In the Epilogue of my book, Why Mindfulness is Better than Chocolate, I reprise a few insights about the benefits of living more mindfully. I hope you find these useful! Warm wishes, David Epilogue There’s a story I like about a New York merchant banker who goes on vacation to an idyllic seaside village in the Caribbean. After a few...
Latest Blog Posts
Quick Video Update on The Dalai Lama’s Cat Movie!
Hi Blog Readers, I’m just back from a visit to London where I met up with The Dalai Lama’s Cat Movie team. What a great group of people and it’s wonderful how well everyone gets along! I know a lot of you are as excited as I am about the movie, and are keen to know what’s happening with it. ...
Introducing the fresh, new edition of Buddhism for Busy People
Dear Blog Readers, I am thrilled to let you know that Shambhala Publications, the world’s leading publisher of Buddhist books, has decided to bring out a new edition of Buddhism for Busy People. First published in Australia in 2004 and USA in 2008, my very first book about Buddhism has had a momentum beyond anything I ever imagined, continuing to be published around the world not...
What happens to our mind when we go into nature?
For most of us, the opportunity to spend time in the natural world is rare and fleeting. If we are fortunate, we may enjoy regular walks in the park or by the sea. We may get out of town on the occasional weekend. The very lucky get to go on Mindful Safari to Africa! But what if we were to...
Too busy for a spiritual life? Don’t sell yourself short!
From time to time we read stories in the media about incredibly successful, high-flying, workaholic uber-achievers, who thrive on relentless deadlines, travel, stress etc, usually getting by on all of 4 hours sleep a night. You can do it too, seems to be the subliminal message. Perhaps even you should do it. If you have an ounce of backbone, entrepreneurial...
Can suffering ever be useful?
I’d like to respond to this very important question by sharing some ancient symbols with fascinating associations from East and West. I first came across the idea of alchemy as a teenager. I think we were studying a Shakespeare play where there was a reference to medieval chemists trying to turn base metals into gold. At the time I thought of the whole thing as a...
Do you manage your thoughts? Or do your thoughts manage you? Two strategies that help.
Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all Thought Managers. Whatever other job title we may temporarily have – Fire Station Superintendent, Chief Executive Officer, mother – our permanent job, the one we’ve had since birth and will have till the day we die, is Thought Manager. The job of any manager is to marshal whatever resources...
Five Secrets of a Purposeful Life : from The Queen’s Corgi
One of the great privileges of spending your days with The Queen is the intriguing assortment of beings you encounter. And the insights they share. In passing just a few of these on to you, my fellow subject, I make no claims to be the model of a purposeful pooch. On the contrary, my early life with Her Majesty was a...
The Dalai Lama’s Cat Movie Leaps Forward
Dear Blog Readers, I’m thrilled to let you know that The Dalai Lama’s Cat Movie has taken a leap forward this month. It’s been a while since I last blogged about the movie, simply because there wasn’t a whole lot to say. By way of a quick refresher and update, this is where we are: SCRIPT We have a great...
Can a human come back as a cat – and vice versa? The Buddhist view.
An idea that challenges, confuses and sometimes even angers people is that each of us could be reborn as an animal. When I recently blogged about karma, quite a few of the comments asked more about this subject. So, what is the Tibetan Buddhist perspective? It’s important not to be encumbered with ideas from Western culture and society when exploring Buddhism. In particular,...
Others’ bad karma is no cause to rejoice
It’s not that unusual to hear people talk about the bad karma that others have created – and how happy they will be when that karma comes back to bite their adversary in the butt. But this is actually an idea that could backfire terribly! People don’t just say these things. They also post stuff on social media. I have included a...
News Update from David Michie
Hello Blog Readers! Blog now back in business First of all, my apologies if some of my most recent blogs haven’t got through to you. Late last year I upgraded my website – if you haven’t seen it, check it out, as there’s a lot more content on it. As is the way with technology, the upgrade affected the blog functionality,...
