Around 10 years ago I spent a month in Nepal with Gaynor my wife trekking the Himalayas, it was a good trip. Whilst there I must have contracted some sort of virus which my body didn’t like. 

 

One evening whilst having a meal together I felt awful, I was sick and needed to go to the bathroom. 

 

I actually passed out and my wife got me back safely to our hotel. The next day there was so no sign of anything amiss. 

 

I listen to Surya’s Monday morning meditation on Facebook as he guides us to, “Drop into the body”. And it feels like a drop. I’m off to Krakow this summer and a friend recommended I go to some underground caves, which involves a dabble in pot-holing to get there. So now I don’t meditate as often, coming into the body feels like delving into the depths of a cave, with a hint of trepidation at what might be lurking around the next corner. After the initial drop, I’m fine – which I imagine is similar to the actual cave experience – but I’m definitely more tentative when it’s time to ‘come home to the body’ compared to when I was regularly practising throughout my course. 

 

Mindfulness is now being taught in so many ways, in so many settings and by many different people. 

 

Mindfulness to me is something of beauty. Although it is not a thing, an object, to me it is still beautiful. I often use the image of a jewel to illustrate mindfulness in teaching. A jewel has many facets, you turn the jewel a fraction and there is another facet, shimmering right at you. When running a course, or a series of workshops what we are really doing is exploring the jewel of mindfulness or awareness, and it is something we explore for the rest of our lives if we commit ourselves to it. 

 

All plants and trees are healthier and stronger when they have healthy roots, they have more stability if those roots reach deep into the earth. 

 

If we take a plant out of the earth and lay it on the ground it doesn’t take long before it withers and dies. 

 

Mindfulness is like a tree, it too has roots, and its roots go very deep into the Buddhist tradition. Roots which go back 2500 years. 

 

We have become accustomed to think in certain ways and often see things in fixed patterns. It’s hard not to make assumptions and to stay in patterns of thoughts and behaviours. Situations and circumstances are often shaped by the way we think. It’s important to try to break free from this way of viewing the world, to see more clearly, the way things actually are. We construct our world through our thoughts and in this way can make things appear negative or positive just by our thinking. 

 

I am on a plane to Italy finally writing about my Nanpantan Hall Mindfulness Retreat experience. The day before the start of the Retreat, a problem arose that nearly convinced me that I should stay at home and sort it out. Instead, I decided to go following my daughter’s encouragement. Somehow I knew that staying at home was not the cure and would not address the source: myself. 

 

I have been challenged recently to really feel what is going on in my body, as Jaya (our Border Collie dog) has been attacked and set on by two different dogs. As some of you will know, we have trained Jaya to trust himself, as a result Jaya is friendly to every dog he meets, he assumes that every dog and every human just wants to be his friend. 

 

Until most recently, I heavily relied on public transport. My life was full of things I could only get to via a bus or a train. Work, college, fun, relationships, right down to my healthcare. I would travel overseas; jetting off on exotic holidays and city breaks. In my not-so-regular down time, I would catch up with friends and family all over the country to step away from the hum of my busy life. I would occasionally jump in a car with L plates on, hoping to add ‘drive’ to the list of available transport options open to me, particularly on the days where the countryside took its toll on my much-needed service. 

 

This excellent blog which comes in 6 weekly articles is by the Radio Presenter Naomi Kent. 

 

This is week 1 of the level 2, Six-week course. 

 

It is said that God plays a joke on every new-born, whispering: 

 

‘You are the special one!’ 

 

The joke quickly wears thin when we start running up against the seven billion other people on the planet who all know that they are ‘the special one’. Deep ego wounds are received every time we fall short; when she chooses him over us. When our best friend gets the grades but we don’t. When we get to the final interview, but no further.