Going Outdoors to Enter the Presence
I am entering one of my periodic periods of great doubt. I have these on a fairly regular basis - once every five years, perhaps - and...
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Alistair Appleton
- Apr 19
- 8 min
Can we meditate while the world is burning?
A participant in the last retreat I led asked a very good question that often arises in retreats. “It’s all very well us pondering our...
438 views6 comments
Alistair Appleton
- Feb 4
- 5 min
The Magic of No Escape
Growing up in a Christian world (I was an Anglican choirboy for many of my most impressionable early years), my mind has been suffused...
666 views12 comments
Alistair Appleton
- Dec 15, 2021
- 6 min
Like worms towards the motorway
The sixth of the blogs from 2014. This one is quite self-contained and doesn’t require many annotations from 2022. There is a Nibbana...
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Alistair Appleton
- Dec 3, 2021
- 6 min
Intention destroys the zombie mind
Continuing my excavation of blogs from the past. These are my ponderings following a teaching that Ajahn Sucitto gave in Portugal. If you...
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Alistair Appleton
- Nov 3, 2021
- 6 min
Sucitto Thoughts #1
Today is the birthday of one of my early Buddhist teachers, Ajahn Sucitto, who was the abbot of Cittaviveka monastery in East Sussex when...
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Alistair Appleton
- Oct 28, 2021
- 5 min
In Praise of Idleness
“Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.” Soren Kierkegaard This is a very old book review from...
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Alistair Appleton
- Jul 15, 2021
- 4 min
On not caring: the creativity of upekkha
From the date on the cartoon, this blog was originally written in 2008. An almost mythically long time ago. But the thoughts on caring...
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Alistair Appleton
- Jun 18, 2021
- 6 min
The Prohibition Against Asking for Help
I was on a powerful retreat in the Devon countryside a few weeks back and I had a startling flash of memory from my childhood. I recalled...
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Alistair Appleton
- Mar 5, 2021
- 8 min
Mother Nature doesn’t care about suffering. Buddha does.
I have been really deeply inspired by the experience of leading the Dharma Days for Mindsprings. After my initial introduction to the...
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Alistair Appleton
- Feb 19, 2020
- 7 min
On Being a Teacher #3: Emptiness and Bodhicitta
Impermanence and the awakened heart I’m halfway through my Edinburgh weekend and sitting back in the Salisbury Centre guest room, resting...
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Alistair Appleton
- Dec 21, 2019
- 6 min
How I became a Buddhist /1
This is a long essay I wrote back in the Noughties about my path to Buddhism. I think when I wrote it I was still practising Theravadan...
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Alistair Appleton
- Dec 12, 2019
- 1 min
Karma
“Karma does not decay like external things, or even become inoperative. It cannot be destroyed by time, fire, or water. Its power will...
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Alistair Appleton
- Aug 5, 2019
- 1 min
Wildflowers
It’s been an amazing Summer in Sussex for wildflowers. It may be because I’m usually away filming in July and August and this year I’ve...
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Alistair Appleton
- Apr 14, 2019
- 2 min
Belle & Sebastian
Belle & Sebastian Simon had free tickets, so we went to the B&S gig at the Astoria. Heard their first album in Berlin, years ago. But to...
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Alistair Appleton
- Apr 14, 2019
- 2 min
The gay messiah is coming
THE GAY MESSIAH IS COMING A title sure to agitate all the rabid Republican Americans out there who froth and fulminate each time I so...
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Alistair Appleton
- Apr 14, 2019
- 3 min
nothing has changed but nothing's the same / and every tomorrow will be yesterday
I thought I’d missed seeing David Byrne in London and then last week I thought ‘fuck it, I WILL see my teenage hero’, so I sniffed out a...
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Alistair Appleton
- Apr 14, 2019
- 2 min
“for each time you or I treat images as presentations of something else […] we have smas
Went with Rachel to the Anish Kapoor show at the Royal Academy. It’s worth a pilgrimage and I use this word advisedly because there is...
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