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June 2018
BEING STILL – STILL BEING: Mindsprings Summer Retreat
Our annual Mindsprings Summer retreat: The practice of peaceful sitting For the summer retreat, Alistair Appleton and Kirsty Davidson are guiding the practice of silent sitting, so beloved by so many traditions but so often plagued with obsessive thinking and physical pain. Drawing on the somatic teachings of Reggie Ray, Alistair will be leading us to find a way to sit within the "field of the body" and let troublesome thoughts float away. In this easy and open way of…
Find out more »August 2018
Free Event: August Bank Holiday Morning Meditation
What is the August Bank Holiday Morning Meditation? As part of the brand-new Newhaven Festival in Sussex, Alistair is hosting a number of free activities, including a August Bank Holiday Morning Meditation. It's a reprise of his popular "Sit the Downs" practice on the chalky hills of his home town. Why "Sit the Downs"? The chalk-hills of the South Downs stretch from Winchester in the West to Eastbourne in the East. And since he grew up, Alistair has realised that…
Find out more »September 2018
SITTING WITH THE FEELING: Exploring emotions in meditation
Drawing on his experience as a long-term practitioner, therapist and Buddhist, Alistair Appleton is leading a 2-day workshop for those interested in working more skilfully with their emotions. Many of us have the tendency to pathologise what we feel and beat ourselves up for the negative emotions that can spring up from nowhere. Working with the body as the safe container for our practice, Alistair is looking at ways of cultivating a more curious, compassionate and embodied dance with the…
Find out more »October 2018
THE BEATING HEART OF COMPASSION
Our annual Compassion retreat on Holy Island This autumn’s Mindsprings retreat is again looking at the subject of compassion. Taught by Alistair Appletono with yoga taught by Kirsty Davidson. Right at the heart of Buddhist practice is the quality of warm connection that is called the “awakening heart”. Often we can get caught up into concept and ideas about how this compassionate heart "should" be. But Mindsprings teaches these bodhicitta practices from an embodied, here-and-now place. Doing them this way…
Find out more »THE TOPSY-TURVEY LOGIC OF TONGLEN
In this 2-day workshops, Alistair Appleton leads us through a very embodied engagement with this classic Buddhist practice. Most of us live by grabbing hold of what we want and pushing away the nasty bits of life, but tonglen turns this completely on its head: what happens if we welcome the negative and give away the good? Crazy as it sounds, practicing this from a strongly embodied and open-hearted place leads to long-lasting shifts in our experience of the world.…
Find out more »November 2018
A Meditative Approach to Anxiety in Edinburgh
What this course is about This November we're exploring the meditative approach to anxiety in Edinburgh. Anxiety is a ubiquitous human experience. And part of the reason it's so problematic is that we demonise it and don't know what to do with it. It helps if we understand how anxiety works in our bodies and develop embodied tools to tolerate it. And embodied meditation gives us exactly that framework. We can learn to have a different relationship with anxiety. The…
Find out more »February 2019
PUBLIC TALK in Edinburgh: The Body is a Buddhafield not a Battlefield
Alistair Appleton is giving a free public talk in Edinburgh on the evening of Friday 15th February 2019. The talk is raising money for the Salisbury Centre. He's speaking on the subject, "The Body is a Buddhafield not a Battlefield". It's about the role of the body (or 'soma') in Buddhist practice. And especially the necessity to meditate somatically in this radically disembodied age we're living in. "He Lived a short distance from his body" The intensifying digitalisation of our…
Find out more »Introduction to Embodied Meditation in Edinburgh
Alistair is teaching embodied meditation in Edinburgh. Following the big success of his anxiety course, Alistair Appleton is back in the Scottish capital running a course on embodied meditation in Edinburgh. Based on his work as psychotherapist and his studies with the American Dharma teacher, Reggie Ray, Alistair is leading a weekend introduction to the field of 'embodied meditation'. It will be suitable for all levels: beginners or practitioners wanting to explore this new paradigm of meditation. The feeling of…
Find out more »March 2019
PUBLIC TALK: Can you be a Buddhist and have a Self?
A fund-raising public talk at the Cardiff Buddhist Centre Alistair is back in 2019 to give a public lecture at the Cardiff Centre on Cowbridge Road. And he's tackling one of the most fascinating and mind-boggling issues of Buddhism. If there is no self what is existing in the here-and-now? Buddhist "no-self" and the neural magnificence of the brain Alistair works as a psychotherapist and is especially interested in the physiological underpinnings of our emotions and behaviours. The great explosion…
Find out more »Cardiff Meditation Weekend – Mindful Togetherness
Alistair is back for a Cardiff Meditation Weekend looking at relationships. At the end of each Winter, Alistair Appleton comes to Wales to teach a Cardiff meditation weekend. These popular courses look at how we can use meditation to impact our every day life. And this year Alistair is exploring relationships. Often Buddhist theory can focus on the solitary aspects of existence. This is a relic of meditation's origins in solitary practice or monastic settings. But as a therapist and…
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