In the past decade, we have seen the meteoric rise of the ‘mindfulness industry’. The revenue of the most popular meditation app, Headspace, for example, is estimated to be over $50m a year. Following in the footsteps and success of Headspace, we have seen an influx of other meditation and mindfulness apps, such as Calm,…
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For some time now, I have been going to the North London Buddhist Centre for group meditation and classes on Buddhism. One of the courses I joined was on the dharma (the Buddha’s teachings), specifically focusing on the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, which can be formulated as follows: Life is dukkha (a Pali term…
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The richness of our experiences in life can often drastically alter our perception of time. While we may not always think of time in a subjective manner (after all, a minute is a minute, an hour is an hour), the pace at which reality unfolds does, in fact, change throughout the day, depending on myriad…
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As much as the world can feel separate from our discrete selves, upon closer examination, we will see that our whole experience of reality (and so reality itself) is acutely dependent on our inner world. The self and the world are inextricably intertwined. And this curious relationship between the ‘I’ we imagine sitting behind the…
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The writer Frank White popularised the term ‘overview effect’ in his book The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution (1987). This effect is the cognitive shift in awareness that takes place when viewing the Earth from space. Based on the records of hundreds of astronauts, as well as interviews with dozens of space explorers…
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