Mindsprings Podcast With Alistair Appleton

Part 2 of 5: In the second part of his Edinburgh talk, Alistair runs through the history of our relationship with the body from early hunter-gathers to the Instagram age.

Part one of five: Alistair gave a talk in Edinburgh in February entitled "The Body is A Buddhafield, Not a Battlefield". In this first part he asks the question: 'What turns us against our bodies?'

This is a 35 minute guided meditation by Alistair Appleton exploring the Earth Descent practice taught by Reggie Ray.

This is Alistair Appleton's guided meditation 'Polyvagal Tuning' based on the neuroscientific work of Stephen Porges. It's 25 minutes long.

A student at the 2018 Summer Retreat asked if meditation can be guaranteed to make you calmer, more self-confident and stronger. His answer was an emphatic "No". Meditation helps us grow up and take on the full remit of being human. Something we all - including the POTUS - have to work at.

Alistair Appleton reveals that much of what we think about the 'ego' being a problem is wrong. Much of the ego is not a problem - just one aspect of it... Taken from the Summer 2018 Retreat on Holy Island. To find out about 2019's retreat look here: https://mind-springs.org/courses/summer-meditation-retreat-2019-the-body-is-the-ground/

During a discussion in the Summer 2018 Retreat on Holy Island, Alistair speaks to a mother's worry that she has over-mothered her children and explores the way somatic practice improves relationships. You can book for the 2019 Retreat here: https://mind-springs.org/courses/summer-meditation-retreat-2019-the-body-is-the-ground/

Exploring the interface of neurobiology and meditation, Alistair explores some of the 'koans of the soma', the nuts and bolts of our human bodies and how that affects our being. This is an extract from the 2018 Summer Retreat on Holy Island. To book for this summer's retreat, click here: mind-springs.org/courses/summer-m…y-is-the-ground/

In his opening comments to the 2018 "Being Still, Still Being" retreat Alistair outlines the neurobiological underpinnings of our obsessive busy-ness and how we need to work with that not against it. The Summer Retreat on Holy Island, suitable for all levels, is open for booking here: https://mind-springs.org/courses/summer-meditation-retreat-2019-the-body-is-the-ground/

Most of us exist in a frenzied haze of continual distraction from our real experience of life. The traditional posture of sitting meditation creates a framework that makes the distraction fade out, and life appear.

Most of us are compulsive do-ers and actually afraid of being still and silent. Alistair explores the three interlocking states of being-enjoying-doing and how they can help us relax.

In an excerpt from the 2018 Summer retreat on Holy Island, Alistair explores some of the current thinking about introverts ruling the world and how discomfort can often bring wisdom.

Alistair starts to explore with the retreatants on Holy Island the realm of "non-thought". If we no longer identify with our thoughts then what is left? What is our true identity?

In this excerpt from the 2018 Retreat 'Being Still Still Being', Alistair looks at the experience of thinking as a phenomenon. What is thinking? And how does it feel?

In a second excerpt from the 2018 Summer retreat on Holy Island, Alistair looks at the potent connection between Tibetan Buddhism and poetry. Touching on Trungpa and the Beatniks and Reggie's strange love of Wordsworth.

An excerpt from Alistair Appleton's 2018 Meditation retreat up on Holy Island. Do our precious thoughts actually add up to that much? Can you remember what you were thinking 5 minutes ago?

In this talk from the 2018 "Being Still Still Being" retreat on Holy Island, Alistair lays out the fundamental principles of "retreat". What needs to happen for us to really sink into our experience? How do the constraints of the Container free us up?

In the final chunk from the 2017 Holy Island Compassion retreat Alistair introduces the mind-boggling practice of tonglen, one of the classic Buddhist techniques for rousing the compassionate heart.

This is the second excerpt from Mindsprings' 2017 Compassion Course on Holy Island. Alistair explains how the strategies we come up with as children to survive might not be ideal as adults - but they did their job. We shouldn't feel bad about them not working now...

This is the second excerpt from 2017 Holy Island course on Compassion, where Alistair explains that our bodies are actually perfectly tuned to be compassionate and that we are successful as a species because of it.