Dear Readers, We’re just back from our most recent Mindful Safari season, and I wanted to share some hot-off-the-press photos from our fantastic time at Victoria Falls. We made so many wonderful memories during our time there, it’s hard to know where to begin! Perhaps with the way we started each day – a guided meditation. It’s very easy to...
Latest Blog Posts
What are mantras, and how do they work? A Tibetan Buddhist view.
Dear Blog Readers, Among the most widespread images of Tibetan Buddhism are those showing multi-coloured prayer flags catching the wind, or Tibetans whirling prayer wheels, or monks chanting in temples. Mantras are the focus of these and other activities in our practice. But what is a mantra, exactly? And why the emphasis on repeating mantras? Like most other subjects in...
The Fascinating Science behind Mindful Safari
When we set out on our first Mindful Safari it was with a sense of curiosity: what would a week of twice daily meditation sessions, combined with twice daily game drives, feel like? What changes might we sense by the end of it? Since then, the experience of dozens in the ever-extending Mindful Safari family has been that our time...
Are Short Stories Making a Come Back? Tell Me What You Think?
I have always loved short stories. As a teenager I remember devouring the work of Somerset Maugham, who was considered a master of the genre. I enjoyed the way that you were instantly immersed in a particular story or world. How the dynamics moved forward with a particular intensity. And how the best of the stories delivered a satisfying, unexpected...
The Easy Way to Meditate – Through Nature
One of the most predictable outcomes of any meditation program is that several months afterwards, most people who attended will not be meditating. This may seem a bleak assessment. And although it’s based on personal experience, it is by no means my experience alone. According to Joshua Smythe, a biobehavioral scientist at Pennsylvania State University, only 30 percent of people...
The Astral Travelers Handbook & Other Tales – read the Dalai Lama’s Cat foreword here!
Could there be a greater honour than having the Dalai Lama’s Cat herself contribute the Foreword to my book, The Astral Traveler’s Handbook & Other Tales? If there is, dear reader, I have yet to be told about it. Below, fresh from the Himalayas, the musings of the world’s most realised feline, His Holiness’s Cat! FOREWORD BY THE DALAI...
The Big Reveal – Drum Roll! – Cover of The Astral Traveler’s Handbook!
My heartfelt thanks to every single one of you who voted on the range of book covers I shared in my blog about six weeks ago. And also thanks to each one of you who provided feedback, analysis and suggestions. It was all way beyond anything I had expected! That blog was the most commented on of any blog I’ve...
The enduring fascination with Lobsang Rampa
Over a year ago I wrote a blog about T. Lobsang Rampa, author of books like The Third Eye and You Forever, that were very popular in the 1960s and 70s. The main point I tried to make in my blog (link below) was that a surprising number of Western students aged 55 plus, attribute their initial interest in Tibetan...
Who is the right Buddhist teacher for you?
In Tibetan Buddhism, the foundation of our practice is not a belief, a text, or a ritual – but a teacher. The importance of a teacher really can’t be over-emphasized. At the most basic level, because Buddhism is a practice-based psychology, the role of the teacher is like that of the golf coach, the piano teacher or the driving instructor...
Please help me pick a cover for my next book!
Hi Everyone, We’re at that exciting stage of the publishing process where six different cover designs are being considered for my next book. What is the book? A collection of short stories entitled ‘The Astral Traveller’s Handbook & Other Tales’ – in what I plan to be the first of a new series of ‘Bedtime Buddha’ publications. (For Dalai Lama’s...
Does meditating put you out of touch with reality?
I’d like to share an excerpt from my book, Enlightenment to Go, which deals with exactly this question. How better than to illustrate with the example of an Englishwoman who spent twelve years meditating alone in a cave in the Himalayas? A concern I’ve heard expressed is that too much time spent meditating, or developing other inner practices, could result...
What practice is at the heart of Tibetan Buddhism?
Tibetan Buddhism contains a wonderful array of practices to suit many different people, across a variety of circumstances. But at the centre of all these practices, you might say at the heart of Tibetan Buddhism itself, is the cultivation of bodhichitta. What is bodhichitta, and why is it so important? The following extract from my book, Enlightenment to Go, explains...
