Mindfulness Classes With Oli Doyle

Connecting with the natural world is enough to bring deep peace and step out of compulsive thinking.

Nature is always calm, silent and peaceful, and when you make friends with this world it is bound to treat you kindly.

The very experience of looking at this world without thinking getting in the way is a powerful one. It can move you from anxiety and stress to a world of calm quickly and easily.

So today, come outside with me. Wriggle your toes in the grass, feel the sun on your skin and never stop gazing at the stars.

I promise you won't regret it.

Are you really walking? Or are you just trying to get somewhere?

Look around you when you're out in the world and you will see people everywhere, on their way somewhere else. No-one is truly walking, they're too busy thinking about where they're headed.

True walking, mindful walking, has nothing to do with speed, and everything to do with attention.

Attention to detail, to what surrounds you, to what your body is experiencing right now.

Attention to life.

So whether you're going fast or slow, come for a walk with me today and appreciate the wonderful peace that arises when you just walk without thinking.

It just might change your day (or maybe your life).

What better way to start the day than with a cup of tea? But is your cup wasted, lost in a sea of thinking?

Every day around the world, millions (maybe billions) of people rush through their tea (and their life), in search of a future that will make them happy. But if you're waiting for the future to bring happiness, you will be waiting forever.

The alternative is to drink your tea (and live your life), as if every sip could be your last.

If you're going to drink it, you might as well enjoy it, and today's class will show you how to make drinking your tea another path to mindful awareness.

Learn the secret of drinking tea and you will know how to find joy in your life right now. It's just that simple.

This week is all about simple exercises that bring you back to a state of peace, joy and mindfulness.

Each day I will share one powerful way to start your day mindfully, and remember, starting your day can happen anytime, as it's always now.

Today, we begin in the simplest possible way, with one mindful breath. This may seem too simple, but before you know it, one mindful breath turns into five mindful minutes, and five mindful minutes turns into a mindful life.

Join me for a wonderful reminder that your whole life is just one breath, and that there's no need to overthink it.

Look around you and you will notice that those with the strongest attachment to themselves, their opinions, beliefs and expectations live the most complicated, conflictual lives. Here are some simple ways to go beyond such conflict:

1) Don't believe what you think

2) Don't worry what others are thinking

3) Learn how to watch thoughts coming and going

This is actually just one practice, and it is simple and powerful in equal parts. Step out of the content of the mind and into the process of watching it and ah! Freedom! So sudden, so instantaneous!

Have fun in this moment, and remember that your thoughts are wholly unimportant. You, on the other hand, are precious, important and wonderful. There's no need to create this wonder, you just need to remember it.

Thank you for bringing a little more peace into this world.

Conflict is like a fire that rages inside, and the more you get lost in the thoughts about what happened outside, the stronger it gets.

That's because unconscious attention strengthens thought, while deliberately paying attention to them removes their power.

So in ending conflict in this world, the key is to pay proper attention to thought, in the right way, with mindfulness.

Today I will show you how.

The recipe for world peace is simple, and it does not involve any complex geopolitical solutions. We just need to breathe.

Well, breathe and be aware anyway. If you learn to do this, even in the midst of great anger and suffering, peace will begin to emerge.

And when your world is peaceful, those around you will certainly be drawn in.

So when anger threatens to take over, we must remember:

"Self and others are not two separate things, because the suffering, hope and anger of both sides is very much the same.

When we get angry, we suffer. If you really understand that, you also will be able to understand that when the other person is angry, it means she is suffering." Thich Nhat Hanh

Today, I invite you to join me in a place of compassion, peace and deep empathy.

For conflict to arise we need three things:

Personalities, stories and drama.

As you will discover in today's class, these three elements bring incredible difficulty, suffering and trouble into this world, and they contribute nothing.

Today I invite you on a different path - using the challenges of the world to become more deeply engaged in this wonderful moment. I hope you like it.

Can we deal with conflict mindfully? Is it possible to strike a balance between accepting people as they are and being assertive? How can we do this without being trampled?

Welcome to conflict week! All this week we will explore how conflict arises, what feeds the drama of human conflict and how we can go beyond it.

As humans begin to master these simple practices and become aware of the elements of conflict, the world will dramatically change.

We begin today by deconstructing the true cause of conflict, and practising a simple exercise that can remove conflict from your life today.

For more classes, come on down to www.alittlepeaceandquiet.com

In my last book, Mindfulness Plain & Simple, I discussed an interesting paradox, which is that we all seek happiness, we try to get peace and contentment, when in fact it is the very seeking that gets in the way of happiness.

We look to the outside world, or to some needed change in our inner world (a change that will happen in the future, which never comes) in the hope that this is the path to happiness. But unfortunately, there is no path to happiness, there is only a path of happiness.

True happiness is 100% engagement with this moment. Today I will show you how to make this engagement your focus right now.