Opening to Insight is a practical guide to realising insights from our practice of meditation (or mindfulness). How can we break free of the habitual views of a lifetime? Key aspects of our awareness are highlighted, along with a series of exercises to re-experience each one. This is a manual for Awakening, a way to liven up our meditation and reflection.
I wish Opening to Insight had been around when I first encountered Buddhism. The exercises are progressive and easy to engage with, immediately offering a taste of what insight is actually about – seeing through our perceptual and conceptual delusions… Five opens up the path to Awakening with skill and kindness. Recommended. Tejananda, senior meditation teacher and retreat leader in the Triratna Buddhist Order
Written in an engaging and playful style… inspiring and useful… of great benefit to beginners as well as to more experienced practitioners. Chan Master Zarko Andrecevic, Dharma heir to Master Sheng Yen
My book of the spiritual path, START HERE – the Path to Awakeninghas chapters on the frustrations of samsara, supportive conduct, meditation, questioning our idea of self, philosophy, love, death, the mysteriousness of awareness, and the deep vision of Buddhism. A brief introduction to each of these areas is followed by verses written from my personal experience, a mixture of snappy ditties and more poetic forms.
START HERE invites you, whatever your inclination – poetic, spiritual, or neither – to muse on topics which are crucial to us all. Love? Death? Neither can be avoided: get the low-down on it all. You’ll see the limerick put to some heavy-duty work lightening up your way!
START HERE – the Path to Awakening
“I like your poems, and I especially appreciate the song lyric approach. We need Dharma songs, and I see you as playing a role there.” David Loy, author of ‘Money, Sex, War, Karma’, ‘Awareness Bound and Unbound’, ‘Ecodharma’, and others
“These pieces, be they poems, songs, sonnets, odes and even haiku, emerge spontaneously from his reflections and Dharma practice – insights dawning as he shares these with us. May they spark those same insights in us all!” Lama Shenpen Hookham, founding teacher of the Awakened Heart Sangha, author of ‘The Guru Principle’, ‘There’s More To Dying Than Death’, and others
More than 90 versifications – plenty to ponder upon, wonder about, chime with: what rings true for you on your path? Get your copy now, click HEREor use the QR code.
Pieces of Five 