Blog
OF SILENCE, SPACIOUSNESS AND STILLNESS
Dear Friends
We so often get caught up in the objects of attention and forget that all that we can know and experience is only because of the ‘three non-things’ of Silence, Spaciousness and Stillness.
Our Mindfulness and Meditation Practice help to remember and re-mind back to this fundamental purity and simplicity which is known as Perfect Peace.
Enjoy my verse below that emphasises this possibility.
John B.
OF SILENCE, SPACIOUSNESS AND STILLNESS
And when the Silence comes;
Be not fearful or afraid.
Remain Mindful, aware, the...
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RUN TO THE PRESENT
Dear Friends
Do we find ourselves always on the run?
What are we running from and where are we running to?
Often, we are running from the only place and point to be and to live our life from – the ‘Just here – just now Present’.
So why not challenge this and change this, so that we run from being caught in the past and stop chasing after the future, and really arrive on the spot of our life with mindful awareness.
Just...
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Drawn Into Life, Activity Rather Than Object
Dear Friends
We do not need to be too much of a psychologist or scientist to look, see, notice and note, how and why we stress and suffer. With mindfulness we can observe the process of the mind becoming identified with objects of awareness and becoming them, turning mental-physical phenomena into the personal self. With Mindfulness for Insight Meditation Practice – Satipatthana Vipassana, we can not only see this occurring but allow the mind to remain in knowing the Activity...
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MINDFULNESS IS THE WAY!
Dear Friends
Our Mindfulness collects mental energy and connects mental awareness to the ongoing flow of the experience which we call Life. Without Mindfulness we can miss many moments and much of life, as well as the possibility of freedom from the source of psychological stress and suffering.
Of any and of all the psychological or spiritual practices worth pursuing and practicing; Mindfulness would be the main and most important. Mindfulness is the calm and clear-minded, correct and direct, conscious way...
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Springtime Newsletter 2019
Dear Friends,
Trusting this message finds you mindfully moving forth into the blossoming of our new season of Spring 2019. Whilst all seasons are wonderful in their own way, Spring does brighten the mind and lighten the heart as we see and feel the significant changes in nature with its varied flora and fauna.
This week we marked the arrival of Spring with a Sunday Meditation Day Retreat at Ratanagiri – Farrants Hill led by Venerable Pannyavaro from Bodhi Tree Forest...
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Mindful Experience – Pure and Simple
Dear Friends
Much of the stress, struggle, stain and suffering of our life relates to our mind’s unskillful identification with physical or mental experience; creating, conditioning and compounding an identity. That identity or ego-I, continues to need to be feed and fuelled, serviced and supplied with ongoing mental-physical experience to be sustained. This is the ‘my-making’, ‘I-making’, ‘me-making’, that is both tiring and taxing of precious time and energy.
Our Insight – Vipassana Meditation practice through the Four Foundations of Mindfulness,...
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THE PRACTICE OF MINDFULNESS
Dear Friends
I recently spent 10 days on a Mindfulness Meditation – Vipassana Retreat, held at Bodhi Tree Forest Monastery and Retreat Centre, lead by Venerable Pannyavaro. This was a wonderful occasion and experience of simplifying and slowing life down, relaxing into silence and inner stillness. Days of Mindful Sitting and Walking Meditation in the context of Vipassana – Insight Wisdom, allowed for a natural unfolding of clarity and peace.
Beyond the hustle and bustle of our busy regular life, there...
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LISTEN UP AND LISTEN DOWN
Dear Friends
We so often become attracted and distracted by the superficial surround sounds both of the external world and our mentalising self-talk of and about the external world. This mental talk creates and makes, compounds and conditions, the endless mental comments, commentary, complaint, critique and ongoing concerns that fill our mind and detract from what might be more important.
Why not take some time to ‘listen up and listen in’ so we can actually hear what our Heart-Mind might be...
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FLEE TO FIND, FEEL, SEE AND BE!
Dear Friends
Sometimes we need to remind ourselves to run, race and even flee from the all to easily conditioned mental creations and reactions that keep us stuck in our static stress, struggle and state of ‘self’.
The Buddha’s last words and final teaching just before his death was a remind:
‘To see the impermanence of all things and make haste in Realising Enlightened Freedom.’
Here we appreciate that time and effort is of the essence.
Thus, any words of inspiration and motivation to...
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Gone Forth
Dear Friends
This week has held the Full Moon of July and is celebrated as Asalah Puja – a significant day within the Buddhist Calendar, when the Buddha soon after his Enlightenment – gave his first Teaching to the five yogi’s that he had previously been practicing with. Following this teaching, these five asked to become his students and thus began the Buddhist Monastic Order. These monks together with the Buddha then began the three-month ‘Rains Retreat’ which has been...
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