For twenty nine years I lived under the hour by hour pressure of time. Its shadows closed in on me – at work, at home, on outings, at mealtimes, everywhere. Then, one day I decided to abandon all this rushing and running. If I achieved a little less, never mind! What I achieved would at least be done with joy. There and then, I composed a little poem to put on my desk:

Spirit of Truth, I thank you
That I have an abundance of time
To accomplish all I need to do
Today
Calmly, peacefully
With unhurried grace

Within twenty four hours, twenty nine years of headlong rushing slipped off my shoulders like an old, tattered cloak, because I no longer clutched it around me.

No one can ‘be’ in a hurry, I mean ‘be’ in the sense of living from the centre of one’s real inner being. Once can either rush – or be. Never both at the same time. Most people in the West have decided to rush. It does not mean you have to follow the same path. You are the one who chooses. You make for yourself the life you wish to live. So take possession of your life.

Learn to posses all things – your time, your pace of work, your moments of rest, your privacy – all. Life gives us dominion. All we need to do is exert this dominion which is ours.

‘But how do I take possession?’, you may ask.

Realise in the stillness of your inner being that, despite any outward chaos, all ideas have an order. You are a thread in a universal weaving. It is like a Persian rug: on the back side of the rug, strands of wool hang in a mess; there are knots here, knots there – knots everywhere. But from above, what a pattern you see, what order. [...]

There is in us all a deep sea of calmness.

Rest therein.

Your friend, Pierre

Pierre Pradervand

Image courtesy of marlonolram

Letter to a Friend in a Hurry is a post on the Embrace website

Modern culture has wrongly learned to equate simplicity with deprivation, silence with absence, and strives to fill our lives and minds with objects, information, and distraction. We have become uncomfortable with quietude. Caught in the web of this complexity, we grow increasingly poor in spirit.

We do not need to retreat to the nearest monastery, renouncing all of our possessions and engagements, in order to discover the wonder of silence and spaciousness. Indeed, confusion and preoccupation can be companion of the ascetic as well as the commuter. We do not need to withdraw from the world in order to discover true simplicity of heart. Dramatic gestures are not called for. “If one is to do good,” says William Blake, “good must be done in minute particulars. General good is the plea of the hypocrite, the flatterer, and the scoundrel.” Simplicity is related to not how much we have but to how much we hold on to. This simplicity is without pretension. It is like the water that simply runs downhill. In Zen, it is called our true nature.

Simplicity and renunciation are acts of compassion; for ourselves, for the world around us. Gandhi once stated, “There is enough in this world for everyone’.s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.” Simplicity in our lifestyle expresses a care and compassion for the world. Simplicity in our hearts, letting go of opinions and craving, is an act of compassion for ourselves. When we let go of yearning for the future, preoccupation with the past, and strategies to protect the present, there is nowhere left to go but where we are. To connect with the present moment is to begin to appreciate the beauty of true simplicity.

Jack Kornfield

Image courtesy of katerha

The Beauty of True Simplicity is a post on the Embrace website

Slapped wrists all round, bad parent, shame on you!

OK, so I exaggerate a little, but you get the gist, the two words are rather cobbled together and their union does both ‘mindfulness’ and ‘parenting’ something of a disservice to put it mildly. In the heat of battle there’s no such thing as ‘mindful parenting’. There’s being a parent and there’s the practice of mindfulness.

The former is a lifelong pursuit which is extremely hard work: full of joys and triumphs, sadness’s and disappointments, not to mention sacrifice and unconditional love. Child rearing is messy, poignant, full of mistakes, edges and grey areas. Sometimes we are good at it and sometimes we are rubbish at the job, ……overtired, fractious, impatient, bad tempered, distracted…..just like our children in fact. No amount of mindful parenting classes is going to fix that. Parents are human, not perfect.

Mindfulness funnily enough is also a lifelong pursuit; a way of being with and attending to experience with awareness rather than judgement. It is about learning to bring a sense of approach and acceptance to the present moment, just as it is, however pleasant or unpleasant, easy, difficult or aggravating. This can be useful when it come to looking after the kids, precisely because mindfulness practice helps us to become more aware of those unhelpful thought processes that can be so easily triggered by children pressing our buttons; those self critical thoughts that serve only to perpetuate stress, anxiety, and depression. With that awareness comes choice and an improved ability to respond rather than to react.

If you choose to cultivate it, much like a seed, mindfulness practice can start to pay the most nourishing of dividends, particularly if you give it some love, patience, persistence and attention.

Bringing up children is challenging. In essence, mindfulness is about being able to pause long enough so that we can reconnect and ground ourselves in the moment rather than being swept away by our emotions. In so doing, we are able to convey a sense of presence to our children, extending all of the aforementioned qualities into their growing connection with and place in the world. Along with our love, it is the greatest gift we can give.

Image courtesy of Tillwe

Please don’t be a Mindful Parent! is a post on the Embrace website

8 week MBSR programmes

This is the core teaching programme of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). In the course you will become more aware of the unhelpful thought patterns that can trigger and perpetuate stress, anxiety and low moods. With that awareness comes choice and an improved ability to respond skilfully to life’s hurdles.

Tuesday evening course starts 30th April – 7.00pm – 9.00pm

Wednesday morning course starts 1st May - 11.00am – 1.00pm

Wednesday evening course starts 1st May – 7.00pm – 9.00pm

You can book and find out further details about all three courses here.

Silent All-Day Retreats

For those of you who have done an 8 week course with me, or graduates of any 8-week course for that matter, I invite you to attend my next all-day silent retreat on Saturday 8th June. There will be a small fee of £25 for the day, although we may have to restrict numbers. This is a wonderful way to get in touch with and venture deeper into your practice with others doing the same. Go to Graduates for all the details or contact James to book a place.

Monthly Drop-Ins

My next Monthly Drop-in for 2013 is taking place on Thursday 25th April, 6.30-8.30pm. Again, this will be open to anyone who has completed a course with me or any other mindfulness teacher. There will be a nominal charge of £10 payable on the night to cover the cost of these. These classes will take place at The Rectory Room, 2 Clancarty Road, Fulham, London SW6 3AB. Please contact me if you’d like to come.

Image courtesy of Timmy2S

Spring & Summer Mindfulness Courses and Events is a post on the Embrace website

For more information please contact The Mindfulness in Schools Project, the UK’s leading organisation in this field.

The piece was aired on Wednesday 27 March, 2013

Mindfulness in Schools – BBC Breakfast News is a post on the Embrace website

She is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal and founder of the Institute for the Study of Health & Illness which runs programs for health professionals who aspire to bring their hearts into their work and are dedicated to practicing a medicine of service.

In recent years the question how can I help? has become meaningful to many people. But perhaps there is a deeper question we might consider. Perhaps the real question is not how can I help? but how can I serve?

Serving is different from helping. Helping is based on inequality; it is not a relationship between equals. When you help you use your own strength to help those of lesser strength. If I’m attentive to what’s going on inside of me when I’m helping, I find that I’m always helping someone who’s not as strong as I am, who is needier than I am. People feel this inequality. When we help we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of worth, integrity and wholeness. When I help I am very aware of my own strength. But we don’t serve with our strength, we serve with ourselves. We draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve, our wounds serve, even our darkness can serve. The wholeness in us serves the wholeness in others and the wholeness in life. The wholeness in you is the same as the wholeness in me. Service is a relationship between equals.

Helping incurs debt. When you help someone they owe you one. But serving, like healing, is mutual. There is no debt. I am as served as the person I am serving. When I help I have a feeling of satisfaction. When I serve I have a feeling of gratitude. These are very different things.

Serving is also different from fixing. When I fix a person I perceive them as broken, and their brokenness requires me to act. When I fix I do not see the wholeness in the other person or trust the integrity of the life in them. When I serve I see and trust that wholeness. It is what I am responding to and collaborating with.

There is distance between ourselves and whatever or whomever we are fixing. Fixing is a form of judgment. All judgment creates distance, a disconnection, an experience of difference. In fixing there is an inequality of expertise that can easily become a moral distance. We cannot serve at a distance. We can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected, that which we are willing to touch. This is Mother Teresa’s basic message. We serve life not because it is broken but because it is holy.

Rachel Naomi Remen

Serving is Different from Helping and Fixing is a post on the Embrace website

Mindfulness for Life Interviews

Jon Kabat-Zinn on how we can access and move towards the felt sense of our experience by attending to what is present in this moment, whether pleasant or unpleasant, good bad or ugly.

This video segment also gives some background to the choice of title of his first book, Full Catastrophe Living, generally recognised as the ‘bible’ for Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction programmes.

Video 3 of 13

Video courtesy of PsychAlive

Full Catastrophe Living is a post on the Embrace website

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction is a post on the Embrace website

Jon Kabat-Zinn

In honour of John Kabat-Zinn’s forthcoming trip to the UK, I thought I’d post a series of mini-interviews that he recorded back in January 2013. If you want to see him in the flesh there are still tickets available to see him in London on the following dates.

27th March – International Mindfulness in Schools Conference 2013

This is an all day conference for anyone interested in the wellbeing of young people and the role of mindfulness in promoting this, including school teachers, parents, mindfulness teachers, school counsellors and psychologists working with children and adolescents.

Tickets are still available, cost £110 and can be booked through Eventbrite

28th March – An Evening with Jon Kabat-Zinn

Join the host (Action for happiness) for a wonderful evening of wisdom, discussion and inspiration with Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn, the internationally acclaimed scientist, author and father of modern mindfulness teaching.

Tickets are still available cost £15 plus optional donation and also can be booked through Eventbrite

Mindfulness for Life – Jon Kabat-Zinn, Jan 2013

For those who can’t make it, this video series, courtesy of PsychAlive, has been edited down into 13 easily digestible segments and gives a great introduction to the world of mindfulness and why the practice is becoming increasingly popular as a therapeutic intervention.

I shall be posting each 3-5 minute segment on a daily basis over the course of the next two weeks. Here is video #1 – What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness for Life – Interviews with Jon Kabat-Zinn is a post on the Embrace website

In this FREE 12-week video event series, Tami Simon speaks with contemporary luminaries in spirituality, psychology, and creativity to learn how we can truly embrace who we are.

Register with the Self Acceptance Project here or by clicking the image on the right.

The first session starts Monday 4th March 2013

Embracing Your Inner Critic is a post on the Embrace website

He quotes from the teachings of Buddha and the work of the 11th century poet Milarepa, as well as the words of a Tibetan Prayer by Nagarjuna.

The quest for peace of mind is one of the great challenges of our day. Many of us find it easier to achieve than others, but what do the teachings of those cultures who try to embrace the mind’s power have to say about our modern dilemma?

John McCarthy applies the Dalai Lama’s thoughts to the western experience with additional readings from the American philosopher Daniel Dennett and the work of the ground-breaking neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran.

The programme was recorded in the town of Leh in the Ladakh region of India.

You can listen to the programme by clicking on the following link: Something Understood – BBC Radio 4 on The Philosophy of Mind

The programme last 30 minutes. It’s available only until Saturday 16th February. I hope you enjoy it.

Something Understood – BBC Radio 4 on Philosophy of Mind with the Dalai Lama is a post on the Embrace website

Some nourishment for the heart on a Sunday evening!

And remember,

Don’t just watch the damn thing, but see if you can practice some of the suggestions and integrate them into your forthcoming week.

Video from KarmaTube

The Simplicity of Being Yourself is a post on the Embrace website

Traditionalists and meditation aficionados may gnash their teeth, but personally I’m something of a fan and if the prospect of only having to meditate for 10 minutes gets people to explore their inner landscape a little bit then that’s got to be a good thing…..no?

After all the practice of mindfulness is cumulative, so whether you sit for 10 or 40 mins a day it all adds up and in time, much like the water level in a bucket, the benefits of practice begin to spill over and seep into everyday life.

That said and after a little reflection, I think I’d rather be filling my buckets with a hosepipe than with a teaspoon.

Ten Mindful Minutes is a post on the Embrace website

This for me is the essence of meditation practice: just trying to notice what is present in our experience as it is happening.

I hope you enjoy the piece as much as I did.

One of the things we are trying to do here, is learn to pay attention to seeing what complicates our attention — where we get caught, what makes it difficult. Because the place we get caught is also the place where we are going to feel stress. The place we get hung up is often a very important window into understanding how we are most likely to suffer, or how we are more likely to cause problems in our life.

So we start by paying attention, which we all have the capacity to do. Yet when we get interested in this practice, how is it that our ability to stay calmly connected to the present moment gets somehow disrupted? People who meditate will sometimes think that the disruption is the problem. Disruption sounds like a bad word: “I got disrupted.” I got caught. When we do this meditation practice, we try to not judge anything as being bad or inappropriate. Rather we try to fold everything back into the attention. In other words, to notice this. Pay attention. What’s going on. Notice this, notice this. “Ah, I just got caught. I heard someone cough, and it reminded me that my friend was sick, and I wondered if I should visit my friend in the hospital, and I wonder how late Kaiser is open, and then I notice, “I’m teaching a class…oh!” So, it’s an example of getting pulled in. It was an innocent example, but it could also not be so innocent. Rather than saying that I shouldn’t have had that train of thought, what we try to do is fold everything back into the attention. “Oh, look at that, that’s what a disruption is like. That’s what it’s like for the mind to get hooked, get carried away. That’s what it’s like. That’s what it’s like.”

Do you understand that principle? It is a really important one. Sometimes, people who have been meditating for 10 years haven’t learned this one yet. Haven’t learned that there’s nothing that doesn’t need to happen. There’s nothing that you should say “that shouldn’t happen”. Rather, it’s one more thing to learn to pay attention to. And if you learn to pay attention well, there is freedom to be found in attention. In paying attention, there is a way of doing it where you are not caught, trapped, oppressed, influenced, or driven by what’s going on, inside or outside yourself. And that gives you a tremendous power to go about your life. If you have the ability not to be pushed around by your inner compulsions or the pressures from the outside. We learn this by learning how to use the attention in a new way.

Gill Fronsdal

Image courtesy of Vice1

Using Attention in a New Way is a post on the Embrace website

Sensory Awareness is a mindfulness practice through which we connect with our own natural intelligence and vitality; we discover what responds in us in the midst of change; and we learn to rely on our sensations as guides to the fresh terrain of each moment.

It helps us revive our capacity to be more embodied in the here-and-now. That is, to re-experience more fully the living somatic realities of life: gravity, breathing, balance, energy, touch, movement, and more. Through practice exploring deceptively simple sensory experiments, habitual thoughts and tensions melt into the background as we become more mindfully grounded and in contact with the present.

In this way we can become more fully alive and reclaim greater authenticity and natural ease in everything that we do.

I wish you would once in a while look into the eyes of a healthy baby and would see with what earnestness, interest, great power of concentration – a basic saying yes – such a child has. The child doesn’t yet want anything special: it is equally interested in everything that comes. When the child takes something and looks at it from all sides, or when somebody goes through the room and the child’s whole attention follows…..that is how we started. And it is also what we can come to – when this natural inner drive for full relating is unearthed and set free.

We wouldn’t be all the time so full of expectations and wishes, but we would be seeing more clearly that any world in which we live can be as astonishing as the world of a baby. And then all things are precious.

Charlotte Selver – from ‘Reclaiming Vitality and Presence – Sensory Awareness as a Practice for Life’

More information can be found at the Sensory Awareness Foundation which also gives a list of leaders who teach these classes around the world.

Sensory Awareness – the work of Charlotte Selver is a post on the Embrace website