Next month, in April, I’m going to be teaching on a course with Choden (mindfulness teacher, Buddhist monk, author and old friend) on “The Practice of Buddhism”, which I’ve been asked to write a few words about.  Where to start!  Buddhism has been around for over two and half thousand years, after all, during which time it spread through many countries, where it’s adapted and evolved into many different forms, encompassing a huge variety of cultures, philosophies, and practices.  With that as a background, perhaps I might simply say a few words about what Buddhism means to me, as a lay Western practitioner.

Firstly, I think it’s fair to say that Buddhism isn’t for people who like to be told how to live their lives, or who are looking for simple answers to life’s problems from an outside authority.  It is about learning how to make decisions for ourselves, based on our own wisdom and understanding.  This doesn’t mean that we simply “make it up” as we go along, however, and Buddhism provides practical frameworks to help us navigate our lives, such as the Noble Eightfold Path and the Six Paramitas.

Sometimes Buddhism is described as more of a philosophy than a religion, as it doesn’t believe in a creator God, who is worshipped.  While this is true, Buddhism is very multi-faceted, and contains many elements that we’d normally associate with “religion”, so for me I feel that we can lose something if we have too limited a view of it.  The core of Buddhist teaching is simply that the human condition is rooted in dukkha (often translated as suffering or dissatisfaction) but that it is possible to become released from this, and find a level of fulfilment beyond our ordinary human experience.

The key to the Buddhist path isn’t academic learning or philosophising – although these can have a role – and the idea “practice” is very important, by which is meant how we choose to live our lives, which can create the conditions which allow us to meditate and cultivate kindness and compassion, which in turn leads to insight and wisdom.  For me, Buddhism offers a very practical path, which has also helped me find a deeper meaning to my life.

Which leads me (finally) to the course that I’ll be teaching with Choden, which is fittingly called “The Practice of Buddhism”.   Our approach on this will be very experiential, based around practices such as meditation and reflection.  Through this, we’ll explore some of the basic ideas in Buddhism.  The aim of this certainly isn’t to convert people to Buddhism (which would be a very un-Buddhist thing to do!), but simply to learn a little more about ourselves, and possibly help us find deeper meaning in our lives.  I hope to meet you on the course.

Alan Hughes

The Practice of Buddhism course begins on the 17th April and can be attended in person or online. For more information about the course please follow THIS LINK

Many people who practice mindfulness become interested in the Buddhist source of their mindfulness practice and some people want to study and practice Buddhism in its own right. This course has been designed to meet both these needs. The price is £630.00 payable in six monthly instalments of £105.00.

This structured course will offer step by step teaching on the basic principles and practices of Buddhism. It will be done in the experiential style characteristic of the Mindfulness Association. There will be teachings followed by guided practice and the opportunity for sharing on how the teachings and practice land.  We will begin with looking at the Hinayana, which comprises the original teachings of the Buddha. The teaching topics will include: the Life of the Buddha, the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, Dependent Origination, Shamatta (calm abiding) and Vipassana (insight) Meditation, and the Five Spiritual Faculties.

The course will be delivered by way of twice monthly online teaching sessions starting in April 2024 and culminating in a retreat (with an online option) at Samye Ling in March 2025.  For mindfulness teachers, the retreat will fulfil the annual retreat requirements for BAMBA.

In following years, we intend to continue the course to explore all 3 main vehicles or levels of Buddhism: Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana.

The first session each month will focus on particular topic with teachings and guided practices on that topic. The second session, two weeks later, will be a practice session revisiting the same topic with an opportunity for sharing and feedback on your practice.

The below online teaching sessions take place on a Wednesday evening from 19.00-20:30pm:

Wednesday 17th April, Wednesday 22nd May, Wednesday 19th June, Wednesday 17th July, Wednesday 14th August, Wednesday 18th September, Wednesday 16th October, Wednesday 13th November, Wednesday 18th December, Wednesday 15th January and Wednesday 19th February 2025.

The below online practice sessions take place on a Wednesday evening from 19.00-20.30pm:

Wednesday 1st May, Wednesday 5th June, Wednesday 3rd July, Wednesday 31st July, Wednesday 28th August, Wednesday 2nd October, Wednesday 30th October, Wednesday 27th November, Wednesday 29th January and Wednesday 5th March 2025.

The retreat will be taught at Samye Ling/Online from Tuesday 18th March – Sunday 23rd March 2025. The retreat will begin at 7pm on Tuesday 18th March and finish at 3pm on Sunday 23rd March 2025.

If attending in person please book your accommodation and meals for the weekend directly with Samye Ling by emailing bookings@samyeling.org. They will need to know the dates that you would like to stay, what room you would like (please click here to see the room types and prices), your name, and the name of the second person if you are booking a twin room, your address, phone number and preferred email address for the booking. No room bookings can currently be made via the Samye Ling website.

Booking: *Please note there are only limited spaced left on this course* to book please contact: info@mindfulnessassociation.net

The Mindfulness Association’s Mindfulness Based Living Course (MBLC) was developed in 2010 as a mindfulness course for everyone. Although, it draws on the structure and includes some practices from MBSR, it was inspired by the meditation teachings of Rob Nairn. Rob Nairn is a founder of the Mindfulness Association and is a Tibetan Buddhist who practised and taught in the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism for over forty years. His skill was in translating complex and subtle Buddhist teachings about the mind and how to train it, into Western psychological language in order to make it more accessible.

The MBLC course has more of an explicit focus on self-compassion and presents an observer undercurrent model of mind. It includes meditation practices relating to each of these topics, as well as the RAIN acceptance practice, which are missing from MBSR.

All mainstream mindfulness training is based on the first teaching of the Buddha: the four noble truths.

The first truth is the truth of suffering, that life is impermanent, imperfect and involves dissatisfaction. The second truth is the origin of suffering, which is our resistance to how life is, driven by a desire to get what we want and avoid what we don’t want. The third truth is the end of suffering, which calls us to let go of our resistance to how life is and let go of our desire and avoidance. The fourth truth is that there is a way to end suffering by following the noble eightfold path, a path for overcoming greed, hatred and delusion.

In our mindful practice we learn to face our suffering with honesty and acceptance so that we can familiarise ourselves with the ways in which we resist the inevitable flow of life and thereby increase our suffering. We see how our resistance to the inevitable pain of life, increases that pain from 10% to 100%. When we begin to understand that the 90% is optional, we let go of this resistance, to live wholeheartedly with the 10% inevitable pain of life. In this way we find a path of freedom and peace, even in the midst of pain and difficulty.

In addition, all mainstream mindfulness training include teaching and practices based on the Buddha’s teachings on the four foundations of mindfulness.

The first is mindfulness of the body, which is explored through practices such as the bodyscan and mindfulness in movement.

The second is mindfulness of feelings, which fall into three categories of pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. This is explored through recognising our preferences and attitude to whatever is arising in our experience and cultivating an attitude of ‘without preference’ or equanimity.

The third is mindfulness of mind, where we come to recognise that thoughts and mind states arise of their own accord, display in the mind for a while and then dissolve. This is explored through the observer undercurrent model of mind in which we recognise that we are not our thoughts and that we do not have to identify ourselves with the thoughts or mind states.

The fourth is mindfulness of the Dharma (the Buddha’s teachings) or the truth. Indeed, it is astonishing the extent to which the teachings of the Buddha accord with the latest theories in psychology, neuroscience, physics and meta-physics, in relation to the mind and to the universe. Through our experience of the mind in meditation practice we come to recognise how things really are, including our sense of self. When we recognise how our reality is not solid, is ever changing and is dependent on myriad causes and conditions which are way beyond our control, we get a taste of freedom.

An understanding of the Buddhist roots of mindfulness, through teaching and meditation practice, can enrich and deepen our mindfulness practice.

If you would like to explore this further, then please click the link for information about our upcoming weekend course and 5 day retreat The Buddhist Roots of Mindfulness at Samye Ling Tibetan Centre in Scotland.

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Heather Regan-Addis is a Founder Member and director of the Mindfulness Association.

Heather delivers training for the Mindfulness Association on our two Post Graduate Master’s degree courses as well as on our regular courses in Mindfulness, Compassion, Insight and on our Teacher training programmes.