In this talk from the 2018 “Being Still Still Being” retreat on Holy Island, Alistair lays out the fundamental principles of “retreat”. What needs to happen for us to really sink into our experience? How do the constraints of the Container free us up?
Holy Island #4: The Topsy-Turvey Logic of Tonglen
In the final chunk from the 2017 Holy Island Compassion retreat Alistair introduces the mind-boggling practice of tonglen, one of the classic Buddhist techniques for rousing the compassionate heart. If you’d like to come to Holy Island this October for more compassion training, please look here. If you’re in London and wanted to experience tonglen […]
Holy Island #3: The Heath Robinson Self
The third excerpt from Mindsprings’ 2017 Compassion Retreat on Holy Island. Here Alistair explains how we don’t need to judge ourselves for having grown up with faulty ways of dealing with the world. It was a jerry-rigged solution which worked but now causes us pain…
Holy Island #2: The Pro-Social Roots of Compassion
This is the second excerpt from 2017 Holy Island course on Compassion, where Alistair explains that our bodies are actually perfectly tuned to be compassionate and that we are successful as a species because of it.
Holy Island #1: the Evolutionary Roots of Compassion
This is part one of excerpts from the 2017 Compassion course on Holy Island in Scotland. Alistair talks here about the evolutionary roots of compassion and why human sensitivity is the key to our success as a species… To experience the Holy Island course 2018 please look here.
Therapy Vs Meditation – 2 – Lineage Of Buddhism And The Trungpa Outlier
This is part 2 of Alistair’s 2017 talk in Dublin on the intertwining of therapy and Buddhist meditation. This part is considering the long lineage of Buddhist teaching and touching on the ‘sidelined’ teachings of Vajrayana master Chögyam Trungpa.
Psychotherapy Vs Meditation – 1 – Lineage Of Therapy And Its Outliers
This is the first of three sections from Alistair’s public talk in Dublin in October 2017 looking at the relationship between psychotherapy and Buddhism. This first part looks at the ‘lineage’ therapy and what is often dissociated from that history…
Tales from Holy Island
What you’ll hear This is an excerpt from the 2017 “Being Earthed” Holy Island Retreat led by Fay Adams and Alistair Appleton. In it, Fay and Alistair share personal stories about the power of the island. And Fay reads the words of Tai Situpa about the geomancy of Holy Isle Experience the magic of the […]
Greying Out the World – 3: “You think you’re meditating but you’re just dissociating”
In the final part of Alistair’s 2018 talk from Scarborough, he turns his attention to the way that Buddhism might understand dissociation. He probes the ways in which meditation can mimic this defence and finds ways to free ourselves from it…
Greying Out the World – 2: Freud-Oedipus vs. Janet-Osiris
This is Part 2 of Alistair 2018 talk on dissociation from Scarborough. Here he starts to discuss the fascinating cover-up of the work of Pierre Janet in the “lineage of psychotherapy” and how the myths of Osiris and Oedipus cast further light on the power of dissociation…