain, Italy, Poland and South Africa. A big coming together of the Kagyu Buddhist family. A friend told me that last year she spoke to people from over 40 countries.

The teachings are profound, human and in places humorous – incredibly heartfelt and I feel so very grateful and joyful that I can be here. It’s interesting that before I wrote this paragraph I was a bit caught up in some personal issues. Recalling my excellent good fortune here dissolves my concern with these issues.

One of the many thing that Situ Rinpoche had said that really resonated with me was “Humans have built our own torture chamber, have locked our self in and then complain about it”.

The torture chamber is this idea of a solid ‘me’ separate from all of the ‘others’. A ‘me’ that has to get what it wants, avoid what it doesn’t want and ignores all the rest. This ignores the fact that we cannot survive alone but are dependent on everyone else for our survival. We are all equally important.

This ignores the fact that we are changing all the time, like a process of selfing, rather than a solid permanent self. All our cells are replaced every decade or so and I don’t know about you, but my mind changes so that I am quite a different person than I was, an hour ago, never mind a decade ago.

We take this ‘self’ so seriously, so that when ‘I’ get what I don’t want and don’t get what I do want ‘I’ suffer – this is the torture chamber – and boy do we complain about it!

So how can we lighten up and take ourselves less seriously – perhaps we can appreciate what we do have and be grateful, rather than focussing on the things that don’t go our way and fuelling our resentment. Any moment we have a choice where to place our focus!

Focus well my friends!

Kind Wishes Heather

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Author: Heather Regan-Addis

Heather began training in Mindfulness Meditation with Rob Nairn in 2004. She is British Wheel of Yoga trained yoga teacher, has a Post Graduate Diploma in Mindfulness Based Approaches from the University of Bangor, Wales and has a Masters degree in Studies in Mindfulness from the University of Aberdeen. She is a co-founder and director of the Mindfulness Association, a Mindfulness, Compassion and Insight teacher and leads the team that developed and delivers the Mindfulness teacher training program to teach the Mindfulness Based Living Course. She is an honorary Fellow of the University of Aberdeen and was involved in the development of the Masters program in Studies in Mindfulness at the University of Aberdeen, which is a collaboration with the Mindfulness Association and also teaches on the program.