Ondy Willson

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Helen LordRN BSc (Hons) SPQDN MSc HEF Queen’s Nurse
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"Your book is inspirational and has provided a whole new concept of spirituality for me. I am looking forward to hearing you speak about this as it resonates in so many aspects of our teaching practice."
Helen Lawler
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"Here is a writer who clearly has a wide and deep knowledge of her subject yet never sounds preachy. The autobiographical sections give glimpses of a very human person who has wrestled with her own choices and is bravely sharing the learning she’s gained. Her writing has wry observation and humour bubbling within it, yet this light touch never trivialises the serious nature of the content. It is a book that satisfies on two levels. It can be read as a whole, bringing together the many issues that underpin mindfulness. Yet it also functions as a guide to digging deeper into particular topics, through the detailed recommendations for further study and reflection. For me, it will last as a favourite “manual” to keep revisiting, to refresh and encourage my further spiritual development."
Gill HagueProfessor of Violence Against Women Studies and Yoga Teacher and Writer for Spectrum, the British Wheel of Yoga magazine.
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"It is a great pleasure to recommend this unique, delightful and profound book on mindfulness. In a field that is quite crowded, now that the ancient Buddhist practice of mindfulness has hit the ‘zeitgeist’, this is a stand-out work. It is full of warmth, wit, honesty, deep insights and bracing irreverence. The title itself is an exciting one, piquing the imagination, as is the stunning cover image of someone practising mindfulness in dark glasses, braids and possibly headphones. Ondy Willson is an internationally celebrated teacher of mindfulness and a long-term practitioner and teacher within the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, in which she has been immersed for nearly half a century. She writes with a total lack of pretension or artifice to share with us her insights and wisdom accumulated over decades of practice, meditation, study -- and simply ‘living’ as fully as possible. This book offers practical, insightful guidance in a down-to-earth way on what ‘spiritual’ means and on how to build an ’inner scaffolding of healing’ within oneself. ‘Spiritual rebellion’ in this context means rebelling against the societal norms of hedonism and materialistic acquisitiveness which surround us. The book provides, and is accompanied by, exercises and eminently do-able practice suggestions to take us forward. Ondy’s accessible and honest insights can transform lives, and she illustrates them throughout with stories of her own rather astonishing, and often zig-zagging, life-journey as a Buddhist, mother and modern feminist woman. Bringing feminism, mindfulness and Buddhism together seems to me to be an important contribution, illustrated here by Ondy’s real-life experiences. The book is a pioneering and engaging one, written with admirable frankness and honesty, as we are taken by the hand and guided in accessible ways towards making huge changes in our inner lives in these difficult times. For yoga practitioners, she assists us to move beyond the ‘physical’, to take our yoga ‘beyond the mat’ towards spiritual and human fulfilment, which we know, from our training and in our hearts, is our aim, but all-too-often forget. Ondy inspires us towards spiritual rebellion in terms, not of trying to be something we are not, but by in-depth self-exploration which is profound but practical. And she makes us laugh, but also glow, as we learn from her own personal stories to delve into our own. This book is fun, big-time -- but also practical and inspiring. If you only buy one book on mindfulness, let it be this one."
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