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Tag: hope

Junkie Buddha – book review

Would you travel alone halfway across the world to spend a few hours on a sacred mountain, not knowing whether the experience will heal you or break you? This is the unspoken question facing Diane Esguerra (aka Diane Southam) at the start of her memoir, Junkie Buddha. Her journey to Peru is a touching tribute… read more

Is depression always an illness? A Buddhist view of Robin Williams’ passing

The death this week of Robin Williams has put depression back in the headlines. The media coverage is welcome because by talking openly about mental health challenges we can create some good from a desperately tragic suicide. The rhetoric around a previously taboo topic has been changing rapidly in recent years, thanks in part to… read more

Buddha on the Ball… 7 life lessons to encourage the youth of today (on and off the football pitch)

Last week I had the good fortune to be training some teenagers from Southend in Essex, one of my favourite seaside towns. All of them had been excluded from mainstream schools and/or came from disadvantaged backgrounds. Luckily there are two people who believe in their potential, their teacher Rachael O’Brien and Stuart Long (of South… read more

Struggling to cope? Learn how to challenge instead with this guidance from Kazuo Fujii

I love this quote by SGI-UK Buddhist leader Kazuo Fujii (pictured here in 1993) who outlines the huge difference it makes when we learn to challenge ourselves instead of just coping with life’s difficulties: “There are two ways of approaching life. The first is coping and the second is challenging to change a situation. The situation… read more

Reasons to be hopeful – with help from Buddhism, Angelina Jolie and Mariane Pearl

[just 5 mins to read] You may have seen the film, A Mighty Heart, starring Angelina Jolie. In this movie the Hollywood star plays the role of SGI Buddhist Mariane Pearl (right in the pic) who faced the deepest despair when in 2002 her journalist husband Danny was kidnapped and then beheaded by Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan. At… read more

Two words to ban from all your arguments

What is the ‘tipping point’ that can cause a small lovers’ tiff to escalate into a huge no-holds-barred argument? There are two little words which cause more damage than most – and neither of them is an expletive. I am thinking of ‘never’ and ‘always.’    As in: “You never listen to me properly!” (Bet… read more

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