Hi All,
 
For those of you with an interest in the deeper aspects of Yoga and Eastern medicine, please check out my friends at the Kagyu Samye Dzong Buddhist Centre in Kilmainham D8. The centre is beautiful and they are running courses in Mindfulness and Tibetan Medicine clinics in addition to their usual schedule of events.

I attended meditation classes there for about a year when I lived nearby and still miss them.

Yoga is mindfulness in motion, acupuncture can bring you to a state of mindfulness through energy balance. Meditation and chant are direct ways to this same end.

If you have any questions for the folks at the centre, you can reach them at [email protected] or join their mailing list at www.buddhism.ie

As a species we diet for many reasons; for improved athletic performance, for spiritual insight, for medical reasons. Perhaps the two most popular reason are for general health and to look better. Unfortunately for so many of us this is a one step forward and two steps back journey that leaves us feeling discouraged and negative about the whole issue of trying to control our diet.

There is a secret however, that will make any diet successful and without which no diet will ever succeed. The secret is very simple and this is to bring mindfulness to every meal. Mindfulness is a Buddhist concept meaning awareness, consciousness or bringing your whole self to any experience. It is the same as the state of mind achieved in true yoga.

With the right attitude of watchfulness your diet will automatically become more healthy and you will begin to eat more in harmony with your bodies true needs. You will begin to enjoy food more and have a healthier more joyful relationship to nourishing food rather than cycles of abandoned guilty pleasure followed just guilt with no pleasure at all!

No diet however good on paper will work without this healthy attitude and unhealthy diets cannot exist in the presence of this kind of mindfulness and yogic thought.

Christmas is the perfect time to begin this kind of diet. All the temptations are there so it is impossible to begin any other kind of diet this time of year. Try the yogic, mindful diet and you will see that not only can you begin your healthy diet right away, but you will begin to gain even more pleasure from your Holiday festive foods!

Best Wishes from Liam B.