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I would like to wish all you lovely mindspringers a very happy Christmas and an enlightened new year.

This is an excerpt from our Thursday teaching, emphasising the Buddhist emphasis on recognising how we fundamentally misperceive reality. First, we only partially perceive and then we hazily generalise by conceptualizing. https://share.descript.com/view/Za1S2xSEBL2

Good morning, I have loved your 'presence' for many years Alistair (on escape to the country etc! Always finding you so calming! I have followed you on Instagram for ages, and now found your website. I have struggled for years with anxiety, worse since menopause, and then 2 years ago, I sadly, suddenly lost my husband...the worst night of my life..... I relived that night over and over for about a year. Last year I had an anxiety breakdown, which (no help from the GP apart from Diazapam which I quickly got off) I dipped my toes into yoga, and mindfulness which helped a little (I had trouble keeping it going) 6 months ago I went to a meditation retreat day, which led to classes of mindfulness/meditation/Buddhism teachings, which is helping my thoughts and breathing (I've not been able to breathe properly for years). I love Buddhist/contemplative/meditation teacher! Like you, he's so calming...... My husband was a therapist, he used to keep me going and hold me together in mind and body, so I lost more than just my best friend..... He used to do a lot of EFT too, which again I need to do more of, so, joining your site/group can only add to my box of tools, and I hope give me a bit more strength. I am planning to move house this year too, which has so many mixed emotions and is quite scary for me. Looking forward to seeing more of your teachings and guidance, thank you, Jayne xxx

I like it when a very simple diagram communicates something very complex. Thought some of you might like this too.... PS. Can Alistair come back from holiday now, please? 😉

Dear all, I gifted myself the beingfulness course today. I just finshed chemotherapy for lymphonic cancer. During my treatment I have spend a lot of time walking in nature, listening to the 'nothing much happens podcast' and living hour by hour day by day. Embracing life fully. And actually I felt happier than before I was ill. I still need a scan to confirm that the cancer is gone, but I also looking at how during my recovery I can continue to take care of myself physically, emotionally snd spiritually. This course looked like an easy and fun way to do and matches good with my worldview and most "sacred" experiences of feeling deeply connected. I am nowaydays on sick leave but work as a spiritual counselor ( e.g. like a chaplain but without being sent by a religious insitute,my most important source is being in nature) and reseacher in an university hospital. I will take what l learn with me in my wotk both with patients and collegues. Hope to meet many of you here online!

Let your mind rest, relaxed at ease. Do not get, caught up in the layers of the web of concepts that cling to a self. Let the knot of doubt be loosened in its own place. Cut the rope of duality at its thinnest point. Burst through the mat of latent tendencies at its thinnest point. Do not let the proliferation of thoughts become great; be without contrivance, and rest within freshness. [100,000 Songs, trans. Stagg. p509]

Once in a while I feel like I have had enough of experiencing the world from this body, with my thoughts, my past and present being. I wonder how it would be to experience life from within the experience of someone else. To be a young child, to be male, to be a bird flying in the sky. To be my dog sleeping in the sun. Today, as I brought this mornings meditation with me, I became very aware of awareness itself AND the boundedness of this awareness to this body and time. And also, that I am aware of this ever since I was a small child. There has often been something in me that marvels at being able to experience life; and yet is curious about other experiences, that would love to change perspective. There is a great contradiction in me: a life force, which is strong, both peaceful, deep and quiet and like a volcano: full energy waiting to burst into the world creative, dancing energy, loving and fruitful. And there is the reality of this body, tired, aching, dizzy; a life in which I try to contribute to family life, but have to drag myself along to do so. And sometimes I forget the latter, I feel like going for a long walk, but as I become aware of the picture in my mind’s eye: I see myself walking in the nearby woods, energetic, happy enjoying the outdoors…I sense my body an realize that I am not able to walk like that. And while I do not resent my body, I feel sometimes caged by it. I feel fed up, by how it weighs me down. Especially, while its lack of energy is also limiting my ability to concentrate, to have nice conservations with friends, to read a good book, to work, to play a long game with my kids……. There are tons of things I would love to do….They pop up in me…give me a spirit…yet cannot flourish or bloom….I feel like my dog in the morning: jumping around excitedly to get out, but having to wait till….yeah till when…if ever. So there is my caleidoscopic field:  aware of my longing, of my resistance to accepting this bodily being, of my  judgmental thought telling me to be ‘grateful to be alive’. Looking outside seeing a pink dahlia in the garden. Hearing a key in the lock, as my middle son comes home from school. My heart lifts up. The birds sing. A moment of content. A butterfly in the garden catches my eye. And my awareness of writing this, a longing to share my experience with you. And a judgmental thought about this longing. And a dissonant thought rising from deep inside my belly:  I post it anyway. And my awareness that with this tired body and tired mind, my experience differs from that of a year ago, 10 years ago, 30 years ago… I can trace a history to today, and in that sense it is my life, and this is my body. But my wish to have another perspective has been granted, albeit not in the way I may have hoped.

I've been trialling a new video editing software (editing takes up a lot of my time, so I'm always looking for better solutions) and this one ends up saving the video on a platform called Descript. Can you easily access the video if you click on the following link? What do you think of this platform?

https://share.descript.com/view/D3qLygV66gS

This thought from The Four Thoughts that we learned in the Gayles retreat has become a bit of a mantra for me this week. (Originally Mingyur Rinpoche, From “The Nectar of the Path” Liturgy, ‘The Four Thoughts’)