As I sit and start writing this first blog for a while, I connect with the memory of how I started my blogging career “like this” – a savoured moment sat in the corner of a cafe. Twenty years ago, I was writing about cycling and coaching. The coffee companion remains, this Helen still cycles, …
I can’t believe its Friday again. Time goes ever so fast these days anyway; but this week it has been stretching and contracting, and I don’t quite know where (and when) I am. I don’t really know HOW I am either… This time last week, I was receiving the news that my Dad, who was …
I am writing from the Dieppe – Newhaven ferry, returning from a week of solitary retreat in my beloved Normandy. My hope was to immerse myself in 10 to 12 hours of practice each day – the practice at hand being Guru Yoga, the fourth practice of the Vajrayana preliminaries, or Ngondro¹. Practicing for that …
A couple of weeks ago I shared that it had been a good summer: one that ticked all the boxes across body, mind, and spirit. I also mentioned that it was not without its challenges. One of the ‘good’ things about being an existential psychotherapist – a Buddhist one at that – is the reality …
I’m in that strange bardo state commonly known as ‘jet lag’ having arrived back from a visit to Canada; Nova Scotia to be more precise…or to be right on the dollar, Halifax Shambhala Centre. Shambhala is the organisation originally formed by Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. And while Shambhala has a history peppered with …
I had the luxury of a day to myself yesterday; a chance to bathe in “sabbath” and commit the whole day to my practice. From just after 7am in the morning until 5pm, I alternated between periods of meditation and the fourth of the Ngondro practices: a visualisation and mantra practice called “guru yoga”. As …
In the last two weeks of this term’s enneagram for therapists group I have been facilitating, we are turning toward the “path quality” that the enneagram offers. What makes the enneagram so much more than a personality typing system is how it points to both our blocks to wholeness, and how to lever back into …
Last week’s post described some of the experiences in the first half of a four day block of mandala practice: the third out of the four practices of Ngondro. You might recall those first two days had me come face to face with a futility and deep questioning of “what an earth am I doing?” On …
Marking season nearly through, I managed to carve out four days in my week to press on with Ngondro practice. Just in the use of that phrase, “press on” hints at a flavour of something! As I have explained previously on this blog, Ngondro are the four “preliminary practices” a student of Vajrayana does in …
I have just returned from a trip to the US. Part “big birthday” celebration; part tour of Buddhist friends old and new; part retreat. Ever since completing my meditation teacher training there 11 years ago, the city of New York has been something of a spiritual home for me. The yearlong immersion in Buddhist study …