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Holy Island (Part 3)
Essentially, the genius of the Buddha, 2,500 years ago, was to work out a way to achieve this move. Long before the world wide web, even...
Alistair Appleton
Nov 18, 20144 min read
Holy Island (Part 2)
One of the first things we did on the Island was stand in the darkness on the bobbing, black jetty that stretches some 30 metres out into...
Alistair Appleton
Nov 18, 20143 min read
Holy Island (Part 1):
I got back last weekend from our annual Mindsprings retreat up on Holy Island, off the coast of Arran in Western Scotland. It’s a 2-mile...
Alistair Appleton
Nov 7, 20144 min read
The heart is a revolutionary cell
I’ve been meaning to write about Suzanne Moore’s thought-provoking article in the Guardian last month. You can often spot the speed at...
Alistair Appleton
Sep 29, 20146 min read
On talking out of my hat
Apologies firstly for the long lacuna on this site. I have been utterly consumed with the completion of my studies in psychotherapy which...
Alistair Appleton
Jun 28, 20143 min read
Dancing with Reality
Listening to Reggie Ray’s excellent Dharma Ocean podcast, I heard this – : “We’re living in a world where reality is seen as an enemy....
Alistair Appleton
Mar 12, 20142 min read
Is self-care selfish?
Kathy and I are running a course on self-care at the spa road Buddhist centre next weekend and so our thoughts have been circumambulating...
Alistair Appleton
Feb 26, 20144 min read
You’ll never find true love running a marathon or pumping iron. Discuss.
I am running a half marathon in a few weeks. I’ve never done this before and so, after a particularly heroic 12 mile run along Brighton...
Alistair Appleton
Feb 13, 20143 min read
the meaning of loneliness: 3/ being solo – a new way of being alone
“I am the eyes of the Universe observing itself” Shelley I would like to think that mindfulness meditation offers a new way of being...
Alistair Appleton
Jan 23, 20146 min read
The Meaning of Loneliness: 2/ what happens when we call loneliness solitude?
“Loneliness is no particular colour – a mountain of black pines on an autumn evening.” Bashō. As I proposed in the earlier blog,...
Alistair Appleton
Jan 17, 20145 min read
the meaning of loneliness: 1/ what is loneliness, really?
This is a series of essays on a subject that I’m interested in exploring in 2014: loneliness. Last year at Mindsprings we concentrated a...
Alistair Appleton
Jan 16, 20146 min read
Surviving Family Christmas – the mindful way
You're not going to look like these guys, but you might be able to feel like them! This is an old post from 2 years ago but I always like...
Alistair Appleton
Dec 23, 20134 min read
Slamming the Gate
Reggie Ray said a striking thing in one of his Dharma Ocean talks (highly recommended btw) about the Tibetan Buddhist practice of totally...
Alistair Appleton
Nov 29, 20131 min read
Trungpa on “getting over our embarrassment of being alive”
If we open our eyes, if we open our minds, if we open our hearts , we will find that this world is a magical place. It is not magical...
Alistair Appleton
May 19, 20131 min read
Happy Wesak
Mindsprings is not a specifically Buddhist organisation but I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the paramount debt we have to the...
Alistair Appleton
May 18, 20132 min read
Togetherness
We tend to practice meditation alone. It’s a hangover partly from the monastic emphasis of going away from the world and sitting under a...
Alistair Appleton
Feb 19, 20133 min read
GENEROSITY
The Buddha met a woman whose life was made miserable by her compulsive miserliness. He gave her a carrot and taught her to give it from...
Alistair Appleton
Jan 21, 20131 min read
Trying too hard
A keen monk asks the master: “How long will it take me to get enlightened?” “Oh, ten years”, says the Master. “But what if I study twice...
Alistair Appleton
Jan 14, 20131 min read
Sexuality and Spirituality: Are they the same thing?
This was a public lecture Alistair gave to the Norwich Interfaith at the Octagon Chapel, 21st November 2012 on the subject of sexuality...
Alistair Appleton
Jan 7, 20131 min read
The Robin
I was sitting on the edge of the garden, watching the clouds darken then lighten then darken and across the sky, I saw words spelling out...
Alistair Appleton
Nov 24, 20122 min read
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