Mindsprings Podcast With Alistair Appleton

This is part one of excerpts from the 2017 Compassion course on Holy Island in Scotland. Alistair talks here about the evolutionary roots of compassion and why human sensitivity is the key to our success as a species... To experience the Holy Island course 2018 please look here: https://mind-springs.org/courses/beating-heart-compassion/

This is the final part of Alistair's talk on the cross-pollination of therapy and Buddhism in the contemporary world. Summing up his talk in Dublin, he talks about the best practices when it comes to working in these two mighty "lineages of the mind".

This is part 2 of Alistair's 2017 talk in Dublin on the intertwining of therapy and Buddhist meditation. This part is considering the long lineage of Buddhist teaching and touching on the 'sidelined' teachings of Vajrayana master Chögyam Trungpa.

This is the first of three sections from Alistair's public talk in Dublin in October 2017 looking at the relationship between psychotherapy and Buddhism. This first part looks at the 'lineage' therapy and what is often dissociated from that history...

This is an excerpt from the 2017 "Being Earthed" Holy Island Retreat led by Fay Adams and Alistair Appleton. Fay and Alistair share personal stories about the power of the island and Fay reads the words of Tai Situpa about the geomancy of Holy Isle

In the final part of Alistair's 2018 talk from Scarborough, he turns his attention to the way that Buddhism might understand dissociation. He probes the ways in which meditation can mimic this defence and finds ways to free ourselves from it...

This is Part 2 of Alistair 2018 talk on dissociation from Scarborough. Here he starts to discuss the fascinating cover-up of the work of Pierre Janet in the "lineage of psychotherapy" and how the myths of Osiris and Oedipus cast further light on the power of dissociation...

Alistair guides you in a 25' meditation exploring the somatic tool of the 'three levels of the breath'. The practice is done lying on your back, comfortably, with your hands on your belly and feet flat on the floor, knees together. [Excerpted from the Scarborough "Tender is the Heart" course in March 2018]

This is part one of a talk Alistair gave in Scarborough on 23 March 2018 at the Samye Dzong at Londesborough Lodge. It's a light-hearted exploration of the human defence of dissociation, a subject close to Alistair's heart...

An excerpt from the February 2018 "Time Terror" course at Spa Road in London. Alistair is unpacking the second of the Four Reminders, Tibetan Buddhist texts to bring us back to life. The 2nd Reminder runs: Remembering that death is real and comes without warning, / Recalling that this body will become a corpse,/ Knowing that my chance to practice dharma is brief,/ I undertake this practice.

This is a talk by Alistair Appleton given in Cardiff on 23rd February 2018 on the subject 'Is Meditation Enough?' - it's a wide ranging and relaxed introduction to Alistair's stance on the role of meditation in contemporary life: where are its limits? what can and can't it do? and what might we need to make it 'enough'?

This is an excerpt from the talk that Alistair and Ajahn Sundara gave at the British Museum in September 2017, looking at aspects of Buddhist practice and how they impact the contemporary mind.

Taken from the September 2017 weekend retreat on "I see you, Mara", Alistair talks about how this problematic notion of the "ego" can be understood as an excess of thinking, a slipknot round your own throat or as Reggie Ray describes it, an lethal addiction to painkillers...

An excerpt from the 2016 Samadhi retreat looking at the way in which ego arises and constricts the open space.

Recorded at the August 2017 Gayles "Drawing on Mindfulness" retreat, Alistair gives a fundamental overview of the different streams of meditation coming out of the Indian Tradition and notes how mindfulness is unique and distinct from other forms.

This is a recording of a chat between Alistair Appleton and the art teacher Isobel Dutton after the close of the Gayles 'Drawing on Mindfulness' retreat in August 2017. Over a cup of tea, they talk about the similarities between art anxiety and meditation anxiety and how making a mark and being your true self both require 'breaking the frame'.

This is the last bit of Internet related podcastery for a while. It's the 10 bits of advice I gave at the end of my 2015 talk on the Internet and Meditation in Scarborough.

This is the second extract from a talk I gave in Scarborough in 2015 on the subject of 'Mindfulness in the Age of Twitter'. This part looks at the fascinating field of dissociation and how the Net really feeds into that desire to zone out from life.

This is Part 1 of a series of podcasts on the effect of Internet use on the brain. It's excerpted from a talk I gave in Scarborough back in 2015. This part looks at how the Web fires up potent areas of the brain...

This is an excerpt from the 2016 Samadhi Retreat up on Holy Island where Alistair and the group discuss the nature of thinking and particularly those thoughts that 'scrunch' us away from openness.