I have been reading Rob Burbea’s book, ‘Seeing That Frees’, subtitled ‘Meditations on Emptiness and Dependent Arising’. I want to share my excitement about this book, how I am connecting with it and how it links into a direction for the school. This is the sort of book that really excites me because I get very tired of my own
Staying present to experiences, embracing difficult emotions
What a thrilling end of the Spring Term it has been! There was the fantastic, well-attended Family Mindfulness Day and, on the following Tuesday, I was amazed at how well the children from our small school performed in the ‘Let’s Dance’ celebrations. We hardly paused for breath to mark Red Nose Day and raised a little shy of £400 in
‘Peace is the way’
“There is no way to peace, peace is the way” – Plum Village song Like all of the major world religions, Buddhism is a religion of peace. The Dhammapada, an early Buddhist collection of verses on practice and ethics in everyday life, makes this abundantly clear. Verse five of the text states: “Hatred is never appeased by hatred. Hatred is
On Loving Kindness
Loving Kindness ‘Come sit down beside me I said to myself, And although it didn’t make sense, I held my own hand As a small sign of trust And together I sat on the fence.’ – Michael Leunig There are many prescriptions for living a good life but none resonate as much as those I take from my Buddhist practice. Practising
Guarding the sense doors
This Precious Human Life “Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am
Primary is primary
I have, almost unavoidably, been reading some post-US election articles and opinion pieces recently. They are strange and unnerving times we live in, in this ‘post-truth’ world. You cannot believe what you are being told as facts, even on the news, but you can trust your experience. A degree of scepticism has always been necessary, but recently my healthy scepticism
Home learning & home practice
I brought my banjo to last week’s puja. As well as attempting to be entertaining, I was modelling the visible and (hopefully) audible benefits of practising the banjo. I took up banjo about four years ago and am reasonable at it now. I began playing the (classical) guitar around the age of seven and still enjoy playing it more than
‘Driven to distraction’
In a recent puja, during a short period of meditation, one of our youngest children piped up, ‘I’m bored’. How many times have we, as parents or adults, heard ‘This is boring’ or ‘I’m bored’? And what do we say in response to this? Busy adults are rarely bored and, as we know, this does not mean that we are
‘Training our Learning Muscles’
These blogs from me often feel like an invitation to wax lyrical about my passions, the way I think and – as if we were part of a Venn diagram – I hope it they might overlap with your responses as an individual and in your role as a parent or carer. Another overlap is with my role as a
‘This is It’
During their recent visit, our monastic friends from Plum Village had an ongoing joke they liked to roll around whilst chuckling amongst themselves. It is based on semantics: ‘We went up the Downs’. ‘We went for a walk – up the Downs! Our six visitors brought with them tremendous humour and warmth, along with some super songs, a great deal