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Francis Lanuza has now opened his interior design studio based in Limerick. With a degree in architecture, being an artist and milliner he is a welcome addition to the interior design scene for those who stare at Facebook and Pintrest interior design photos all day long at the office on their PC when they possibly should be doing accounts or answering a few emails. We can dream.....  Francis graduated cum laude as an an architect, and has since worked in a world Top 100 architectural firm, as well as in the Brussels EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Asian) innovation hub of one the world's leading brands. He is also a visual artist (with commissions for the HSE), interior and graphic designer, and creates fashion jewellery and millinery. 'Art and design', he says, 'can be very healing and restorative, and will always tell a story' - and this is part of his creative ethos. He can design a whole house interior or just a room. Here an example of one of his mood boards. This is a bohemian themed room interior design example.  Unique Interior 3D Designs One of the skills he has that will set him apart from other interior designers is his ability to do designs in 3D. Yes, he can actually walk you around your house in 3D so you can see exactly what it will look like without even a lick of paint from the new design. We will not be able to display that yet but will upload a YouTube video later of that. Neptune Kitchen Designer He is one of a handful of people trained by Neptune at their Head Office in the UK for all their specific ways of project management with reference to kitchen design for their brand. Email for details about this. He can work on a design for you with their stores here or in the UK. He can do the design with you and you can take that to the store or he could manage the project for you.  Office Interior Designer - Work From Home With his international experience he is well placed to work with people who need office design. Francis said,' Here in this case study, I aimed to address all the points I've raised, plus be able to make a interesting, practical design while adding touches of texture (such as in the warmth of the rug, the wood and the wicker) and colour accents. And what's more, this fits a very tight space of 3 x 1.4 mts, and on a budget (and can be ordered online) courtesy of Jysk.' This is welcome and helpful new for those looking to now to work from home and need help in terms of office design. He can also do restaurant interior design as he has had a client in Cork that he also did their branding.  ISCO - Paintings for Sale His art works are now on sale from his website and you can also get prints. They look nice on the walls of peoples homes. Here is a slideshow of the art. Milliner - The Mad Hatter to Tiaras And if all the above was not enough, interior design, office design, architecture and art he is also a milliner. Yes - he makes hats and....tiaras!!! He sometimes uses rhinestones and crystals on his paintings too. So if you need help in any of the areas above contact him through his website
http://www.iscodesigns.com
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This book needs to immediately be put onto the national curriculum. When the book came out a number of months ago I got a copy to honour what Vicky Phelan did which was to hold a government single handedly to account as a citizen and to nearly bring it down. I wanted to understand the whole story. If ever there was an example of a whistle-blower and one that won, it is Vicky Phelan. She will probably be one of the only few over the next two decades that will be so successful. When you think of it, so many people have issues of all sorts and are equally relevant to the national debate. Survivors of Magdalene Laundries immediately come to mind who are still waiting for full redress. So there was something extraordinary in the innocence and sincerity of what took place when a strong educated women who unusually had good self-esteem and facing death with nothing to loose, took on the Irish state, the HSE and the pharmaceutical company responsible for testing and won. A US company who normally in light of claims such as these generally fold up to avoid paying compensation to victims. Only to open in the morning with a new name but the same directors, same address and sometimes the same facility.  Vicky Phelan writes with searing honesty about her life. Remember this was not a woman who was media trained before see landed into the public and media limelight. Or a woman who sought that limelight. No, this is a woman who wants to tell the truth and tell us the truth about the truth she discovered and we are the better for it as a nation as a result of her determination to help others and not back down. The book starts off with her early life growing up with her parents and discovering her love of education which took her to France initially as an au pair. Maybe this contributed to her strength being in a culture where not taking crap and being subservient was not normal - quite the contrary. Living in a country and culture imbued with philosophy and not religious dogma and where women were not condescended upon. She explains her early life growing up and her love of education where she has worked professionally for many years. She writes about her time abroad which led to a terrible accident where she faced death for the first time with the loss of her first love and two friends in a car accident. One of the most gracious, elegant and kindest highlight of the book was where she celebrates also the life of other people who were affected and lost their lives due to incompetence and failure by national system. Even though this was Vicky Phelan's memoir she gave space to those who are no longer here and who played their role in the fight for truth and justice and systematic change. An action that was deeply kind and considerate. An example. There is nobody to be left behind. Emma MacMahuna was given over two pages in the memoir and Vicky Phelan gave her credit for also helping raise awareness of the debacle that that the testing was which even a government adviser warned against before commencing as he foresaw what was going to take place. Explaining how Stephen Teap and his two young sons have to live without Irene, a wife and mother, and how he also played a role bringing the government to account. One word missing from the whole national debate and surprisingly from the book is - ethics.  There was one thing that stuck and surprised me about the national debate and Phelan's memoir Overcoming. Two terms ethics and bioethics were not mentioned and are still very relevant to the debate. In other words moral psychology. Where we draw the line. We desperately need these ethical debates in our health system and by ethical I mean free of religious dogma, There are enough ethicist's in Ireland at academic levels for the Department of Health to immediately create a panel to advise both the HSE and the Department of Health on issues such as these and what stand, position and policy must be taken. I think its glaringly obvious ethics must now also become part of the medical school curriculum. Another thing I think Vicky Phelan could have reminded the public about and the medical establishment is the Oath they take The Hippocratic Oath - 'first, do no harm'. In light of how a lot of medical professionals conducted themselves with their patients I think they all need to go on ethics courses as part of their CPD every five years. To be honest as a medical body they should have lobbied en masse to reject the policy of 'the three monkeys' as regards the CervicalCheck scandal. Phelan expalins all this really well which is why everyone should read the book. This was one of the worst aspects of the scandal for the public the total breech of trust. This reality has not just affected those with issues around CervicalCheck. The public have been left feeling if they have not been honest about that what else are they not being transparent about? The fact that the medical establishment was considering not telling patients of a false positive demonstrates they should not be allowed to regulate themselves as regards critical crisis such as this. A patient and their family have a right to know their medical results no more than Henrietta Lacks family had a right to know her bloods were used in medical experiments and that vaccines trials have been made on orphans in religious orphanages. Or the scandal of baby parts some years ago and elsewhere being used for experiments. In fairness to Vicky Phelan she raised the Patient Safety Act in the book and we should all be aware of that but is anyone monitoring how it is being implemented?  You know, its incumbent on us all as a society to read Overcoming by Vicky Phelan. Firstly to make sure it does not happen again through public discourse and awareness and secondly as a case study on how to deal with injustice when it does happen. However when you are a whistleblower you are on your own. One thing you can be sure of is there will be little cooperation or help. The system of adversarial litigation is set to destroy good people and bankrupt some of them. So I was sad to see when mediation was mentioned, being a qualified and practising mediator myself that the process appears to have been a paper exercise. Despite the governments protestations it was otherwise at the time. Only recent days have shown how the victims of the CervicalCheck are being taken through the courts. A mediation process should have been employed in every case. One point about Vicky Phelan's mediation is she wanted to fully engage and just did not want to sign an NDA (non disclosure agreement). From reading Vicky Phelan's book I will be raising this issue at a national level. This seems to be a stumbling block in the current atmosphere of mediation's. If consideration was given in these specific cases to wave the need for a non-disclosure and confidentiality agreement, settlements could proceed much faster. This raises ethical questions for mediators, in that, they could lobby for people who are terminal in their diagnosis to avoid both of these issues that seem to derail the process before it even starts. The ethos of mediation is to be private and confidential but can this ethically be so in such cases where people are terminal with weeks or months to live? Had Vicky Phelan not spoken out and went for a settlement and to save her the trauma of court so many other lives would have been lost. This is why our nation owes Vicky Phelan a huge debt of gratitude for her honesty, truth, integrity and staelwartness for not agreeing to be gagged. This is why the book needs to be put on the national curriculum under CSPE as so many lessons can be learned for future generations. I read the book in one sitting and the editing was excellent. In summary Vicky Phelan will be remembered in history as a lifesaver. To understand why you will need to read the book. Aromatherapy Facial Serum 22 - 30ml
€50.00
The ultimate facial serum - no need to apply moisturiser after! 100% Natural Aromatherapy Facial Serum made with 22 oils and essential oils including Immortelle, Rose, Frankincense, Myrrh, German Chamomile, Jojoba oil, Sweet Almond oil and Wheatgerm oil, to nourish and support the skin, improve cell regeneration, slow down the loss of collagen, hydrate and firm. Beneficial for fine lines, wrinkles, age spots and redness. Apply at night instead of night cream and wake up to radiant soft skin. No parabens, silicones, dyes or presrvatives; cruelty-free and vegan. Most splendidly of all our formula contains Helichrysum Italicum (Immortelle) Oil Helichrysum is beneficial for treating many problems but it is most popular in preventing wrinkles, age spots and other signs of ageing. According to scientific research, helichrysum reduces the depth of wrinkles by 19%, the total number of wrinkles by 14% and generally reduces wrinkles by 38%. 100% Natural No Parabens No Mineral Oils No Preservatives No Animal Products No Sulfites No Synthetic Fragrances No Silicones No Dyes
HOW TO USE: ArthroAroma Massage Oil 250ml - for aches & pains
€19.99
Aches and pains? Arthritic Joints? With essential oils of clove, rosemary, peppermint, eucalyptus and juniper, ArthroAroma has pain-relieving, anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties. This liniment brings relief to painful joints, back-ache, stiff shoulders, repetitive strain injury and all sorts of aches and pains.
Dream Massage Oil 250ml - for trouble sleeping
€19.99
Trouble Sleeping? Can’t relax? Wind down with our Dream Massage Oil, made with lavender, vetivert and patchouli essential oils, chosen to help you de-stress, wind-down and relax to help you get to the land of nod. Apply to the back of the neck and shoulders at bed-time or use for a deeply relaxing massage.
LTE Guided Mindfulness Meditation - Audio Download
€20.00
Our very popular guided mindfulness meditation tracks, normally used in conjunction with our 6-week courses, now available to download! 4 meditation tracks, plus introduction and closing tracks:
The mindfulness audio download is a mindfulness practice tool designed to help you build your practice of meditation. Used daily in a formal setting at home or the office you can build your practice of mindfulness which is the key component of the study of mindfulness its practice. Thought Diffusion will teach you how to reduce the levels of thoughts in your mind. So that can let go of worries and anxieties leaving you to enjoy your practice of mindfulness meditation in total peace. Loving Kindness practice is one of the most important practices of our community. This has become very popular daily practice for people empowering them in terms of self compassion self esteem and positive self dialogue. Finally there is The Healing Halo Visualization which is in part shamanic. The healing halo of white light is seen as taking all the negative energies out of the body and increase the vitality and well-being of the person. This is also the relaxation technique of the course and is used by people to get very deep and excellent quality of sleep. NUTRIWINE (Paperback)
€11.95
Wine is an industry now worth $107 billion that has long been connected to health and well-being down the ages.
Did you know that wine protects you from a heart attack? Best-selling Health Guru Ralph Quinlan Forde has just released his next groundbreaking book - NutriWine. The book is full to the brim with the reasons why moderate wine drinking can safeguard your health and boost your well-being. Wine he asserts is a ‘superfood’ when taken in moderation. These are just some of the interesting stories he has included in his new book NutriWine; • A sommelier whose nose is insured for 20 million Euros • The $750 million wine compound • How red wine protects you from heart attacks • A wine drinking Japanese robot and an electronic wine tasting tongue • Wine making wizards using astrological viticulture • Nurses that drink wine who reduce their diabetes risk by 52% • Wine sex & romance • Weight loss wine enthusiasts • Why green wine is better for you and the environment • The first carbon zero winery • Wine 2.0 & 14 million wine conversations A wine tasting to inspire. "This book gives you insight into the craft and chemistry of wine making as well as the health benefits." - Top 10 Amazon.com Reviewer Mother's Day Deluxe Gift Set
€80.00
Our Deluxe Mother's Day Gift Set contains the following:
* Aromatherapy Facial Serum 22 * Lavender Pillow Aromatherapy Mist * Bath Oil with Grapefruit, Basil & Marjoram * Orange, Myrrh and Frankincense Moisturiser with Wild Atlantic Seaweed PLUS Natural Dry Hair Shampoo (worth €10, FREE!) Mindful Beauty Nurses' Gift Box (with FREE well-wishing card)
€39.99
Now comes with a FREE Well-wishing Thank you Card featuring healing art by artist Francis Lanuza! Email us at hello@mindfulbeauty.eu with the name of the person receiving the box, plus a message you would like to give him/her. For the very deserving nurse in your life, give her/him the gift of self-care and relaxation. Our Nurses' Gift Box contains the following: Lavender Pillow Mist with Lavender & Chamomile - 100ml ArthroAroma Massage Oil with a blend of 7 essential oils - 100ml Tired & Achy Foot Soak with Rosemary, Clove & Marjoram - 100ml Naturally Anitiviral/Antiseptic Aromatherapy Flu Room Spray - 100ml IMPORTANT: Kindly indicate your Eircode/postcode and mobile number to ensure correct delivery. As all couriers in the country are on maximum capacity, we ask for your patience. Salon Le Huile Botanique de Beauté 250ml - salon/spa massage oil
€19.99
Bring the Mindful Beauty experience to your own salon or spa practice! Our 100% natural massage oil contains no mineral oils, thus it is healthier and more beneficial to your clients. Has the luscious blend of jojoba, marula, coconut, avocado and rosehip oils that is not only relaxing, but also rejuvenates and softens skin. Mindful Beauty Ladies' Beauty Box
€19.99
An ideal gift for beauty and relaxation, contains our bestselling Lavender Pillow Mist, a relaxing Rose, Geranium and Petitgrain Bath Oil and FREE! Talc-free Natural Dry Hair Shampoo (worth €10.00). All presented in our Mindful Beauty craft gift box. What a mindful gift to give this holidays, or for any special event! Men's Gift Box
€19.99
A natural, unique gift idea for men, contains our bestselling LumberJack Facial Mosituriser and Aftershave Balm (now at 100ml) and Chillax Bath Oil for relaxation and rejuvenation. All presented in our Mindful Beauty craft gift box. What a mindful gift to give this holidays, or for any special event! Mindful Beauty Ladies' DELUXE Beauty Box
€79.99
Give her the ultimate Mindful Gift for her special day, for only €79,99! All handcrafted and packaged in our delightful craft paper boxes and mailed straight to her door. Specially made by Mindful Beauty.
PLUS FREE Natural Dry Hair Shampoo to mind her hair!  Everyone loves a bit of sun and heaven knows we deserve it after the winter we have had in Ireland recently and the release of lockdown. Beach? Yes please! Sunshine and the skin is great for helping the body produce Vitamin D which in recent years has seen a raft of research showing its benefits. Recently healthy levels of vitamin D in your blood have also been shown to fight COVID-19. Where Irish and Brits are situated on the planet we don't get enough sun to produce Vitamin D within our bodies so supplementation is something to consider for your wellbeing. However too much sun can damage the skin. A WHO report attributes 90% of ageing to sun exposure. Ultraviolet (UV) rays both A & B create radiation which basically creates all the ageing of your skin: pigmentation, sun spots and wrinkles.  Ultraviolet A rays UVA do a lot of damage without generating a tan and ultraviolet B UVB rays help Vitamin B production and produce skin cells that give you a darker complexion and causes sunburn. Both rays create free radicals that damage the skin creating wrinkles and potentially changes to cellular DNA. Too much sun can also expose you to skin cancer but 95% of skin cancers are treatable if diagnosed early. So if you have an itch or an itchy mole all of a sudden head to your GP to get it checked. UV rays when they hit the skin also attack elastin a protein which causes the skin to sag eventually.  What is the best sun safety advice ? An umbrella for the beach! This simple solution lets you enjoy your holiday at the beach but avoids sun damage. The coverage helps you to build up the melanin in your skin and helps you not get sunburnt whilst enjoying the holiday. Do not expose your skin to the sun at noon when the UV rays are most damaging. A wide rimmed hat is also excellent to protect your face. Try and get sunglasses that state the lens are UV protecting. The ones that are will have a sticker stating this. Sun protection cosmetics with Sun Protection Factor (SPF) are a must. A quick rule of thumb is 15 SPF gives you 15 minutes protection and 30 SPF 30 minutes protection and so on. You need to use a different cream for you face than your body. Lots of the general SPF creams sting the eyes with the ingredients they are made of. So get a nice SPF cream for your face that does not sting your eyes but affords you protection. Ask the pharmacist and yes it might cost 20 Euros or more but your face is your fortune and you do not want your eyes stinging on holidays. You work all year so you deserve a nice treat. Especially cover for kids with SPF creams who do not understand the dangers of the sun yet? Aromatherapy Facial Serum 22 - 30ml
€50.00
The ultimate facial serum - no need to apply moisturiser after! 100% Natural Aromatherapy Facial Serum made with 22 oils and essential oils including Immortelle, Rose, Frankincense, Myrrh, German Chamomile, Jojoba oil, Sweet Almond oil and Wheatgerm oil, to nourish and support the skin, improve cell regeneration, slow down the loss of collagen, hydrate and firm. Beneficial for fine lines, wrinkles, age spots and redness. Apply at night instead of night cream and wake up to radiant soft skin. No parabens, silicones, dyes or presrvatives; cruelty-free and vegan. Most splendidly of all our formula contains Helichrysum Italicum (Immortelle) Oil Helichrysum is beneficial for treating many problems but it is most popular in preventing wrinkles, age spots and other signs of ageing. According to scientific research, helichrysum reduces the depth of wrinkles by 19%, the total number of wrinkles by 14% and generally reduces wrinkles by 38%. 100% Natural No Parabens No Mineral Oils No Preservatives No Animal Products No Sulfites No Synthetic Fragrances No Silicones No Dyes
HOW TO USE:  You definitely need to be using a sun cream with SPF which protects you from the harmful UVB rays that burn your skin. If your skin would start to burn after 5 minutes in the sun an SPF 10 will give you ten times more protection allowing you stay in the sun for 50 minutes – 10 times longer than normal. Without applying a cream of SPF you are allowing 100% photons of UVB through to your skin but when you apply sun lotion with SPF 50 you block out up to 98% of them.  If you do happen to burn your skin two good natural remedies are Aloe Vera gel as pure as you can get and natural yogurt both of which sooth the skin. Homeopathic Cantharis is also good to ease the pain of sunburn. Happy ‘sunburn free’ holidays.  Mindful Beauty Eau de Cologne - 50ml
€24.99
100% NATURAL, CRUELTY-FREE Our Eau du Cologne is made with 100% pure essential oils from herbs & spices. We developed this unisex Cologne with spring in mind & wanted to return to the use of high quality natural ingredients which is what our brand is known for. Many perfume houses in France only used essential oils to create colognes & perfume up to the 1930’s. Like any work of art our formula is secret but nourishes the body, mind & soul. With top notes of Bergamot, Lemon, Grapefruit & Orange; heart notes of Ylang ylang, Neroli & French Lavender & with base notes of Cedarwood, Vetivert & Frankincense. Ralph Quinlan Forde the founder of Mindful Beauty has formulated this Cologne with his knowledge of perfumery he gained from studying in Grasse, France - the epicentre of international perfume craft. In 1708, Giovanni Farina wrote to his brother Jean Baptiste: "I have found a fragrance that reminds me of an Italian spring morning, of mountain daffodils & orange blossoms after the rain". He named his fragrance Eau de Cologne, in honour of his new hometown in Germany as he was missing Italy. The Mindful Beauty Eau du Cologne is just that: citrus floral spring mornings - crisp, fresh & awakening. Mindful Beauty Chillax Box
€37.99
Relax and de-stress during or after a long, stressful day with our products formulated with only 100% natural essential oils, traditionally used to chill out and unwind:
Aromatherapy Facial Serum 22 - 30ml
€50.00
The ultimate facial serum - no need to apply moisturiser after! 100% Natural Aromatherapy Facial Serum made with 22 oils and essential oils including Immortelle, Rose, Frankincense, Myrrh, German Chamomile, Jojoba oil, Sweet Almond oil and Wheatgerm oil, to nourish and support the skin, improve cell regeneration, slow down the loss of collagen, hydrate and firm. Beneficial for fine lines, wrinkles, age spots and redness. Apply at night instead of night cream and wake up to radiant soft skin. No parabens, silicones, dyes or presrvatives; cruelty-free and vegan. Most splendidly of all our formula contains Helichrysum Italicum (Immortelle) Oil Helichrysum is beneficial for treating many problems but it is most popular in preventing wrinkles, age spots and other signs of ageing. According to scientific research, helichrysum reduces the depth of wrinkles by 19%, the total number of wrinkles by 14% and generally reduces wrinkles by 38%. 100% Natural No Parabens No Mineral Oils No Preservatives No Animal Products No Sulfites No Synthetic Fragrances No Silicones No Dyes
HOW TO USE: This weeks slogan is where the meditation masters are directing us to a fine goal of meditation - awareness. Question is why have they, at such an early stage, begun to direct our minds and mediation practice in this way.  What is interesting to note is why the meditation masters of old put this slogan in this tradition of awakening so soon. The thinking mind needs time to slow down. Stop hopping all over the place. But yet they have put this profound truth as number three in the system of awakening? At some point in your meditation practice you are going to start seeing that as your thinking mind slows down the flow of thoughts will too. This can be a huge psychological shock to people who self-identify only as 'thinking beings'. Meditation, successful meditation process is quite frankly the antithesis to their self-concept. Now don't get me wrong or get frightened but there is a lot more to our mind than just thinking. You will learn the more you delve into regular deep meditation practice that thoughts actually come from our mind. That it is mind that we need to get an understanding of not our thoughts so much. They eventually subside. Not to the point you become a zombie but you chose when to think and not your thinking mind being in complete control of you. As Ram Dass says, 'the intellect is a great friend but a lousy master.' Too much thinking is a way of people dissociating. Disconnecting and is the major basis for 'dualisitic fixation' in other words 'self and other' Why do the mediation masters instruct us to examine the nature of unborn awareness? And why do they specify 'unborn'? What do they mean? Mediation is a journey to become more sane. Psychologically anyways. The masters are directing our focus inwards and to search and find this elephant in the forest. Meditation is not just about chillin' out. Its deeper. Much deeper. We are to search for the fundamental mind the awareness mind. This is not a concept but an experience and don't worry it eventually comes. As the thinking slows down and when the last thought goes and before the next thought arises there is a ...GAP!!!! Mind the gap and the gap will mind you.  This gap is free and unbounded awareness and we need a training to get to this level of meditation, more training to stay in it and more training again to start to value and identify with this experientially speaking. Once we get to the gap, which will take a few weeks of daily meditation of over 30 minutes minimum, how do we deal with awareness? The lojong masters tell us to examine it. And examine its 'unborn' aspect. This is because awareness has never died and therefore is never born and is unborn. We need to stabilise this practice and this understanding. When we do we find the stable aspect of our minds. We arrive on the shores of peace - shanti. Lady Gaga advises look after your career as your career won't leave you. The same can be said for awareness. Invest in it as it will never ever leave you. You will always be with your own spirit so you better love it and better have a good relationship with your own spirit-mind. We cannot give what we don't have. Enjoy examining the nature of unborn awareness. A fine jewel indeed. Discover Your Beautiful Mind.   Firstly, if you are a nurse, doctor, pharmacist, health care assistant or hospital cleaner reading this, based on the recommendations of the medical homeopathic associations listed below, you should be taking one dose of homeopathic Gelsemium 30c as a prophylactic. Immediately. This will not interact with any medication that you are currently taking and is safe to use. The remedy is to help your system combat COVID-19 and make you less susceptible to contracting the virus. ‘Homeopathic medicines have been used extensively for flu-like symptoms and in epidemics around the world. If you decide to take a homeopathic medicine, this should be in addition to the various measures outlined above and should not be your only approach. Selection of the most appropriate homeopathic medicine is based on an individual’s unique symptoms. However, Gelsemium 30c and Bryonia 30c are commonly used for flu-like symptoms and have a long-established, traditional usage over many years.’ This is the recent statement from the 4th of March 2020 from: Alliance of Registered Homeopaths British Association of Homeopathic Manufacturers British Homeopathic Association Faculty of Homeopathy Friends of the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine Homeopathy Research Institute Society of Homeopaths The remedy can be ordered from these homeopathic pharmacies. If you order one bottle, then you can take one dose which is one tablet and share the other 29 from the bottle with colleagues if they want to try and protect themselves. There is no connection financially between me and the pharmacies. So from the outset there is no conflict of interest. There is just a motivation to get some proper information about the power of homeopathy out there that could save lives. I am going to try and argue my case for the immediate use of homeopathy in all hospitals worldwide especially in Ireland and the UK. The medicines are also relatively easy to manufacture whilst people are waiting for PPE, a vaccine that may or may not work, and a combination of anti-malarial drugs and antibiotics the latter of which won’t work on a virus anyways. So here we go….. Last year sales of homeopathic medicines in Europe topped £3 billion and out of 500 million European citizens over 100 million, a fifth of the EU, has used homeopathic medicine in the last year. Many medical doctors on the continent are also trained in homeopathic medicine. The pharmaceutical industry has been hell-bent with its heavily funded PR machine to spread lies and misinformation about the medicine that has been safely used for over 300 years to successfully treat patients. They do so as homeopathy poses a massive threat to shareholder dividends if European citizens keep using the medicine which has been working for hundreds of years for them and safely. Clinical studies are showing that these medicines outperform their pharmaceutical cousins. Patients in the EU are voting with their feet and money in their droves. In fact, the first path of treatment for most Europeans is to a homeopath and 20% of Scottish GP's, for example, have received training in this medicine. If so, why not in Ireland too? Homeopathic sales figures show that 70% of the sales were in Europe and 30% in North America. France is the leading market for homeopathy in Europe with sales of over 210 million Euros per annum and with 40% of the population having been treated homoeopathically in a medical setting. With the oncoming pandemic about to hit and thousands about to lose their lives, a knowledge – even a basic one – about homeopathy it is being argued here, could save lots of lives potentially. Especially for those on the medical frontlines. So what is Homeopathy? Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician (1755-1843), founded homeopathy as a safer alternative to bloodletting, purging with mercury compounds, and other perilous medical practices of his day. We can now add to this list chemotherapy carpet bombing. He based his new approach on what he called the "law of similars." According to the theory, a pharmacologically active substance administered to a person in good health triggers a series of symptoms. When these same symptoms appear in a sick person, they can be cured by administering the same substance in a homeopathic (chemical free) form. With little or no side effects. The homeopathic version by working in the persons vital force, cancels out or antidotes the symptoms. Most homeopathic medicines are imparted on a lactose pill which is milk sugar in a pill form.  Homeopathy is inexpensive to make too which should be of interest to health ministries. Healthychild.com writes, 'A report to the American Institute of Homeopathy in 1921 documented the dramatic success of homeopathy in the worst flu pandemic in history. The death rate of 24,000 flu cases under conventional medical care in that study was 28.2 percent, whilst the death rate of 26,000 cases treated with homeopathy was a nearly miraculous 1.05 percent.' So why are we not immediately treating patients with homeopathy? The statistics are reported in Randall Neustaedter's excellent book Flu: Alternative Treatments and Prevention. When a similar strain of bird flu, misleadingly termed Spanish Flu, spread around the world in 1918, it had catastrophic consequences. Over 50 million people died. However, American hospital statistics from the time show that homeopathic treatment gave a far better chance of survival than conventional treatment did at that time.  For at least the past 150 years homeopathic practitioners have used the medicine Influenzinum as a flu preventive. Influenzinum is a homeopathic medicine made from flu viruses. A proprietary preparation is produced by Dolisos pharmacy each year using the flu virus strains recommended by the World Health Organization for the year’s vaccine production (Dolivaxil – containing Influenzinum 9C). The typical dosage is once per week for four weeks beginning in October or later, followed by another dose three weeks later to prevent yourself getting the flu. Before anyone says hey COVID-19 is not the flu!!!??? I know I know…. but I have to make my case on the evidence that homeopathy has worked to help entire societies avoid viral infections. Added to this, reduces the symptoms of the infection and manages the disease to a state of being cured for MILLIONS OF PEOPLE!!!? OVER DECADES!!! WHAT COULD BE SAFER???  Oscillococcinum - Bestselling Homeopathic Remedy The bestselling alternative medicine for flu in the US is a homeopathic preparation of the liver and heart of a Barbary duck (trade name Oscillococcinum). This medicine was first formulated in 1925. The name arose from the belief that the blood of flu victims in the 1918 pandemic contained bacteria composed of balls (cocci) that vibrated or oscillated. Joseph Roy, a French physician at the time identified this supposed pathogen and found it in many animal species. He chose as the source of his homeopathic preparation a duck, possibly an extremely fortuitous accident because of the association between human flu epidemics and bird viruses. This remedy recently toped Drugstore.com sales list sales in the US alone are in the region of £20 million. A course of Oscillococcinum costs £6, which is used regularly by 5 million French for the prevention and treatment of colds and flu’s. If you know anything about the French, if this did not work and they did not feel the effects, there would be riots all over Paris. But they do work in so many medical conditions. Cancer too. Imagine? Oscillococcinum was first studied in France during the 1987 flu epidemic caused by an H1N1 virus similar to the bird flu of today. This multi-centre study examined the effect of Oscillococcinum (200C) on the early symptoms of flu. Results were published in the peer-reviewed British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. More patients in the treatment group recovered completely in the first 48 hours than the control group (17 percent of patients with active treatment compared to 10 percent of controls). More patients in the treatment group also judged the treatment as favourable compared to the placebo, 61 % vs 49 % (Ferley, 1989).  MidwiferyToday.com report that, 'In 1990 German scientists replicated the French study of Oscillococcinum. They used the same criteria as the previous study and enrolled 372 patients. After 48 hours of treatment with Oscillococcinum the treatment group had significantly milder symptoms than the control group, and the number of patients with no symptoms from day two onward was significantly greater in the treatment group (17.4 percent) compared to the control group (6.6 percent) (Papp, 1998).' Both of these studies show a significant curative effect of a homeopathic medicine in the treatment of flu in carefully conducted, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials. Conventional antiviral drugs reduce the duration of flu by about one day if taken within the first 48 hours of illness (Cooper, 2003). These studies show that homeopathy carries the potential to make a dramatic difference in any flu epidemic without the risk of drug side effects. If homeopathy can help in a pandemic and epidemic why not with COVID-19? If anyone says there are no studies especially clinical and scientific ones to support homeopathic medicine as an effective medicine they are talking utter horseshit. Just click here to see some of the many studies that have taken place and that are peer reviewed. One has to wonder if orthodox medical ideologues will actually listen to or even read the factual evidence?  From experience I find that when their patients ask is it ok to take homeopathy with their allopathic prescription, rather than Dr's saying I have no idea and have no education on the subject and am therefore totally and utterly ignorant of the subject, which to be fair is vast and complex but deeply effective, they say things like, ‘oh, I don’t believe in that.’ And some of these doctor’s call homeopathy superstition. If only it was…… The ignorance of complimentary medicines in Irish medical schools is both breath-taking, indeed anti-intellectual, lacking in compassion and a failure to uphold The Hippocratic Oath to do no harm. If homeopathy works for the patient, alleviates the symptoms with no nasty side effects tantamount to the pharmaceutical industry why is it not available to Irish citizens and especially in the COVID-19 pandemic? Why has the Irish government not promoted it more as a cost effective way to run our healthcare system which before this crisis was costing millions with people as sick as ever and with more and more flu’s? Why not put the savings into funding the National Children’s Hospital? Why are we not doing this?? …Hmmmm....Leadership void? No common sense? Ignorance? Ineptitude? Incompetence? Take your pick….  If in Ireland, we have only 500 respirators for 4 million people and only 5000 for 60 million in the UK, then doctors are going to be forced into the terrible situation of deciding who gets a ventilator and who does not. In other words, who will live and who will not!? This is an extraordinary traumatic psychological pressure to put on staff both in the HSE and NHS who in the last seven years of austerity have not been funded correctly, have been exposed to working conditions that have generated burnout of which they are currently at a huge risk of, moral distress and compassion fatigue which we have tried to raise an awareness of over the past five years through our training in 10 Irish HSE hospitals. This is why I am calling now on the Irish government to make homeopathic medicines available to people who will not be able to be given a respirator. This is surely the most compassionate thing to do. Not everyone may benefit but it is worth doing so some could possibly live. This could reduce the trauma for healthcare professionals and families alike. What else is there when there is no respirator available for a patient (A PERSON - A HUMAN BEING) suffering from pneumonia who could die? Over ten years ago I wrote in the Scottish press asking the question - is anyone planning to stockpile homeopathic medicines proven to effectively treat the flu for over one hundred years? Clearly not. One of the aspects of the COVID-19 is that after infection it attacks the lungs creating pneumonia which many patients are dying of. Homeopathy has a number of remedies that are used in treating pneumonia. They are listed at this link but you can find similar lists in materia medica books on line.  The main remedy it seems for the pneumonia that comes with COVID-19 may be · · Antimonium tartaricum
Homeopathy in some case could even free up respirators and save more lives as the remedy may allow patients to breath better and fight the virus and its effects through support of our immune system.  To shut up all the naysayers I think the best living advertisement for homeopathy is the British Monarch HRH Queen Elizabeth II. For many years now Queen Elizabeth has a personal physician who is also a medical homeopath. Perhaps Queen Elizabeth’s longevity is down to homeopathy? Anyways folks get yourself some remedies in and perhaps invest now in a homeopathy first aid kit. My ire is not just for successive governments trying to undermine homeopathy as a relevant medicine in our age or the pharmaceutical industry but also the homeopathic organisations across the EU who have failed to challenge the fake news condemning homeopathy. Two false rumours do not make a fact. To counter some of the false news with fact would be easy but they never employ a PR consultant to do so. This could eventually lead to homeopathy being made illegal. A number of legislative attempts have been made over the last decade concerning complimentary medicine. But who is complementing who? Remember a few weeks ago they were saying face masks were not relevant and now 'they' are saying they are. Use your head. Don't let the PR machine of MamaPharma dissuade you with their 'astroturfing' online campaigns to convince you or dissuade you from something. Especially something that could be beneficial to our society. The factual information is there, the clinical studies too but only if you look.   This slogan is this processes first attempt to get us to reflect and see that our minds, without mindfulness training, can end up being too 'tight' and closed minded. Meditation and these slogans are about opening those minds up quite like how a can opener works. We end up perceiving everything as too real with regards our personal and conditioned perception. We need at times to lighten up and this slogan repeated to ourselves helps us do just that. Al our experiences are fleeting.......so lets stop with all the pressure. Reality and what it is, is such a huge topic in Western philosophy never mind Eastern. One commonly spoken maxim is that 'there is perception and there is reality'. Are people speaking about how they perceive a situation or reality. So many women, as TV star Gok Wan repeatedly shows, perceive themselves as bigger in size than what they actually are. In reality they are 25% less in size than what they perceive. Sometimes our maps of the world are not the world. All experiences are fleeting. Once they happen they are over. But we have an amazing capacity to replay them over and over in our minds dousing ourselves with stress biochemicals such as adrenaline and cortisol which cause us to age faster. Bad enough an argument happens once but do we really need to replay it in the YouTube of our minds seven times over? Our untrained minds are like glue! They just keep sticking to things. Starting in meditation we constantly have to keep trying to detach our minds from all the things it has become attached to.  Dharma is a Sanskrit word for phenomena. So therefore we should regard all phenomena - both good and bad as being dreamlike. In other words we could be slightly detached from our attached way of perceiving things that can be quite rigid. This can lead at times to 'my way or the highway' type attitude. What you think might be good for you may not be for someone else. By this I am not speaking of 'idiot insight' like enabling an alcoholic and therefore not applying this slogan correctly or indeed any slogan. What this slogan is trying to do is introduce again and again to your mind is - openness. To keep us out of our ego hedgehog curling by rolling up in a ball and keeping the world out and sometimes even a better way of doing things.  Discovering a sense of openness, a natural quality of your mind, is such a landmark moment in mindfulness training and practice. We don't have to take everything so seriously. Or be so reactive we can have some space.... This slogan will also help those with the Lifetrap of 'Unrelenting Standards'. Our choice if we are stressed is between continuing with being attached to things or start to detach and let go and trust and get some space and serenity. The more attached to things we are we will have little peace. We still have to operate but this slogan is speaking of operating with an openness of mind. An open mind can accommodate more for it is - when you examine it and not take my word for it - vast like space but with one defining quality which you have to discover through your own meditation practice. The key thing here is to reflect on the experience of the dreams that we have. One thing to note is that we WATCH the dream - mostly. We even WATCH ourselves in the dream in a few cases. Who is that? What part of the mind is doing that? Is it thought? What is it?  We observe from a distance which is natural detachment. So if we can be detached naturally from it all in a dream then we can do the same in the waking life as if it is all a dream. The more and more you investigate this slogan and reflect on it the better. You will see how much of what we experience is dreamlike. The Aboriginal wisdom culture of Australia has an understanding similar to this in terms of what they call dreamtime. They understand this state of mind as more real than the waking life and they have spiritual reasons for saying so that you will discover the more that you study and practice. Here is an example of their art depicting what they see and perhaps where they go in their dreams.  This slogan of Regard All Dharmas As Dreams is so relevant to the current pandemic crisis. Thousands are losing their lives. This leaves us with more ethical responsibility to live our lives to the fullest in their memory and not waste it worrying about things that don't matter and to now, while will still have the chance, to deepen our practice which will give rise to wisdom and compassion which will enhance our lives and those around us.
The current COVID-19 pandemic will give many who have learned to meditate time to practice and even have a retreat. Take stock of their lives, prioritise what matters and wake up from the DREAM of all the human doing and return to be a human being and to..... Discover Their Beautiful Mind.... With coronavirus spreading at a rapid rate we thought we could offer some help by developing an aromatherapy spray that would be helpful in the fight against the epidemic. Antibiotics do not work against coronavirus or any viruses. They only work against bacterial infections. There is currently no vaccine. The novel coronavirus detected in China is genetically closely related to the SARS-CoV-1 virus. SARS emerged at the end of 2002 in China, and it caused more than 8 000 cases in 33 countries over a period of eight months. Around one in ten of the people who developed SARS died.  As you can see from the sneeze above - thousands of droplets are discharged into the air from an infected person. This is why we have developed the spray so as to kill the virus in 10 minutes living in those airborne droplets. This is our idea based on medical research that has shown in clinical trials the essential oils killing the virus and inhibiting its life cycle. Aromatherapy essential oils have been shown in a number of clinical studies to be strong in the fight against bacteria and in fact when sprayed in the air kill airborne flu virus types within 10 minutes. You may also be interested to know they successfully combat MRSA which at present has no known antibiotic treatment as it has grown resistant to them all. Just to let you know I am speaking and writing with an honours degree in Biotechnology and Biochemical Engineering. In other words I could whip you up a vaccine with the right kit. I ain’t joking. I know my stuff.I was educated by the best many of whom went to Cambridge and Oxford. Lots of misinformation is being spread about the use of aromatherapy in the fight against Covid19 by health journalists and bloggers at the moment who are basically copying and pasting the news feed. Saying that aromatherapy cannot play a role at the moment with this virus is – fake news. THEY ABSOLUTELY CAN HELP and scientific studies have proven this with other influenza type viruses. Plus years of safe and effective use. Jackwood et al in 2010 studied essential oils with regards SARS and in the paper he and his colleagues wrote about the study they said that, ‘The data are important because these types of compounds might also be useful to control other coronaviruses like the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) as well as other enveloped viruses like avian influenza virus and Newcastle disease virus.’ He must have known that something was coming down the line possibly. Loizzo et al found when they studied the use of essential oils with SARS that ,’ Our results demonstrated how L. nobilisberries oil exhibited an IC50 value of 120mg/ml against SARS-CoV with a selectivity index (SI;TC50/IC50) of 4.2.’ Here are some of the many of the research results with aromatherapy essential oils to treat a number of conditions. Only ignorant incompetent scientists, medics and technologists would ignore the data.  Of course MamaPharma has a big interest (billions $$) in suppressing information about the efficacy of medicinal plants. They also cannot patent them. Just consider for a moment the medicine for the SARS flu which is called Tamiflu? Tamiflu is made from a chemical compound from Star Anise called shikimic acid. No star anise no tamiflu so we need to be more understanding about the power of medicinal plants. Being ignorant about the power of aromatherapy essential oils at the moment could be very detrimental during this COVID19 outbreak. So with this in mind we have created our Aromatherapy Flu ROOM Spray based on scientific research where certain essentials oils were proven to be potent antivirals particularly flu, HSV and SARS antivirals.  Of course this is not intended to treat a person or a disease but rather work as prevention. The essential oils are aimed at the virus in the droplets in the air which is how Covid19 is rapidly spreading. So if it is killed in the air from our spray within 10 minutes then it could protect people from catching it. Even though we don't have studies with Covid19 we have many studies with SARS which is half of the current virus that is currently causing havoc and other viruses. We have known about the virucidal effects of aromatherapy essential oils for quite some time. So why don't we use them in our fight against the current virus Covid19? The product can be sprayed in the air or 10ml of it can be put into a diffuser as shown.  This product of ours should now be now used in hospitals, care homes for the elderly, pharmacies, healthstores, offices and hotel receptions everywhere in Ireland right now. Even gyms especially steam rooms and saunas. As they say prevention is better than cure. We would even argue it should be diffused in all hospital corridors and departments. So how does it work? Well here is the peer reviewed evidence based research and for those of you who have no science background, it’s the only research worth talking about, or to be used to make a case for why we are doing what we are. Well, Wu et al in 2010 saw with essential oils of Wild Orange Peel, Clove Bud, Cinnamon Leaf, Cinnamon Bark, Eucalyptus Leaf, and Rosemary Leaf/Flower essential oils. that ,’ Influenza virus infectivity was suppressed by essential oil treatment in a dose-dependent manner; the number of nascent viral particles released from MDCK cells was reduced by 90% and by 40% when virus was treated with 1:4,000 and 1:6,000 dilutions of the oil, respectively. Oil treatment of the virus also decreased direct infection of the cells as the number of infected MDCK cells decreased by 90% and 45% when virus was treated with 1:2,000 and 1:3,000 dilutions of the oil, respectively.’ Vimalanathan et al in The University of British Columbia in 2014 saw that, ‘we evaluated several EOs and some of their major constituents for their possible anti-influenza virus properties in both liquid and vapor phases. In vapor phase Citrus bergamia, Eucalyptus globulus,and the isolated compounds citronellol and eugenol were very active against influenza virus following exposures of only 10 minutes. Pelargonium graveolens, Cinnamomumzeylanicum, Cymbopogonflexuosuswere also very active with 30 minutes exposure.’  These are just two examples but there are many more. I just wanted to give you a flavour of the research that is out there already validating the effects of the essential oils that we have used in the product.
the viral inactivation in the ambient air reached 40% with following decrease of the number of live virions over the remaining 45 min of the experiment. The final inactivation of viral particles was around 95% over the entire experimental time.’ They only used tea tree and also eucalyptus. In the Mindful Beauty Aromatherapy Flu Room Spray we have used essential oils of : Eucalyptus Tea Tree Lemongrass Thyme Clove This synergistic formula we understand from the research above and elsewhere could very well affect Covid19 virus in the same way due to the results they had had on similar viruses. People who have a real scientific education will also connect the dots here and in a time when there are very few weapons against this virus apart from quarantine the really intelligent ones will look at the evidence and say - yes, lets use this and fast. It certainly won't harm and could also help in the fight against the virus becoming resistant! Aromatherapy essential oils have also been shown to attack the virus at a number of stages of its life cycle which make it even more relevant. As you can see here from the following image from Samji 2008 essential oils can also interfere with the life cycle of the disease. 1  This information above is very important whilst MamaPharma is developing a vaccine which is going to take time. Or a drug like Tamiflu. The smell of the spray leaves a very clean smell, is not overpowering, is natural and energising. Only natural extracts are used. Buy yours now. References 1.0 Samji, Tasleem. “Influenza A: Understanding the Viral Life Cycle.” Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, vol. 82, 2009, pp. 153-159.  The good news is that you have already been training in the preliminaries. If you completed the Learning to Exhale course and did the meditation as I prescribed, you more or less have the preliminaries covered. The preliminaries refer to the practice of mindfulness meditation that these slogans aim to enhance the mental insight of. The slogans will still work for people who have not started meditating yet but they are really aimed at enhancing the mind of a person who is already meditating.  Meditation is going to be the foundation for the exploration of this journey of mindfulness slogans that we are now on. The lojong slogans are additions to meditation practice. A person who is a meditator should be able to comfortably meditate four times a week for at least 30 minutes each session. Other meditators for up to an hour. This is not a meditation with a person in a detached emotional state that I speak of. You would have heard me say in week three that meditation should not be used as another way to numb out. Or go into what Schema Therapy calls - detached protector. This is a completely wrong way to practice. Meditation was never invented to be practiced this way in a detached emotionless state and dissociated.  The meditation I am speaking of and teach, is one of openness and not being in a dissociated state psychotherapeutically speaking. Our Learning to Exhale style of meditation aims to train people to such an extent that they don’t have to hide from their feelings or emotions. In fact, we empower people through my mindfulness course to transform the emotions and promote positive emotion. Too many people are using meditation to either numb out or stay in and justify - detached protector. In the end, at higher training levels, meditation leads to bliss. So what a waste if you are practicing in detached protector. As I have said in the classes, the benefits of meditation are not just seen when you are meditating seated on the cushion but also when you have done enough meditation it starts to break out in places you least expect. When you get tense suddenly the accumulated momentum of the meditation can cause you to suddenly relax and breath….. In addition to meditation we need to reflect on what are called the ‘four mind benders’.
We should aim traditionally to reflect on these four on a daily basis for six months. This is not in order to get a medal or anything but to face these truths and for these truths to transform the mind. In particular its perception. You could say this is a psychotherapeutic practice. The more you reflect and take to heart the above four mind benders then the mind starts to bend towards these fundamental life truths that really nobody can argue with. They are applicable to all people whatever race or creed.  Life is Precious There are thousands of species of life on the earth and all life is part of a global ecosystem. In the East our human life is believed to be difficult to gain and further, that it is only in a human body that enlightenment can be achieved so we must not waste this opportunity. For many this mind-bender is a call to basic sanity. A sanity where you don’t waste your life away on superficial things. Here I am not just talking about the necessities of earning a living and raising a family but perhaps neurosis such as anxiety and worry. Especially about things that do not come to pass. Many people could be classed as wandering generalities who do not know why they are here on the planet and what it is they should do. As a slice of lime goes with a gin and tonic a slice of meaning and purpose should go with life to give it the kick it needs. To get the most out of a life we need to live this life with passion. Boats are not built to be kept in ports. I once asked a very famous surgeon during an interview what was the worst cancer in his experience of treating 45,000 people. The reply I was expecting, out of possibly 160 cancers known to affect people, was probably brain cancer. His answer really surprised me. He said,’The worst cancer is not living your life’. How true?  Death Comes Without Warning Death will eventually come for everyone. We are essentially on borrowed time but we live as if we have forever. Death is a type of taboo subject seldom spoken of in suburban dinner parties. We have moved death to the periphery of how we live in the West. We hide it from children. Death comes in the blink of an eye. Over 70% of heart attacks are fatal. But actually death is around us all the time - everything that comes together eventually falls apart. Just a matter of time before it does. Too many people are surprised when they receive a terminal diagnosis and sadly due to certain religious upbringings feel that God is choosing to be mean to them. This causes a spiritual crisis due to a lack of leadership from their traditions. When they most need their spiritual tradition then end up perhaps disconnecting from the heavens and the divine when they need it most. There is also the truth in reflecting on death not just at the end but a thread that binds the book of our lives. Our childhood dies, our teen years die and also each phase after those. If we don’t live mindfully we can end up missing the boat. We have to normally have a good education at the start which enhances our chances of a good job for example. Everything is impermanent. This is not to be macabre but to have an understanding from the wisdom traditions of the East, as what is called suffering is actually the ‘resistance’ of suffering or change. Equally bad times in our lives are impermanent which some people might find comforting. One spiritual teacher I know of when his students came to ask him about a new project they had in mind he would reply,’better not - impermanence’ this was a way to control his students and spiritually abuse them through a type of mind control. We also should not waste our time. Ideally we should live mindfully whilst we can. There is sadly such a thing as the living dead people who hide from living in routine. A nurse from the course shared a very valuable anecdote from her graduation. She told me the Dean of the University spoke to the students and said she congratulated them but wished them well in their career. The Dean made one very important point to the graduates contained there when the Dean advised them to have a career where every year was not the repeat of what came before. Otherwise 25-30 years were going to be the same. This is such valuable advice not just to the graduates in the hall that day but to all of us.  Karma Cannot Be Escaped Native American Chief Seattle once wrote that,’whatever man does to the web of his life he does to himself’. We can see the effects of karma nowhere better than what we are now seeing in the various manifestations of climate change. Man and his pollution is clearly the cause and climate change effects such as droughts, flooding and the ice caps melting are clearly the effect. The purpose of this truth is to guide us away from harmful actions of body, speech and mind, and by doing so make us more mindful what we are doing with these three faculties. Many people believe and the mindfulness movement is contributing this that mindfulness just pertains to mind but in actual fact also includes what being mindful about what we say and what we do with our bodies. Harmful speech does so much damage these days and nowhere more so than on social media. Trolls with mindless speech literally take aim at people and pulverise them with their bullying. Others suffer grave smear campaigns where two rumours make a fact. This has driven a number of people to suicide with no remorse on the side of the people who were bullying them. Once I heard a wonderful story that illustrates the profound effects of all this very well. A woman went to confession and when the priest asked what did she have to express she said she had started a rumour about someone that was false. The priest, who was quite insightful as we shall see, for penance told her to go to a hill with a pillow of duck feathers on a windy day. She was to open the pillow and shake all the feathers out into the wind. Then when they were all out into the air and environs she was to go and collected them all again. Every single one. When she exclaimed it would be a very difficult thing to do he replied - ‘exactly’! Another story for the East is of a monk who was causing trouble in the monastery thought he could manipulate the master. The other monks wanted him to be expelled for all the trouble he was causing with his ‘forked tongue’. So when the Master said he could only stay if he was willing to do what the master instructed to remedy the situation he agreed whatever. The master said he was now committed to silence for an entire year but could ask only two questions. When the monk asked what ones after committing to the remedy the master said gleefully replied,’Can I be of help? Have I been of help?’ By reflecting on karma not being escaped people might start to improve their behaviour especially when it is in relation to other people. If the troll finds out that what harm they did to another person is a boomerang now heading back for them impacting them in the same negative way they affected their victim it might focus their minds to be more kind. Karma is also understood in the Celtic culture when you hear the old saying - the wheel always turns. This implies what goes around eventually comes around. One teacher of mine taught that the self and the bad actions of body speech in mind should be illustrated with the image of a person stabbing themselves all over with a sword. As this is going to be the karmic consequences of harmful actions we may take. Just to be clear karma is not advocating that a person is a walk-over and does not assert clear and healthy boundaries but more so the principle is inviting people to reflect on reducing harmful behaviours where you don’t speak to a person for example in a way that protects their self-esteem. A way of speaking that uplifts somebody and does not bring them down.  Egocentricity is an Ocean of Suffering For the East and sometimes in the West selfishness, self-absorption and self-clinging are seen as a huge cause of our human pain. The more of a self we have the more pain. This is also borne out in the writings of people who have explored psychedelics such as LSD which is believed to be an ego destroyer. The belief in a self a mind that sees what it always needs outside itself gives rise to quite a lot of craving. The view of the mind before meditation training is directed outside itself into the world into other people’s business and even to people we don’t even know such as celebrities. The mind trained through proper meditation training, practice and study starts to look inward and become very self- satisfied. Everything is understood as being perfect as it is. So this is the first slogan and many may not be as long but this is a good foundation for us all to start with. Comment on what your thoughts are of the four mind benders and what you feel people would get from daily reflection of them.
Once again SUBSCRIBE to the newsletter pop-up box if you want to see more of the slogans week by week as we go on.  As I have finished my dissertation on 'AI, Transhumanism, Consciousness and Buddhist Ethics' for my MA I am now returning to my blog. So for the next 60 weeks or thereabouts I will be posting a special blog on what I am calling Mindfulness Slogans for Mind Training. These slogans have been used for centuries in India and also Tibet by most of the great meditation masters. All the great masters both practiced and trained in these mindfulness slogans. I have used the image of crystals above as that is how I hope that you will view these slogans as you train your 'monkey mind'. Crystals to stabilise the mind. There is also another important reason. Even though you have completed the Learning to Exhale training in Mindfulness or MBSR, the MBSR movement is a secularised form of meditation we must not forget that originated from Therevadan Buddhism. Stripping out the rituals and religious imagery I am not too bothered about as it is a means to and ends. However there are two sides to meditation in the East - shamatha and vipassanā. MBSR as a system is more shamatha based but there is a deep and desperate need for vipassanā practice and reflection which is why I am writing these blog entries. MBSR is not all there is to meditation. How could eight weeks practice ever be? Especially when you consider some people in Tibetan Buddhism enter three year meditation retreats. Another reason is that those who have completed the eight week MBSR training or our the Learning to Exhale mindfulness training are seeking out retreats where they can deepen their practice. Sadly secular ones do not really exist. People generally head to Buddhist ones whilst not being Buddhist which is cool. At these retreats inevitably vipassanā arises. So what is it? This is the next stage of meditation training for people who have become meditators. This is where you start to enquire how and why you might feel dissatisfied by life and examine what are the patterns that cause that suffering and why you repeat them. This is where the hold the intellect has on you starts to loosen and the awareness starts to come to the fore more in your practice. You also start to question the seperation between yourself and others. This 'dualistic fixation' is gradually broken down generating real felt compassion not just conceptual. In the market of 'spiritual materialism' the word 'ego' is bounded about. People of low self-esteem refer to those who live with healthy levels as having a big ego. An Irish mystic I know referred to it recently as 'edging God out'. Or rather - edging the divine out if the 'G' word irks as for many it now does due to years of hypocrisy in organised religions. In its most extreme form it refers at times to a narcissist someone so vain and self-absorbed they can't see anyone else. Sometimes people are labelled wrongly as this so others can control them. Anyways the ego is a big subject and nowhere bigger or more used as in 'mind body spirit' circles.  Added to ego is the discussion on 'self' or 'no self'. This can be confusing for westerners in a secular setting. We are told in the West to integrate the self and connect to the 'true self' but in the East it can be misunderstood that the self should be 'deconstructed' when in fact they are referring to the persona, or mask a person wears or the belief the mask is the self when really they are hoping that the false self is dis-guarded in favour of the true self of awareness. If you attended week five of the course you would have heard me say 'the personality is what you do on the street and what you do in the home is character'. As the old age goes 'street angle house devil' and so true. So this is the reason that we need the slogans to keep us practicing, guide us, police us and put us in the right direction to evolve our practice and give us insight personally rather than reading or hearing about everyone elses experience. If you were on the course I illustrate the mind and its potential transformation using the metaphor of a kaleidoscope. Slogans enrich the mind like each turn of hand has on the beautiful designs in the scope it brings into being. I am writing two books now the first is Learning to Exhale - Mindfulness which is a book with each chapter summarising what we we covered in the Learning to Exhale eight week course in mindfulness whose curriculum that I devised and evolved MBSR which is 30 years old now. If you would like to be involved sign up for the newsletter option to be included each week. So what are these slogans? See after the picture of our Sweet Dreams Box Well there are 59 mindfulness slogans in total so there is going to be 59 blogs one for each slogan. Each week I will be explaining each one and how to integrate it into your daily mindfulness practice. They were devised by a number of Mediation masters but the best form is by a meditation genius called Atisha who lived in both India and Tibet. The best way is to take one slogan a week as I am suggesting and reflect on it for a week. Slogans are also easy to remember and easy to apply. As you can see the slogans are split up into seven sections which are traditionally referred to as 'The Seven Points of MInd Training' Here are all the mindfulness slogans that we will be covering together over the next 60 weeks. Please forward to friends and get them to sign up with their emails. So we can automatically send them a blog link each week. This is also a way for you, 2,500 of you that we have trained, to connect back to your practice and awareness that you discovered through the training. The Preliminaries
Training in Absolute Bodhichitta
Training in Relative Bodhichitta
Transforming Negative Circumstances into the Path of Enlightenment
I am really looking forward to this journey with you all and what the positive effects will be and also am hoping that you will be commenting below on how you are applying the slogans as we go along. A lot of what is contained here will be included in the new book Mindfulness Slogans by Ralph Quinlan Forde. Finally more good news in that my first book The Book of Tibetan Medicine will be available as an ebook in the coming weeks on our site to download. Discover Your Beautiful Mind   We now have our own Eau de Cologne and we have made it with just aromatherapy essential oils like Guerlain used to do in Paris before they were bought a few years ago. Until then their perfume house was over 400 years old with amazing history. So with this in mind I set to work developing this Eau De Cologne which is great for our brand with Eau de Toilet and Eau du Parfum coming online soon. In 1708, Giovanni Farina wrote to his brother Jean Baptiste: "I have found a fragrance that reminds me of an Italian spring morning, of mountain daffodils and orange blossoms after the rain". He named his fragrance Eau de Cologne, in honour of his new hometown in Germany as he was missing Italy. The Mindful Beauty Eau du Cologne is to bring the aroma of just that - an Italian citrus floral spring morning. Crisp, fresh and awakening. In glass 50ml bottles and box and retails at 24.99 Euros available from stores now.  When we tested it out with consumers in Vitality Expo 90% loved it and wanted to buy it there and then. They also commented that it did not give them a headache more than 60% said that. Our Eau du Cologne is made with 100% pure essential oils from herbs & spices. We developed this unisex Cologne with spring in mind & wanted to return to the use of high quality natural ingredients which is what our brand is known for. Many perfume houses in France only used essential oils to create colognes & perfume up to the 1930’s. Like any work of art our Cologne formula is secret but nourishes the body, mind & soul. With top notes of Bergamot, Lemon, Grapefruit & Orange; heart notes of Ylang ylang, Neroli & French Lavender & with base notes of Cedarwood, Vetivert & Frankincense. An important point here is that synthetic fragrance is quite loaded with hormone disruptors, believe it or not, chemically speaking. As ours does not contain those, and also is made up of plant extracts we feel that it will be great for the consumer wellbeing and also the brand. One person commented how cleansing it is spiritually. This is probably down to the quality ingredients. We aim to do Eau du Toilet and Eau du Parfum in the near future. The formula is based on a traditional Italian recipe that we found and some extras. Get yours now. Headache free too!  |
AuthorBestselling author Ralph Quinlan Forde BSc (Hons) MA is the writer and editor of the Mindful Beauty blog. His first book The Book of Tibetan Medicine went into 11 languages. His second Nutriwine has Archives
July 2020
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