"If you love someone, set them free. Starting with yourself."
~ Lisa Cherry Beaumont, 2011

Kopan strategies

"Two toilets and one shower for HOW many people?" I enquired, certain I'd misheard. The receptionist monk counted on his fingers again, then looked skyward as he did a quick calculation to be sure he'd got it right. "Twenty," he confirmed, "five rooms of four on your floor." I winced, imagining the endless queue of greasy-haired, cross-legged women outside the communal bathroom at 4:30 every morning. "Is that enough?" I checked. "Never had any complaints," he shrugged neutrally and looked at me patiently for my next question.

With that knowledge, and having heard earlier that the food is "watery porridge, sometimes there's bread, and chips and oily fried vegetables; it's the same every day" I felt my tiara slip past my ears and tighten around my neck and so decided I'd best not ask anything else and just wait and see.

I really needn't have worried about the facilities and the food. After a day or two of settling in I was used to sharing a loo and my showers being a terrifying splash of icy cold water and got myself three of the loveliest roomies I could have hoped for. And the woman who spectacularly misinformed me about the food? Well, I wished her lovingkindness when we passed on the stairs, like a good little Buddhism student. Unfortunately this is where my excellence as a Buddhism student seemed to end.

In spite of warming quickly to the environment, the routine and the people, it was a damn struggle to sit still on the floor of that gompa (meditation hall) and concentrate on nothing more than my breathing for an hour at a time. I could last 20 minutes before changing the position of my legs/cushions/blanket every 5 minutes thereafter, and I was so nosy! I bet his feet are cold with no socks on. I wonder how she did that with her hair. Has anyone got their eyes open? Is the teacher meditating? Her cushion matches her skirt. Are there the same number of coloured blocks in each of the ceiling squares? I'd better count them. Pen lid on, pen lid off, pen lid on, pen lid off... The difficulty of long periods of almost completely unguided meditation was too much for my monkey mind - by session three I'd mentally decorated my houseboat and decided it needs a decent oven and a serving hatch on the side through which I can sell my vegan fayre to canal strollers.

But the meditations improved once were given something to focus on and became a walk through rainbows compared to the teachings. I'll be frank: I found them ambiguous, unfounded, and littered with "scientific" anecdotes that were irrelevant or exaggerated at best; contradictory or wildly inaccurate at worst. And I had to sit, quietly gasping in shock, seething inside, without the opportunity to question or challenge any of it. And that wasn't all that was yanking my chain.

Before each class we'd to recite various mantras (prayers) and half the people (those who come back year after year - to a beginners course? You've got to wonder why) perform a set of prostrations that are like praying and then putting your head on the floor - something to do with letting go of your ego. What I struggled with was, if Buddhism is an atheistic religion, who are they praying to? It was acknowledged that this was confusing many of us but we were quickly "reassured" with, "Shut up and say your prayers". Yes, it was said half in jest but, at the same time, it didn't come with any explanation, which did not sit well with me at all; that's nothing more than dogma! As one student said, "I was brought up a Catholic - this kind of stuff makes me shudder."

Thankfully I wasn't alone in my dissatisfaction. Several people I spoke to were in strong agreement. As one confused student said to me, "Praying to Buddha doesn't make sense." Another decided to stay and follow the meditations only but sit out of the teaching classes. I too considered sticking it out, taking from it what I could and disregarding the bits I didn't agree with but that would have meant disregarding the majority of what was being taught - what would be the point? The food was great but not reason enough to stay a month.

And so after careful consideration I decided that the course was not for me. I kissed goodbye my favourite monastery dog - the one who likes to lean on you, that I nicknamed Cheeky Chops - and, along with several other disillusioned students, I left the monastery to seek a more real and tangible path to genuine, attainable happiness.

World inside my head

As you probably know, I'm fascinated by what makes us happy and so that comes, hand in hand, with an interest in what's preventing us from being happy - kind of stands to reason, really. Therefore, ever since a few friends - some of them relatively sane - have sung the praises of past life regression therapy I've been intrigued to know more and when I heard of a workshop being run locally for a tenner, obviously I was on it like a car bonnet.

And so I rocked up at Brunel Museum in Rotherhithe on a Tuesday night sporting an open mind and leggings (I had a sense some of this would take place on a yoga mat). The evening was led by Doug Buckingham, a therapist whom I've met at various workshops and who looks and behaves, well, normal. He doesn't wear an Afghan coat and sandals, has no visible tattoos and can hold intelligent conversation. Put it this way, if you took him home to meet your mother she'd nod approvingly. (Well, right up until the point you tried to explain what he does.)

Doug explained what past life regression is, the different theories of how it works, how he came to it himself and he told us stories of (anonymous) case studies. We were helped to relax with a short meditation and were encouraged to ask questions. We were then offered the chance to experience a taste of past life regression, and out came the yoga mats and blankets.

Comfortable on the floor, we were led on a hypnotic journey into our subconscious and encouraged to discover one of our positive past life experiences - well, we didn't want to go digging up something negative in a group workshop; can you imagine? And so I stepped out of a large country house into a rose garden, a four year old girl with long curly blonde hair and bare feet, and was sucked into a colourful ball of energy above the fountain. Moments later I emerged as a wrinkly Native American grandmother with great hair and terrible teeth. I was wearing trousers and a waistcoat made from animal hide.

I found myself standing by a huge lake surrounded by tall trees. I felt calm. Beside me was a small fishing boat, and a little boy probably five years old, with big dark eyes and straight black hair - my Grandson! Looking down at my hands I could see small arrowheads and I was threading something onto a fishing wire. When Doug asked us to imagine ourselves demonstrating the skills we had at the time, I was sewing shoes. We were then asked to go to a later happy occasion in the same lifetime and I could see across the lake a large log cabin, where my Grandson was getting married, and I felt contentment.

Shortly after we this, we were brought back to the room, wide awake and refreshed. I was surprised at what my "imagination" had brought forward, considering I know absolutely nothing about Native Americans and am vegan so wouldn't normally think about wearing animal hide and making weapons with which to kill animals. So where did these images come from?

I want to believe in past lives, I really do. To me, there's comfort in the notion that "this isn't all there is" but obviously this workshop isn't solid proof of that. But what it did demonstrate to me is that there are other worlds inside our minds ready to be tapped into. And if an issue is simply too raw to address or difficult to understand in our present reality, stepping into a past life, real or imagined (it doesn't matter) could be the way to do it.

Kiss me, kismet!

A few years ago I was fortunate enough to have suffered from depression. Yes, obviously it didn't feel like that at the time - I was utterly miserable - but I say I was fortunate because, otherwise, I may never had been introduced to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), a psychological approach which taught me that, it's not what goes on in your life that determines your level of happiness, it's how you deal with it. And that's important because, let's face it, crap stuff happens to ALL of us so it's brilliant to learn how to surf the waves without wiping out.

A few months ago, I felt like my landlord had whipped the chair right out from under me; he decided to sell my home. I'd only been there a year and, in spite of my CBT training, I was struggling hard to get my rose-tinted spectacles to stay on my nose. But after the initial shock and a little time spent re-evaluating my lifestyle, it transpired he did me an enormous favour.

See, much as I loved my beautiful home, this re-evaluation forced me to notice just how trapped I was. Underneath, I ached to go off to live a simpler life in order to learn about myself, but I couldn't see this because I was too busy running on my go to work/pay the rent treadmill. And anyway, how could I go swanning off when I had a job and furniture? What a waste of money it would be putting my stuff into storage - oh, boy, I had a lot of stuff for someone living in a studio (seriously, where was it all?!) - and how on Earth would I get all that time off work?

Then a mad but simple idea came to me - quit your job and get rid of your stuff. Seemed like a pretty radical concept for me at the time but, let's be honest, loads of people do it, it's not really that big a deal and so that's exactly what I did. Next month, I fly to Nepal and it feels like the most natural thing in the world. And it has led me to ponder other things that have gone on in my life that seemed awful at the time but were actually a catalyst for positive change.

Sometimes upsetting things happen and we don't take notice of the great things that came out of them. What events have happened in your life that seemed really rubbish at the time but turned out to be the best thing for you?

"Work with your energy,
not against it."

~ Lisa Cherry Beaumont, 2011

"Don't grasp; flow..."

~ Lisa Cherry Beaumont, 2011

Anarchy in the UK

“People have been very angry and frustrated at the system for a long time and now they are having an opportunity, due to a snowballing effect started by one piece of police violence, to let some of that anger out. It's not necessarily always in a good way but that's what's happening in London at the moment. With a system that is built around oppression what do you expect? How many rich and prosperous looters have you seen on the streets this week?” ~ Alan Buttle

Is it a surprise that there is so much discontent, crime and anti-social behaviour when our primary role models are the rich and famous?

From birth, our society forces people to believe they'll be happy only if they "have" - excess money, material possessions, a particular lifestyle - that they're only worthy and will be accepted if they do. So when people don’t achieve this lifestyle they’re made to feel worthless; unimportant; underachievers. When something happens to “prove” their worthlessness (like the death of Mark Duggan, for example, and then being subsequently ignored when they peacefully protest) they fight back. Really, how can this be a shock to anyone?

If, in order to be happy and harmonious, we need to be kind and gentle toward each other why does our society promote rivalry and greed? We teach and reward competition against each other, the biggest show of this being the Olympic Games (which, for the record, I am vehemently opposed to). We’re taught selfishness and greed and then we punish those who steel. When TV game shows give the winner a mountain of cash or material prizes, what message is this sending to us? Why are we not taught by our parents and teachers how to be genuinely content? Contentment comes from inside; to be happy with who we are and what we have.

There's nothing wrong with being "poor" and having “nothing”; only managing to scrape by - some of the happiest and kindest communities in the world live this way. What is wrong is being made to feel worthless and guilty by a society that values material possessions above community.

Did you know that the last place on Earth to get television was a Buddhist country called Bhutan in the Himalayas where the society was peaceful, content and crime-free until 1999 when TV began broadcasting? Since then, Bhutan has joined the rest of us in our dissatisfaction with ourselves and our material wealth, and our high crime rates. Want truly happy children? Show them what's truly valuable! Turn off the TV and throw away your celebrity gossip magazines, they're poison. Let your children experience the simple pleasures. If your child is bored without a computer game that's your doing. You must engage him; inspire him. Recognise his interests and encourage his talents, but without pushiness. Give him your time and your love, not material possessions. If he doesn’t behave himself that's because you haven't taught him how to be satisfied. It takes patience, time and persistence.

When you decide to have a child, you take on the responsibility to raise him. Don't stick him in front of the TV, spend time with him. Teach him how to take care of himself, how to cook, how to clean, how to sew, how to mend a bicycle, how to paint a wall. This will give him discipline and make him feel valued. Take him on picnics, walks and bike rides, engage him in conversations about wildlife and the world around him to help with his understanding, appreciation and compassion. Give him a plant to take care of or, better still, a small vegetable patch and let him connect with nature and appreciate the fruits of his labour. If your child sees your dissatisfaction with your own material wealth, with your image and with your life this is what he’ll learn for himself, what he’ll help to spread within his peer group, and what he’ll pass down to your grandchildren and out to the rest of society, and so it will continue.

Our society perpetuates the chain of discontentment and so we have the power, as individuals, families and communities, to break it.