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My Meditation Story

Buddhist Teachings

A chance meeting with a Buddhist nun on a flight from Bangkok to Delhi in 2005 was my introduction to the possibility of change through meditation. I was returning from a trip around the world very unhappy and lost. Even though I was preoccupied, I still found myself deeply impressed by this nun. She seemed so awake and calm, and her serenity intrigued me enough to ask her about what a life of meditation entailed.

She told me that she practiced meditation through each and every everyday, no matter where she was or what she was doing.

As we spent more time together on a stop-over in Bangladesh, I became deeply impressed by her composure, honesty and restrained humour. I could see that she wasn't opressing herself internally. She seemed free and also stable at the same time.

Buddhist teachings had always been around in my life and were a great consolation in difficult times but I hadn't really thought much about it, and I had always shied away from any mention of meditation, but something was stirring deep inside me now and I knew I had to learn how to meditate.

Vipassana 10-day Retreat

So, I asked this nun how I could learn meditation properly and she gave me the name of an organisation which holds 10-day retreat courses all over the world, open to and practiced by people of all faiths.

These courses emphasise morality and generosity through requiring certain precepts to be upheld and being run purely on donation basis.

I was quietly elated to know that such a thing could exist but doubted very much that there would be a course in Ireland.

The nun and I said our goodbyes in India, I flew home, went on the internet the next morning and found that there was indeed a course in Ireland and it was 15mins from my mother's home in an old Servite Priory I knew very well.

The next retreat was starting in just three days time, so I rang the organisers, managed to get a place and started my first retreat, just days after hearing about it half way round the world.

Learning to Sit Still

My first 10-day retreat was difficult but rewarding. There was much anxiety and pain but also the peace and calm of getting to the other end of anxiety and pain.

Basically all we were taught to do was to observe ourselves. Firstly, we were taught Anapana meditation, which entails concentrating on the breath in order to focus the mind.

Then we were taught the Vipassana technique - a shift of focus from the breath to the whole body and observing the sensations experienced on it with equanimity.

At the end of the course, there was a brief introduction to Metta or Loving-kindness meditation, which is a wonderfully healing technique after exploring a lot of difficult mental and physical experience.

When we started Vipassana meditation, which means 'to see things as they really are', I understood why I had shied away from the mention of meditation for all those years. It really is facing up to yourself with no running away and I couldn't possibly have done that before.

I was now ready for it and took to the whole thing like a duck to water. It was very liberating to be in such a safe environment and spend this valuable time unravelling the knots that had twisted me up for years.

Since the initial retreat I completed many more, I meditate every day and am happier than I ever thought possible. So much solidity disintegrated within me, knots untangled and frozen tears shed.

I now possess a peace I couldn't have even imagined all those years ago.

Buddhism in the UK

Over the past six years I have deepened my practice of meditation further by spending time in the Thai Forest Buddhist monasteries of Amaravati and Cittaviveka and the lay Gaia House Meditation Centre in England.

I have learnt a lot in each of these environments and have tremendous gratitude for all the love, friendships and beauty encountered. There was an ease that deepened in me within all the joys and sorrows experienced.

The old gardens in these places were a joy to inhabit and taught me a lot.

Meditation in Nature

Back in solitary meditation on the West Coast of Ireland and at the Findhorn Community in Scotland I rediscovered something that I had lost in my years of practicing in the Buddhist communities in England.

What was missing for me there was something that had always empowered and consoled me within my Catholic upbringing. I am still trying to put it into words but in its most basic it is a firm connection with the Divine and Nature. What most would call God.

In our modern culture it is so easy to lose the gentle beauty of this with the prevalence of anthropocentrism ie. human beings considering themselves to be the most significant entities in the universe.

At the base of a lot of spiritual debate I have encountered in both Buddhism and Christianity is a considerable lack of humility. Humility so often gets confused with servitude and submissiveness, but by humility I don't mean a state of powerlessness, rather a tremendous personal power. This power lies in the acceptance that we are just a part of the natural world, part of God (Goddess, The Great Spirit, The Divine) no more or less important than a bee or a leaf falling from a tree.

In the acceptance of our place in the wider system of the natural world we can become peaceful residents of the Earth, with the wise responsibilty that goes along with that belonging.

I see this idea as being a reflection of the Buddha's teaching on anatta or 'not-self' which says that there is no solid entity that we can call a self, just a mass of processes flowing through each moment. To be aware of this is very liberating and leads directly to what I would call the Divine.

Divine Feminine

While strengthening the acceptance of my place in the web of life, I have found the Divine Feminine principle very helpful.

From my early yearnings and learnings in the world of the Sacred Feminine I have found stable ground in the presence and teachings of Amma, Caroline Myss and Marianne Williamson, all wonderfully powerful and compassionate beings.

Environmental and Healing Meditation

My primary focus now is on healing. When I was in Findhorn I was overjoyed by the love and reverence all around. Feeling this was very supportive to my spiritual practice.

When I returned to my community in Ireland I started teaching meditation. The meditation I teach is inspired by the Buddhist and Christian traditions but mostly from my own experience of peace within the nature of my own being and the wider natural world. I teach in a non religious way, trying to keep it simple and practical. I endeavour to empower people to tap into their own wisdom and compassion.

Love and Gratitude

Masaru Emoto's beautiful teachings flow through all my days with the water I encounter inside and out.

I bow to him with deep love and respect, and to all the beautiful people helping heal the Earth at this important point in time.

Aoife Valley 2011

Meditation Teaching

List of Meditation Centres