Guided Meditation With Vishvapani

Thought for the Day, 17.2.2026, BBC Radio 4 In a divided America, a 2,000-mile walk by Buddhist monks reveals how mindfulness can transform our response to global suffering and offer radical hope. The worse the news gets, the closer we come to some underlying…

There is no more vexed issue in politics at present than the status of asylum seekers. It’s a complex debate that understandably focuses on the difficulty of absorbing more people and the struggles of those who are already here. But for now I want to focus on just one…

Suella Braverman Is the UK’s Buddhist Home Secretary and a Right-Wing Culture Warrior What can one of the most senior members of Britain’s government tell us about how Buddhists should, or shouldn’t, engage politically?Vishvapani Blomfield Suella Braverman is the UK’s…

Turning towards pain and suffering is a key to healing and it’s a key to creativity. Abeer Ameer’s remarkable journey helped me face what’s happened in the Gaza War About ten years ago a young Muslim woman called Abeer Ameer came on a mindfulness course I taught at…

A few weeks into the first Covid lockdown I cycled into the centre of Cardiff to pick up some medicine. The roads were empty, the shopping streets largely deserted, and the few shoppers wore masks. Seeing the strangeness of the world the lockdown had created…

How can drawing engages with the present moment, and what can it offer our wellbeing and mental health? Last week I picked up a pencil and, for the first time in many years, I started to draw. I was co-leading a retreat with an artist friend that combined meditation…

Dressage Champion Charlotte Dujardin’s withdrawal from the Olympics when video footage showed her maltreating a horse raise questions about where the balance lies between discipline and abuse. How can we find the middle way? Thought for the Day, BBC Radio 4, 26 July…

As society gets angrier, the ancient Buddhist teachings are more relevant than ever Are we getting angrier? A video that went viral last week showed a 60 year-old man pounding the windscreen of a woman who’d honked him. Eyes bulging, spewing profanity, he was seized…

As the war in Gaza threatens to spiral into a regional conflict, what light does Buddhist wisdom shed on cycles of violence? After the Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus and Iran’s missile strike against Israel, now what? Troubled voices are urging…