Follow Your Bliss

I was teaching a group of students this week about Buddhism and how Buddhism came to the West and was talking about this phrase: “follow your bliss”, which Joseph Campbell would always encourage his students to make central to their […]

We are made of star dust

I remember hearing this quote some time ago, perhaps even as a child, as the show it was from, Cosmos, was broadcast in the ’70s. It always made me think of the vastness of the Universe and yet the intimacy of […]

The Carefree Heart

A metaphor that is often used by meditation teachers is of thoughts being like clouds in the sky.  It can be easy to hear this and forget to feel what it is suggesting. When I was a teen I heard […]

Picking more daisies

If I had my life to live over again, I’d dare to make more mistakes next time. I’d relax. I’d limber up. I’d be sillier than I’ve been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more […]

Remembering to play!

We all did it at one time, and for many of us it is something we have grown out of. This week I’ve been chatting with a friend about play and he’s been talking about how he still likes to […]

Opening to Joy – The Path to Awakening

Buddhism is often accused of being pessimistic due to the focus on suffering as the entry to the path of self knowing. It´s cettainly true that what attacted me at the beguining was this acknowlegement that there was suffering. And […]

Finding Peace Through Embracing Difficulty

.A few years ago I went to a talk by Jeff Foster and I refer back to it frequently as it really clarified for me what this process of embracing the present moment might feel like. I’ve included a clip form one […]

Let the Inner Child Rescue You

Last week at the social after the class someone said that they had been interested in my comment in that week’s email about the change my mother saw in me as I went from a child into my teens – loosing some of my […]

Humour and the spiritual life

In my last post I was reflecting on the phrase ‘follow your bliss’ and how humour and joy are part of  what supports us in our practice. Someone sent me a link to a video recently which made me laugh […]