by Vishvapani | Sep 23, 2024 | arts, Thought for the Day
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...
by Vishvapani | Apr 28, 2023 | Retreats
On Retreat with Wordsworth & Coleridge William 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...
by Vishvapani | Jan 19, 2019 | arts, Thought for the Day
Mary Oliver: Wild and Precious Verse Mary Oliver was the Poet Laureate of mindfulness, and many Buddhists felt an affinity with her themes of nature, appreciation and the importance of present moment awareness Mary Oliver: wild and precious Verse by Vishvapani |...
by Vishvapani | Oct 26, 2012 | arts, Featured, Interviews
Harold Bloom’s writing on literature and religion is a remarkable mix of almost supernatural erudition with a deep concern with spiritual life. He’s controversial and unfashionable, but I constantly read and reread his works. I think Bloom’s approach has much in...
by Vishvapani | Jul 8, 2011 | Articles, Buddhism, Buddhism in the West, Featured
Lest there be any doubt about Buddhism’s arrival in western culture, consider an advert from a few years ago showing a room full of meditators. The copy reads, ‘If you are going to follow the breath, it may as well be fresh. Eat tic-tacs.’ If tic-tac eaters can...
