Dyana’s Blog
Dyana’s writings about life, her teaching and learnings

Mindfulness and the Prefrontal Cortex
A lot of us have heard about mindfulness and its possible benefits. Recently I have learned a few interesting things about the brain that have made the benefits of mindfulness meditation even clearer to me. Meditation produces a thickening of the prefrontal cortex –...
Introducing Kum Nye – Moving Meditation
An introduction to Kum Nye – the essence of moving meditation.
The Four Noble Truths and Modern Life
The relevance of Buddha’s four noble truths in our modern lives The fundamental and most important teachings of the Buddha are disarmingly simple. There is suffering There is a cause of suffering There is an end of suffering There is a way to the end of suffering. It...
Mindfulness and Buddhist Psychology
Have we reduced Buddhist psychology to mindfulness training? What might have been lost in the translation? The core teaching of the Buddha has always about how to reduce human suffering. The freedom or liberation his teachings refer to is freedom from suffering. It...
The Body as an Intelligent, Sensitive, Living Organism
Somatics and somatic movement classes grew out of Feldenkrais, and developed alongside new research into neuromuscular reprogramming. Somatics is based on the principle of neuroplasticity – the understanding that the brain is continually remodelling itself in response...
The Symphonic Body
Reflections arising from a Somatics Practice Part 3 – The Symphonic Body The skeletal structure of the body is an intriguing confusion of so many curves and angles and knobbly bits. In particular I find the pelvic bone almost impossible to visualise internally – it...
How much of my body is my friend?
Reflections arising from a Somatics Practice Part 2 – How much of my body is my friend? When I started somatics I was stunned to realise that I couldn’t directly sense much of my physical body. I didn’t have any direct feeling for it at all. This was after a lifetime...
My Relationship to My Body
Reflections arising from a Somatics Practice Part 1 – My relationship to my Body Do I see it simply as a body-vehicle I can use to do what my mind wants? Is it something to manipulate according to my will and ideas and desires. Is this body a source of pain or...
Awakening the Sacred Body
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche is a teacher of and writer about Tibetan Bon and Dzogchen. He is Tibetan and grew up studying in India. I have been reading his books avidly over the last month, with a couple more about to arrive from Book Depository. On a recent short retreat...