MINDFULNESS – SPIRITUALITY – BEING IN THE WORLD
Welcome to this web-site.
This is my personal web-site through which I seek to share a way of being in the world which I am finding both deeply nourishing as well as profoundly challenging.
My three main concerns/interests are:
MINDFULNESS
I am a trained mindfulness teacher but more importantly mindfulness is what I seek to practice in my life as a way of:
- finding a sense of anchor and grounded-ness in the midst of inner and outer challenges
- deepening my insight into what is going on both within me and in the world around
- responding wisely to the circumstances of my life and in the world day by day
Mindfulness, for me, is much more than a meditation practice but is a way of being and a way of living. In this web-site you will find both information about my formal teaching and also reflections on what this kind of living feels like and looks like day by day.
SPIRITUALITY AND THE WAY OF WHOLENESS
I have had difficulty in recent years with some of the more ‘religious’ forms of spirituality but have become more settled with what is sometimes known as ‘non-dual’ spirituality.
Many forms of spirituality seem to try to break down human experience into the binary categories of good/bad, right/wrong, sacred/secular, spiritual/material. One of the problems with this approach is that one is always preferred over the other and we can end up rejecting or suppressing whole tranches of human experience as we find that reality just can’t be neatly divided up in this way.
A ‘non-dual’ approach would be to seek to welcome, without judgement all aspects of our experience and rather than judging one thing over the other – to seek the relationship between each and in this way to find the inherent unity in all of life.
This, then, is the way of wholeness – of integration of our fragmented selves.
I find this approach to spirituality both more satisfying and more challenging and all my reflections on spirituality will assume this basic stance.
And so, naturally, I seek to find the non-dual strands within the various spiritual traditions.
BEING IN THE WORLD
It is not only ourselves that are fragmented but our whole culture. And there is, of course, a direct link between the two: our fragmented culture shapes us as individuals just as much as we individuals shape our culture.
And so, as we find an increasing integration and wholeness in our own lives through our spiritual practice, there is a need, then, to bring this into our world. And this is deeply challenging – not only because we are only ever beginners ourselves but also because the fragmented nature of our culture is so deeply entrenched.
In the light of this, the question I begin to ask myself is: how then should we live?
The answer to this question will be found on several different levels: in my spiritual practice; in my personal relationships; in my lifestyle; as well as in whatever I can do to question and challenge those aspects of our culture which do not support the flourishing of life on earth – including all human life.
So my musings will also explore themes such as these with particular interest in
- environmental issues
- all issues around migration.
The two are, of course, deeply connected.
Thank you for reading this far.
I hope you enjoy exploring different aspects of this site.
And do get in touch through the contact page.