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Alistair Appleton
Jan 315 min read
What does Buddhism have to say about sexuality and gender?
New member Fran, coming from a progressive Islamic mosque in Canada, was interested in Buddhism’s stance on gender and sexuality and so I...
1,008 views14 comments
Alistair Appleton
Nov 17, 20235 min read
Generosity 2: The Pinch Point
This transcript comes from the second week exploring the transcendental action (paramita) of generosity. You can join in the cornucopia...
195 views6 comments
Alistair Appleton
Nov 17, 20236 min read
Generosity 1: dana and dzinpa
From the first of two live sessions dedicated to the "transcendental action" of generosity, in November 2023. A recording of the practice...
249 views11 comments
Alistair Appleton
Nov 9, 20233 min read
The Paramitas: where the rubber of practice hits the road of reality
If you've been following our Live Sessions of late, you may have noticed this word paramita cropping up again and again. Apologies if it...
321 views0 comments
Alistair Appleton
Oct 21, 20233 min read
How the Holy Island retreat went this Autumn...
Photos from the summer retreat courtesy of Darika Barker and Elaine Gray. Obviously, we didn't have our phones in October! We went to...
1,099 views19 comments
Alistair Appleton
Sep 13, 20231 min read
The Road Home / Gillian Allnutt
Gillian Allnutt is a British poet from the Northeast of the country and the recipient of the Queen's Prize for poetry. This poem is from...
504 views5 comments
Alistair Appleton
Aug 23, 20234 min read
Make Your Own Retreat
I am a big fan of organised retreats. There is something so potent and human in being with a group of people who signed up for a week or...
547 views0 comments
Alistair Appleton
Jun 29, 20236 min read
Going Outdoors to Enter the Presence
I am entering one of my periodic periods of great doubt. I have these on a fairly regular basis - once every five years, perhaps - and...
1,316 views28 comments
Alistair Appleton
Feb 4, 20235 min read
The Magic of No Escape
Growing up in a Christian world (I was an Anglican choirboy for many of my most impressionable early years), my mind has been suffused...
716 views13 comments
Alistair Appleton
Jan 9, 20236 min read
Sitting Out practice
The January full moon over the Seven Sisters, 2022. WHAT IS SITTING OUT? I’ve been exploring a practice called ‘sitting out’. It’s not a...
877 views27 comments
Alistair Appleton
Jan 21, 20224 min read
Every broken heart is sacred
The final blog in my series of seven from 2013 is perhaps the juiciest of them all. I was all tender from a very intense, heart-breaking...
258 views2 comments
Alistair Appleton
Dec 15, 20214 min read
But now there is a forest
This is the third of the set of seven blogs I wrote back in 2014 following a chance encounter with one of my Buddhist teachers Ajahn...
18 views0 comments
Alistair Appleton
Aug 6, 20213 min read
Avebury Magic and Anti-magic
Another scoop from the archives. Funnily enough, I may have changed my mind from the rather Puritan stance voiced in this blog in the...
26 views0 comments
Alistair Appleton
Apr 23, 20214 min read
The Supersumptuous
That voice is all wrong, really. It’s not formal, it’s not ‘correct’ but it gushes and it’s unstoppable. It IS supersumptous. And that’s wh
17 views0 comments
Alistair Appleton
Mar 22, 20215 min read
Understanding the weather of emotions: Candace Pert’s “Molecules of Emotion”
that phrases like ‘I’ve got a gut feeling about this’ turn out to be literally correct.
118 views0 comments
Alistair Appleton
Mar 5, 20218 min read
Mother Nature doesn’t care about suffering. Buddha does.
I have been really deeply inspired by the experience of leading the Dharma Days for Mindsprings. After my initial introduction to the...
39 views0 comments
Alistair Appleton
Feb 25, 20215 min read
Dynamiting the prison of the present
Karen spoke about feeling trapped in the present. As meditators, we’re always encouraged to stay in the present and “be here now”, but...
13 views0 comments
Alistair Appleton
Feb 21, 20196 min read
Mögu & My Problem with Teachers
The need to be a ‘know-it-all’ I have a problem with teachers. When I was little – for various reasons I won’t bore you with – I always...
7 views0 comments
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