Since I haven't been doing live sessions for a couple of months now, I thought it might be nice to have a Q&A spot here. Ask a question about practice, dharma, life on the cushion or off it and I'll post a video answer a couple of times a week. You can post your questions below. That way there'll be some beneficial activity going on here for people to tune in to. 😀 Big heart bow, A

Hi everyone, I'm so happy to be part of this wonderful group and hope to gain some new ways of dealing with my anxiety. I've suffered for many years... off and on... and currently started a new job after working from home for over two years. I have been keeping my anxiety at bay, but ignoring it does not make it go away. Fear of failure and feelings of not being deserving of something good plague me, and I often need to sit with my feelings and try to determine if they are real or just my anxiety/lack of confidence creeping in to trick me. Alistair, my husband and I have watched you on Escape to the Country for many years and your wonderful energy reaches me through the airwaves. I even named my cat after you!

My comment is about you, @Sylvia Alana. At the crafting circle meeting, yesterday, I learned that you have been unwell. If I have the misfortune to be ill, I turn into 'Mrs Angry' very annoyed with my body for letting me down. You, however, dear Sylvia, though not feeling your best, are still posting these lovely videos for the dhamma group to enjoy. You are an inspiration. I ,and I'm sure the rest of this lovely gang, will join me in wishing you a speedy recovery. Sending love and healing vibes. XX🙏🧡🧡

I don't know if you've noticed but I've added a search bar at the top of the Mindsprings main site. I'm hoping it will make it super easy to find what you're looking for as the site gets bigger. Please try it out and give me any feedback! 😀

We are in B.C. Canada and I am so very grateful to find this online gathering space. I have a little experience with meditation and a few retreats yet I sure seem to resist bringing a regular meditation practice into my day-to-day. I am quite excited to explore the pages and posts. Many thanks for what you've created here - what feels like a very genuine and safe space to learn and grow.

This is a transcript of this Monday's Beingfulness session - or a part of it. The sound quality has been a bit wonky because ( I discover) of a loose connection. So the recording wasn't good. So I transcribed the little teaching I gave on anchoring. The Erotic of Anchoring. It's an interesting thing, anchoring, because you’re not excluding anything. You’re just focusing on one thing. It’s almost like you’re giving yourself permission to be very simple. Although you’re not excluding your thoughts, you’re not following your thoughts. Not in a wilful way but because the simplicity of “being with one thing” is easier. More pleasurable. And I think the key with anchoring is the pleasure element. You are resting in a pleasurable unity of awareness and an object. Again, it doesn't really matter what the object is, but it’s the pleasurable quality that we are cultivating. Thoughts will come, but the way it works for me is to find the almost erotic quality of attention and awareness. Placing awareness of one object and absorbing into one thing – there's something erotic about it, in the best sense of the word erotic. Because one of the few times that we completely absorb into the present is during sex, good sex. When we are completely lost in the other. Being completely in the moment has an erotic quality. There's something erotic about resting in the present moment, resting in the sounds. The normal state of non-erotic life is: Zing, zing, zang. "I've got to do that. I've got to do this. I should be doing this. I should be doing that" – that's very unerotic! [laughs] But the resting quality of “Aaaah…“ has a silky, sensuous quality. This quality of just this. Just this one thing. Just for now. All those other things can wait, but just in this moment I'm lost in sexual pleasure, or any kind of pleasure. It's a tuning out of everything else, all the other thoughts drop away and you are just with your beloved, or with your orgasm, or whatever. But in this practice, you are just with sounds. And this is what I meant when I said that there is a quality of "familiar, but forgotten". When we really rest in sounds there is: "Oh, I remember this. I remember this being with things in a very direct way. But I’ve forgotten. I'm so lost in my distracted thoughts.” And this quality of remembering something that you have forgotten, perhaps from childhood - perhaps that was the last time, you were really absorbed into things in this way, – is the quality of anchoring. There is a remembrance of the simplicity and pleasure that is really key. Because if we don't have that pleasure, we’re not going to do our practice. Why would we do it? But if we can find the erotic quality of staying with experience -and I mean, erotic in its widest sense of full of life, and full of love, – then our Beingfulness practice goes in leaps and bounds. "I can't wait to practice again because it's so pleasurable…” #teaching #beingfulness #anchoring #eros #erotic #awareness #rememberance #simplicity

Thank you for a wonderful session this morning on the subtle Karma and our positive imprint. If our kindness and positive imprint does not, in any way, affect surrounding cause + effect, are our positive imprints during a lifetime solely directed to sorting our own path? Choosing the kind action (with detachment regarding the effect on the receiver) whilst respecting kindness to oneself. And, through that, placing one's (hopefully) positive imprint to the ebb and flow of the Interconnectedness of everything?

Just to remind you folk that we've got our Online Retreat this weekend, 18-19 February, which is a great chance to learn the "Three Marks" practice and carve out some quality time for your mind's health and benefit. There's lots more info about the course here or you can book below....