Wise Attention Blog
Wise Attention includes 20 years of writing exploring what it means to practice Buddhism, mindfulness and ethics in the modern world. You’ll find reviews, talks, interviews, broadcasts and reflection on the arts as well as reflections on the Buddha and Buddhist teachings
The Healing Power of the Present Moment
How can drawing engages with the present moment, and what can it offer our wellbeing and mental health? Last week I picked up a pencil and, for the first time in many years, I started to draw. I was co-leading a retreat with an artist friend that combined meditation...
Training in the Middle Way
Dressage Champion Charlotte Dujardin's withdrawal from the Olympics when video footage showed her maltreating a horse raise questions about where the balance lies between discipline and abuse. How can we find the middle way? Thought for the Day, BBC Radio 4, 26 July...
Meeting Mara
When an issue has moral clarity, we are quick to outrage. But the story of the Buddha's meeting with Mara suggests that we are part of the problem Stories like the infected blood and Post Office scandals offer rare moments of moral clarity in public life. The issue’s...
Combating Anger
As society gets angrier, the ancient Buddhist teachings are more relevant than ever Are we getting angrier? A video that went viral last week showed a 60 year-old man pounding the windscreen of a woman who’d honked him. Eyes bulging, spewing profanity, he was seized...
Ending the Middle East Cycle of Violence
As the war in Gaza threatens to spiral into a regional conflict, what light does Buddhist wisdom shed on cycles of violence? After the Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus and Iran’s missile strike against Israel, now what? Troubled voices are urging...
AI Struggles Show We’re all Biased, but Mindfulness Can Help
When AI Systems Try to deal with bias they encounter an underlying truth: no one's perceptions are wholly true. Tackling that starts with ourselves Think of a doctor or a lawyer. If what comes to mind is the image of a white man, does that show your unconscious bias...
Extreme Weather Shows How Conditionality Works
Extreme weather is disconcerting because climate change shows how far our responsibility extends Here in Wales people say: ‘When you can see the hills, it's going to rain; when you can't see them, it’s already raining!’ The weather in the UK is a constant, but these...
Staying alive to ambiguity in a media storm
Thought for the Day BBC Radio 4 14.07.23 When a storm blows up in the media we get drawn in. Milan Kundera and the Buddha can help us stay alive to humans realities behind the news. One of the many lessons the Czech novelist Milan Kundera, who died this week, urged on...
How to Make Peace in the Culture Wars
Trans debates are just one battleground in the Culture Wars. Learning fromthe Buddha, how can we make peace? Thought for the Day, BBC Radio 4 19.05.2023 Andrew,’ I said. ‘You look … different.’ My old friend was wearing a dress and makeup and his hair had grown. ‘I am...
Here’s how a Buddhist relates to the Coronation
I’ll watch the Coronation this weekend, but how can I say ‘God Save the King’ when I don’t believe in God? King Charles philosophy of 'Harmony' could make a connection Thought for the Day BBC Radio 4, 4 May 2023 I think I’ll watch the Coronation this weekend, but I...
Seeing Into the Life of Things Retreat
On Retreat with Wordsworth & ColeridgeWilliam and Dorothy Wordsworth lived at Alfoxton in 1797–8, near their friend Samuel Coleridge, who lived with his family in nearby Nether Stowey. In that year each of them wrote some of their finest work – the volume of poems...
Sentient AI is Possible. Let’s Make it Compassionate
Sentient AI is making us ask: what is consciousness? For Buddhism, the real issue is what consciousness is for, and the answer involves compassion Can Artificial Intelligence systems be sentient? Philosophers call consciousness ‘the hard problem’ because we can’t...
Mindfulness & Imagination Online Retreat
Entering the Mandala: Mindfulness & Imagination Online Retreat Seven days of meditation, creativity and ritual in a spirit of mindfulness and inquiry Led by Vishvapani and Vidyamala Friday September 1 - Thursday September 7, 2023Mindfulness is the ground....
Seeing It Better: a Review of ‘After Cezanne’ by Maiteyabandhu
After Cézanne,By Maitreyabandhu,Bloodaxe, 2019 Maitreyabandhu’s most recent poetry collection reflects on Cézanne’s paintings and is a subtle meditation on the possibilities of art and perception The epigraph of Maitreyabandhu’s most recent collection After Cézanne is...
How to Survive Being Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
The Oscar Winning movie, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is a parable of life and survival in the age of infinite possibilities Thought for the Day, BBC Radio 4 16/03/2023 Blinking my way out of the movie that this week won seven Oscars, I knew it was...
The Dark Side of the Moon: Still Powerful at Fifty
As the classic Pink Floyd Album turns fifty it still resonates as a search for meaning in a hostile world BBC Radio 4, Thought for the Day, 10/03/2023 I’m sixteen years old, far from sober, gazing up at the star-filled sky and a soundtrack starts in my head. Ba-boom,...
Macbeth is a Ritual. What happens when its demonic energy leaks into the world beyond the play?
Shakespeare's Macbeth is a ritualised drama that summons demonic forces in the hero and the world the play creates. What happens when a production refuses to close the ritual when the play ends? A few years ago I wrote an essay on Macbeth and Karma, calling the play a...
‘The Escape Artist’: Powerful Holocaust Lesson for the Post-Truth World
An account of escaping Auschwitz with a sobering reflection on how deeply we repress knowledge of death: a Holocaust lesson for the post-truth world The usual question the Holocaust raises is: 'How could this happen, how could people act so inhumanely'. In fact, for...