Happy New Year! You and I, dear reader, are among the top 0.0000001% of the world’s population. How can I make such an extraordinary pronouncement? The population to which I refer is that of all sentient beings – not just humans. To be born as one of only 7 billion humans on a...
Author: David Michie (David Michie)
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Win one of 5 Free copies of ‘Mindfulness is Better than Chocolate’ !
If you live in USA or Canada, you are eligible to enter the Giveaway of 5 copies of my new book being published on 6 January 2015. Prizewinners will be announced on January 16th. If you want to be guaranteed of a copy, you can pre-order it now from all the usual online booksellers....
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Three questions to help set priorities in the year ahead
At this time of year, many of us step back from our usual routine, and take time to reconnect with family and friends from our past. We also, quite naturally, contemplate the year/s ahead. Whether you are a formal goal-setter, or prefer to reflect on your purpose in a less structured way, I hope you...
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Life after death – the Tibetan Buddhist view
In the West, there are two mainstream models to describe happens when we die. On the one hand, the Christian tradition teaches that each of us has a soul which separates from the body at death and goes to heaven or hell for eternity. On the other, the materialistic model suggests that matter is...
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How we die: a brief explanation of the Tibetan Buddhist view
My last blog looked at the value of contemplating death while we’re still very much alive. This blog focuses on the death process itself as presented by Tibetan Buddhism. Western medicine defines death as what happens when our heart stops beating and we stop breathing. In Buddhism, death is described as a sequence of eight stages. ...
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5 Free Copies of ‘Mindfulness is Better than Chocolate’ to give away in USA and Canada
With the publication of ‘Mindfulness is Better than Chocolate’ in USA and Canada planned for 27 January 2015, my US publishers are offering 5 free copies via a raffle. Entering the raffle is free of charge, and should take you no more than about half a minute . If the page takes a...
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Awakening to the true value of life – in a mortuary
A couple of weeks ago I had one of those ‘catching up on the last ten years’ phone calls with a friend who lives in Germany. Jacqui is amazing, amusing and vivacious, a woman of great inner and outer beauty. She had a successful modelling career in South Africa, where we met, as well as...
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Christmas gift suggestions for the person with everything
There’s something sobering about watching a small child toss aside a half-opened Christmas present in the hope of finding a more instantly gratifying one in the pile beneath it. Or observing an office manager remove a festive hamper from reception with a frown that seems to say ‘Not another delivery of shortbread and Chardonnay!’ Every...
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Why meditating affects you physically
Meditation has so many physical benefits that even Homer Simpson would be keen to benefit from them, if only he could get off the sofa. I’ve already blogged about some of these (http://davidmichie.com/what-are-the-main-physical-benefits-of-meditation/). But why does meditation affect you physically? How is it that, by attaching the seat of your pants to the seat of...
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The Benefits of Mindful Safari in Africa
A recent study conducted by Harvard University Psychology Department showed that 47% of the time we are not thinking about what they are doing. Instead we are in what neuro-scientists call a ‘narrative state’ – i.e. lost in thought, as opposed to the ‘direct state,’ when we attend to our senses. More interestingly, there is...