How can we bring the benefits of meditation to the rest of our life? That’s what I’m setting out to explore - and maybe help you, on your journey, too.

Indigenous Australians do it with dancing and dreams, the Japanese do it with tea, and at Christmas we might put out a mince pie for Santa, and a carrot for his reindeer. All of these are examples of rituals. As human beings, we seem just to gravitate towards performing sets of actions like this: this desire to perform things ritualistically is deeply ingrained in us as humans. We see them in every human society, across every time period - references to rituals exist in ancient Egyptian hierogliphs from five thousand years ago, and we constantly create new ones today.

Non duality is about recognising what’s really going on, second by second, and being ok with that

Your friend - your best friend in all the world - sometimes feels all alone in the world. So do you. Fixing this is impossible; trying is what counts.

I’ve been trying out different kinds of non-dual meditation. This is quite different from my experiences with mindfulness-based meditations, but I’ve found it quite delightful!

Some practical tips for working with your anxiety

I recently re-read Douglas Hardings short book, “On Having No Head”. He wrote this classic in 1961, and I read it first as a young man perhaps 30 years ago, but it has not aged one drop. This is a true gem of a book - it sparkles in the light and when viewed from some angles it is beautiful indeed, but there are some sharp pointy bits, and it’s quite hard.

Let’s face it, some days are pretty awful. Maybe it’s something dramatic - you are laid off at work, or someone near to you is diagnosed with something really bad, or you return to your car to find a huge scrape all the way along one side and no note of apology under the windscreen wiper. Maybe it’s something that might appear trivial to others - you tread on an errant piece of Lego and spill your cup of tea on your clean clothes.

We all have to do difficult things, but we shouldn’t just do them for the hoped-for outcome. We can chose to do them mindfully, regardless of outcome.

Equanimity for Buddhists is one of the four highest emotions, one of the states we aspire to live in and live by. We see it as the ground for wisdom, the protector of compassion and love, and as full of radiance and warmth for others. It’s a quality we can consciously cultivate through meditation.