Writing and Talks

We can practise noting “feeling states” in order to be more consciously aware of what is arising and to be able to put into language the present moment experience so that it can be picked up on by others. In this practice the term “feeling state” covers emotion (anger, sadness, joy), mind states (boredom, curiosity), and also the sensory experience in the body that I have that co-arises with emotion or mind states (when feeling anger I feel warm in the face and tension in my arms and hands, or when I notice a mind state of curiosity there’s a lightness in the chest and head). The emotion, mind state, or sensation are all equally valid doorways to knowing what is present for you in that moment.

~4 minute read I’ve just left a Zoom call for a self-organised online meditation group and I’m buzzing with an open tenderness. It’s a small group, four of us chatting tonight for an hour. We take it in turns to… Continue reading Sangha is the most important dimension of meditation

Upcoming events in Sydney! Day of Practice Sunday 5 October 2025, 9:00 am – 5:00 pmBuddhist Library, Camperdown, Sydney The opportunity to go on retreat is special. To have the time and space to focus on practice is an amazing… Continue reading In-Person Events

~6 minute read, 1100 words I’m trudging along, hauling my wheelie suitcase down an unsealed bitumen road that leads to the S.N. Goenka Vipassanā Retreat Centre. I’m about to do my first silent meditation retreat and I’m incredibly nervous. I’ve… Continue reading A Vipassanā Story

Mindfulness is so often talked about in terms of practising meditation to relax and calm down, to be non-reactive, to be mindfully present, and to release some of the “stuff” that makes it so tiring and painful to be in the world. Now this is undeniably helpful. Sometimes, it even feels like this is the cure. Being calm and present is a great start to help with some aspects of burnout (I’ll talk more about how meditation helps in the later parts of this series). But meditation could also lead to a kind of dead-end where you become an inert robot that simply “copes” with what is happening; where one finds a kind of “equanimous productivity”, as Rob Burbea describes, to function in a society that constantly pressures us to do and be in ways that are exhausting, depleting, and lead to a sense of futility and meaninglessness.