I get a regular newsletter from the Barefoot Doctor who is a wonderful British Taoist who has written many books and who’s quite an unusually humorous guy. Over the years of being exposed to his work it has slowly infiltrated my Being and is bearing fruit. And I love it! Mixing his outlook together with all the other resources I find useful, has lead me to enjoying the most blissful times of inner stillness.

I was sharing with someone today, how it feels to turn my attention inward and to encounter bliss. This Bliss feels very much like the bliss we briefly taste in orgasm. And yet it’s accessible through simply sitting still and “turning off” my chattering mind – what Barefoot Doctor calls the monkey brain – and going into the centre of my head. Does that sound weird? Trust me – it’s very real and tangibly joyful and delightfully peaceful. You can come and practise with me any time!

Here’s a piece from the Doc’s newsletter which I read today:

Don’t fight the feelings you’re feeling. Don’t distract yourself from them. Don’t phone somebody to take your mind somewhere else. Don’t go out and buy something to divert your attention. Don’t fixate on possible saviours. Don’t do anything. Just be here in your body, breathing and feeling what you’re feeling – in your body.

Feel where you’re feeling it physically. Feel how you’re feeling it physically. It doesn’t matter what you call the feeling – fear, panic, nerves, dread, anxiety, worry, grief, sadness, loneliness, irritation, frustration, dismay – simply locate its physical epicentre, discern its physical nature, as in what it’s doing to you in there – and then use your will and intention to relax that region and relax it some more until the energy hitherto stuck that was expressing itself as whichever feeling it was, has dispersed.

And in the words of one of Doc’s mantras:

‘I am free to do whatever I choose – I have everything to gain and nothing to lose.’

If that brings up fears that you may run rampant, then add: ‘all my choices are loving, wise and life-affirming.’