Mindfulness
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Befriending Eco-Anxiety: A Practice of Deep Adaptation
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Walking along stretches of beach in Colombo, Sri Lanka, a city of five million people, trash is everywhere: plastic bottles, straws and bags, styrofoam, the lone flip flop, take-out food containers, and more. At one spot there is a strong, unpleasant odour, where an open sewage line flows directly into the ocean. The contrast between…
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Kindness Meditation: A Short Practice for Cultivating Kindness
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To celebrate World Kindness Day, Kaira Jewel, a former Buddhist nun who lived for 15 years in the Plum Village community, offers reflections and a mindfulness practice to help us cultivate kindness. I moved to Colombo, Sri Lanka a year ago. During the first six weeks or so I experienced culture shock as I adjusted…
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How to Cultivate the Art of Noticing
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The stimulation of modern life, philosopher Georg Simmel complained in 1903, wears down the senses, leaving us dull, indifferent and unable to focus on what really matters In the 1950s, writer William Whyte lamented in Life magazine that ‘billboards, neon signs,’ and obnoxious advertising were converting the American landscape into one long roadside distraction. ‘A…
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Zen Ethics: Collective Awakening and the Five Mindfulness Trainings
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Each winter in Plum Village we have a three-month retreat. There are about 250 people, monastics and laypeople, practicing together for ninety days. We get up very early in the morning and we practice joyfully as a spiritual family. We listen to Dharma talks, we practice walking meditation, we practice eating in mindfulness, we practice…
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Mindful Tech: Do These 8 Mindfulness Apps Practise What They Preach?
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It’s becoming increasingly clear that modern tech is having a serious impact on our wellbeing. And unlike drug or alcohol abuse, the effects aren’t always visible. But that doesn’t mean it’s not damaging to us—particularly because modern society demands a certain level of dependence on it. So what can we do about it? One method…
