All that is needed to transform our lives is to simply notice. This is all we need to do. Sound simple? Far from it. The more we dig into this through meditation and mindfulness, the more it reveals to us about the true nature of our world and the way we connect with it.
The starting point for Buddhist practice is the four noble truths. The simple facts that as humans we suffer. That it is the nature of that suffering that provides us with a way out of that very suffering. That there is an approach, a way out of that suffering, that the path is what we call the eight fold path.
The Buddha realised that there are three roots of all our suffering. None of these are external to us. Yes things happen to us but in truth, we don’t suffer because of those things. We suffer because of our reaction to those things and we react in 3 ways. Desire, aversion and delusion. All suffering comes from this. So if it is just about our reaction, then we simply change our reaction and we stop suffering? Well, that’s the tricky bit. Changing that reaction is going to be hard worked. Those very reactions have been baked into us through evolution. Desire. We have evolved go after the things that we believe will nurture us in some way. With aversion we push away and avoid the things that we believe will harm us. Sounds supremely sensible doesn’t it? Well yes, we wouldn’t have survived as a species without these evolved traits. But, we have the 3rd root which causes us most of our problems. Delusion. It might sound rather insulting to say we are delusional. But the truth is, we all are. Each and every one of us has biases, beliefs, mental habit, preconceptions, fears and phobias etc. These colour our view of the world, disconnects us and leads to delusion. We deepen and distort the affects of desire and aversion. This is why desire often becomes addiction to things which far from nourish us. Aversion becomes an irrational fear for things which can’t actually hurt us.
Buddhism develops An approach of noticing with pure awakened awareness. We notice ACTUALLY what is occurring and notice with brutal self honesty how we are reacting. By using meditation we develop this mental habit of deep noticing.
I offer three training courses.
1. An introduction to Buddhism and meditation. 4 week course
2. The Eight Fold Path – 6 week course
3. Withdrawing from self – 6 week course.
I also offer Buddhist mentoring. A one to one session, one hour, helping individuals focus on aspects of challenge in their loves and how meditation and Buddhist thinking can help them.
I am currently writing a book – The Magic of Noticing.