Author: Silvia Eriksson

The Myth of Being Good ~ A Wholesome Revolution

Posted on by Silvia Eriksson

Face it—we all want to be good people. Or at least better people. We want to do good things – we dream of saving the oceans, being a healer, building a conscious business and leaving this world a better place. Yet, sometimes doing what is good is simply doing what is needed – It’s in taking out the trash. Literally.

Let’s talk about the word “good.”
For many of us, it comes with heavy cultural and psychological baggage.

Maybe you were told to be a good boy or a good girl—and “good” meant quiet, obedient or pretending to be fine when you weren’t. Maybe it meant hiding your anger, your wildness, your grief. Maybe it was code for don’t make a fuss, don’t be too much.

“Do the Good That’s Right in Front of You” – a recent meme that passed over my desk. Be honest: does a part of you roll your eyes or feel a slight cringe at its overuse, the obvious simplicity of this, the sheer madness of: yes-ok, but how do we even begin to do good in such a wicked world.

I get it. The term good is loaded with a sense of moralism. The word “good” might put you right there in the front row at church under the piercing gaze of God himself questioning if you are even good enough to exist.

UGH! This meme was posted by a well respected Buddhist teacher whom I adore. So let’s dig in and investigate.

Truthfully, good is just a word – hanging out in defense against the word bad – a concept really with endless interpretations. And seeing beyond concepts, labels, and beliefs? Well, that’s at the center of doing good old-fashion ego work and loosening the grip on being right or righteous.

So forget about doing good—how about we blow it further out and use an even more triggering concept? (wink wink) Entertain me for just a moment…How about doing what is wholesome? HA!

I toiled for years wondering when I would actually feel whole or whether I was holy enough—or just so full of holes that becoming virtuous felt like trying to carry water in a pasta strainer. I am Italian – so that metaphor felt especially true.

Despite how serious and formal Buddhist traditions can look – The Buddha didn’t actually offer us a religion. He offered a strategy for liberation. He didn’t give us dogma. He gave us cause and effect. He gave us this gem:

“Abandon what is unwholesome. Cultivate what is wholesome. Purify the heart—this is the path.”

In terms of Buddha-Dharma we could use the terms wholesome and good interchangeably. Wholesome means life-giving, harm-reducing, peace-growing, truth-telling.

Do the good that is right in front of you. That’s it. Simple. It’s not about being liked or endless people pleasing. No need for incense and a robe nor pretending you’ve never fantasized about slashing someone’s tires. It’s about being real—with an unbounded sense of heart—and trusting that existence is a giant, benevolent, wholesome container with a few entanglements and just enough chaos to keep us imperfectly human.

Over time, with much practice something in me indeed softened, not as a commandment but as an invitation…Not be good or else, but:
What does happen when you stop hurting yourself?

What does it feel like to tell the truth?

So how do you orient to what feels wholesome and is good as a spiritual practice for self, others and the world at large?

  1. Ask in any situation: “Is what I am about to say or how I will respond to any situation, wholesome or unwholesome?  It means choosing words that reduce harm and increase clarity. And that includes how we even talk to ourselves from within. When a self-critical thought pops up, ask: “Would I say this to someone I love?”  Speak to yourself with care.
  1. Cause and Effect – this is Karma – Is this choice, behaviour or action making me more free or more tangled?” Is it honest, kind and helpful and ultimately will it bring about an effect that is favorable to living with peace in your heart. Once you start to feel the actual effects of Right Action,  you’ll see that you can get really good at creating the cause – and that is an inner orientation again and again to what is wholesome and you just stop doing what is not.
  1. Doing the thing that is wholesome is practical, it makes sense—it feels good—it works! The world is right here within your reach. If you can see it – smell it – touch it – feel it – it is a door asking you to enter.

Ask yourself: “How can I make this moment 1% kinder, cleaner, or more beautiful?” Look around. What needs tenderness here, now?

  • Pick up trash that isn’t yours. It’s still your planet.
  • Look people in the eye. Especially those who are often unseen.
  • Text someone “thinking of you.” It might just be what they need today.
  • Water the plants you’ve been ignoring or feed that stray cat.
  • Open the door for a stranger or buy them a coffee.
  • Leave a flower on colleague’s desk.
  • Fold the laundry with love, wash the dishes with grace.
  • Let someone cut in front of you in line or merge into your lane.
  • Crying baby – smile – don’t scowl at the mother.
  • Put your phone down and give your full attention to someone.

Doing the small good that is right in front of you means choosing what seed you plant in this moment to bring about a wholesome karmic effect. Responding to life with creativity is skillful. Doing what uplifts others and your own heart is a sort of blessing that builds an inner wealth of goodness.

So if you want to become a mindfulness practitioner here is a daily filter for your use and to discern what’s real vs reactionary.

“Is this thought, word, or action bringing me closer to freedom—or deeper into suffering?”

Start noticing what causes suffering. Start noticing what eases it. Let this guide your conversations, financial decisions, social media posts, morning routine and even how you dance and move within your own body. You don’t need to be fully healed from your traumas, or be a monk, or save the world from all its sorrows to do what is helpful or to follow what is good.

Wholesomeness isn’t about being “good” the way you were told as a kid.
It’s about orientation. Toward clarity. Toward compassion. Toward what heals.

So do me a favor. Be a truly good boy. A truly good girl.
Take action the moment you step away from this screen.
Start where you are.
Take out the trash—literally and metaphorically.
Imagine you’re hauling a giant, stinking bag of unwholesomeness: old grudges, reactive habits, self-judgment, pretending to be fine. Just drop it! Do it like it matters. Because it does.

Nishta Materese from Four Ways to Freedom will co-host her next retreat with Evangelos Diavolitsis ‘Unplugged: Disconnect to reconnect – a Digital Detox Meditation Retreat’ on 14-19 December 2025.

Holding Hands with My Tears

Posted on by Silvia Eriksson

In ‘Holding Hands with My Tears’, Erinbell Fanore opens a window into the tender, tangled terrain of grief and love. With raw honesty and poetic warmth, she invites us into a moment suspended in time—where heartbreak and homemade ravioli coexist, and where joy becomes a quiet act of resistance. This is a story of mourning, memory, and the deep, enduring power of choosing life, even in the shadow of loss.

In the wide ever changing landscape of mourning, different moments stand out. As grief rolls through my tissues, visceral memories surface. Some dark, some light, some fleeting and some nagging from corners I am not ready to look at. The messiness of life is heightened in the starkness of loss. 

One memory, in particular, returns often and with acute clarity—perhaps because it carried within it all the seeds of what would follow.

The kitchen all aflutter in flour, music and our regular Fanore chaos. Our colourful walls warmly lit up by our lamp in the corner.  On the table, a fresh bouquet of flowers bursting out of the mouth of our jade green fish vase.  The balcony doors covered in steamy condensation from the cold winter night. 

There is a normalcy inside the clear knowing that no longer can anything be normal. Smiles. Laughter. Teasing each other. Taking photos and texting them to our family far and wide. 

Me rolling dough through the hand press pasta maker while the kids attended to one of the three different fillings for our homemade raviolis. Tom picks out the next CD to play, to dance to, to groove along with as we cook. DJ Tom infusing our kitchen disco with a life force of love. 

It’s never just one thing. The tangled, chaotic joy of home snags on the sharp thorns of our heartbreak. Beat by beat, we pull ourselves together. Managing to have fun even as we fall apart.

Tom, my husband, my brave man, the love of my love life, had just been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. The kids didn’t yet know how bad.  They knew things were rough. They had seen him collapse in a sudden seizure that led to the discovery of his tumour. It got operated on before we could even catch our breath. They knew nothing would be the same but they didn’t know how quickly this was going to go. 

The doctor gave him one year.  Tom and I had just found out.  What does one do with that? One year to live. What can one do with that, beside make make homemade ravioli? A recipe we had learned together from an Italian Nonna a few years earlier on holiday. One of our favourite family meals. Its labour intensiveness enriching the taste. The extra time put into making it, wonderfully savoured with each bite.

As our hearts were breaking, we came together and chose to include joy. I think that’s what kept us sane, well as sane as one can be going through what we did. 

We adopted two mottos that came to define us:

We can do hard things.

We can do fun things.

We repeated them over and over that year and almost another year on top of that one. Tom was determined to suck as much marrow out of life as possible. He did all he could to outlive the prediction. He stretched 12 months into 22. What a guy. What a ride. What a challenge. What a life.

We can do hard things.

We can do fun things. 

We needed both. Because, yeah, it was hard and is going to stay hard for as long as it does.

This is hard: The missing. The grieving. The longing. The frustration. The anger. The helplessness to the naturalness of life and death. 

Yet without the active seeking out of fun, without the willingness to include and enjoy the beauty of life, its spontaneous moments of awe, I am sure I would have drowned completely. 

I type this by candlelight, sitting on my balcony (Tom’s favourite spot in our apartment) listening  to music (Tom was music. All music leads me back to him) feeling the immensity of loss with tears caught in the edges of my eyes. He is here and he is gone.  Physically forever gone. The finality of it burns deeper than the fresh sting of jellyfish tentacles—an encounter so recent, its welts still rise on my skin. The swollen itching burns on my body are but “mere scratches” as the black night from Monty Python would say. 

I don’t shut out the pain nor do I collapse into it. As best as I can (and some days it’s a very tenuous shaky affair), I include both: the pain & the delight. The darkness and the light. The personal “this totally sucks for me” and the universal “this is happening to so many.”

I keep remembering that we need to use both paddles at the same time: compassion and joy. If we only use one, we go in circles. We go nowhere. 

So I paddle. With strong determination and a lot of acceptance that I am going to crash now and again, I paddle forward through the days with joy and compassion. I include the ache and I actively seek out what I find beautiful in each moment.

Right now it is the rustling of wind through the trees on this warm summer night with the glow of a candle gently lighting my balcony herbs. Nature, light, the immediacy of now. I turn towards them with gratitude, as I hold hands with my tears. Letting them flow down my cheeks; dropping on the keyboard almost in beat with the sad tune playing from the kitchen speaker.

I can do hard things.

I can do fun things. 

I am full of gratitude for his love living through me. Full of appreciation for the life we created together that I am now asked to live onwards solo.  I will keep making ravioli in the kitchen, even after the kids move out in a couple of months. I will cook for friends, old and new. I will keep bringing in the chaos and beauty of flour and music into my kitchen. Serving up time intensive meals to be slowly savoured in good company.

Together, 

We can do hard things.

We can do fun things. 

Erinbell will be facilitating the upcoming retreat Meeting Grief with an Open Heart: an Insight Yoga and Mindfulness Retreat on 26-30 October 2025.

Insight & Imagination: In Conversation with Fidan Huseyni

Posted on by Silvia Eriksson

Every so often, someone comes along whose presence feels like a bridge between the seen and unseen: a solid hand in the practical world, guided by a deep inner compass. Fidan Huseyni is one of those people. As a long-time member of Mandali’s Marketing and Visioning team, she helps shape the way Mandali is experienced from the outside in, and the inside out.

In this edition of the Mandali Insight Questionnaire, Fidan shares what makes life feel meaningful to her: from sacred work to sunrise swims, from heartfelt relationships to asking herself the kinds of questions that matter at the end of it all. Her answers are a gentle invitation to slow down, listen in, and remember what truly fulfills us.

How do you define a fulfilling life?

  • Connection to the Divine – this is the bedrock for me.
  • Quality Relationships – Authentic, loving, inspiring relationships. Both with oneself and with others. Even with the natural world.
  • Sacred Work – Engaging in work that is meaningful and enjoyable. Using one’s energy, time and talent to contribute to the world in your unique way.
  • Creative outlets & hobbies – life is so much more enjoyable when we follow our curiosities and enter flow states. Exploring whatever makes us lean in inevitably leads to fulfillment, on some level.
  • & going to bed grateful.

Tell us about a time in your life when you felt most aligned with your true nature and why.


Very often this feeling gradually envelops me over the course of a quality, week-long retreat, where I reconnect to my true nature that is inherently whole, peaceful, alive and full of love. I let go of the autopilot mechanisms, my typical habits, my phone, and melt into a timeless, abundant realm of being.

When not on retreat, it’s when I’m in my creativity, hosting a gathering for loved ones, basking in nature, or doing good work that has some ripple of impact.

What question do you ask yourself often?


How would 80-year old me feel about this? Is this something I might regret doing or not doing? How would I feel about this on my deathbed?


What does your ideal day off/or working day look like?


I could go on and on with minute details for an entire day, so I will just give you my ideal ‘off-day’ morning.


Wake up somewhere tropical with the sun and go for a sunrise dip (walking distance from my home, ideally), dry off, sit silently for some minutes, then write my morning pages with an oat milk latte out in some majestic garden or under a fig tree, sitting in a very cosy armchair.

Once i’m done writing, go find a loved one to hug and give a morning kiss to. Change of clothes and get into the gym for an hour of Muay Thai training, followed by an outdoor shower and someone making me a hearty breakfast of sausages, avocado on toast and sweet potato fries. Maybe finish off with some fresh, sliced, super sweet pineapple.


What is your relationship with Mandali like?


Supportive, mystical, generous and rooted in the field of possibilities. I am beyond blessed that Mandali is a key part of my life, and vice versa. I started off as a repeat guest, fell in love with its spirit, started collaborating professionally and now I’m entering my fourth year as part of the Mandali team, taking care of the marketing and special projects. A gift from the heavens.

I’ve Been Here Before: Swimming in the Sewage River of Shame

Posted on by Silvia Eriksson

In this raw and deeply honest reflection, Erinbell Fanore invites us into the vulnerable terrain of body shame – a place many of us have visited, often more than once. With strong imagery and poignant self-awareness, she speaks not only to the pain of being caught in toxic self-judgment, but also to the courage it takes to keep climbing out of it. This is a story of compassion, resilience, and the quiet power of showing up for ourselves again and again.

It happened again. There I was looking in the mirror judging myself and ashamed of the fact that I was body shaming myself and spinning down into old patterns.  

“I think I have gained weight.”
“I am only really truly loveable if I am skinny.”
“I am to blame for not being fitter, stronger, healthier, more gorgeous.”
“I should be beyond all of this body shite. I am a modern woman.”
“It’s my fault I am caught up in this bullshit.”
“What kind of feminist yoga teacher am I?”

Damn it, how can I be back here again? Full of insecurity, shame, frustration, and anger. Why can’t I always look in the mirror and simply love myself as I am? Contemplating this, an image came to mind.

I was swimming in a river of sewage. The rank smell of it was overwhelming as was the sensation of fecal matter rubbing against my skin. I was overwhelmed. I felt raw, exposed, and disgustingly filthy. I was drowning in excrement.

Then a higher part of myself, my true essence, that which is always there inside of me unharmed and unharmable, reached out and grabbed me from the river. She showered me off and gave me one of those firefighter emergency blankets. She sat with her arm around me beside the river. But the smell was still too much. 

We went up to higher ground. The sewage river was surrounded by lush green rolling hills. She took me up to the top of a slope. After I rested and caught my breath, I looked down. I saw thousands, millions of other women swimming and drowning in the brown river. I saw how it goes through time. The sewage river travels back many generations.

I also saw that other women were pulling themselves out of the river. Showering off and covering themselves in warm comforting blankets. I saw that on the hillsides all around the river, were women sitting. Women resting. Women out of the waste.

The sight was astonishing. It was both painful and beautiful. There was the agonising heartache of those drowning. My body viscerally knowing so well what it feels like. There was also the hope and joy of those out of the river. My heart expanding outwards. It is possible to get out. We can clean off the shit. We can find higher ground. It is attainable for each of us. 

As I sat there, awestruck by what I was witnessing, a further detail came into focus. Right beside me was a mudslide leading back to the shit river. I had already slid down there many times. Over and over, I have crawled out of the river, cleaned off and come up to this hilltop only to eventually slide back in. 

This detail isn’t disheartening. Rather it gives me courage. Yes, the river is long. The river is ancient. The river is constantly being reflected and promoted by society all around me. How can I not end up back in it? I was born into it. So was my sister. My mother, her mother and grandmother and beyond were all born into it. It is continually flowing with our inherited pain.

And yet, we can get out. 

I have rescued myself hundreds of times already. So next time I fall into the putrid, rancid waters, I know I can escape. There is no shame in ending once again back in it, because the river is bigger than me. It is older than me.

As I see the cycle of in the river, out of the river, to the hill top, and back into the river, the humour of our human predicament jumps out. Oh, man, it’s hard to be human. It’s a messy stinky complicated affair. The collective experience of being human is also highlighted. We are in this together. Showing each other the way and getting stuck together. 

So next time I find myself looking in the mirror spiralling down the mudslide into the sewage, I will try to smile and think, “Here I go again! I got this.”  I won’t be quite so disheartened by it.  This is what it means to be a woman. This is what it means to be human. 

I probably won’t be able to always fully love myself just as I am, but I will be gentler with what I see. I won’t take myself quite so seriously. Humour, self compassion and patience will all be looking in the mirror with me.

I write this from a woman’s perspective around body issues knowing that topic goes beyond gender.  I also know that there are more than Body Image Sewage Rivers. There are countless different types of garbage rivers.  We swim/drown in multiple ones. The good news is that we can get out of them. We are not destined to sink into the muck. Nor is it possible to avoid it. As I said, being human is messy. We have the resilience and the capacity to meet the chaos of life. Each in our own way. Every time one of us makes it to the edge of whatever rubbish river we find ourselves in and pull ourselves out, we offer hope to others. 

As we sit at the top of the lush hillsides, seeing the suffering of others in the sewage river below, let us hold them in our hearts. We know what it is like to be tangled up in the excreta of life. We send them our compassion and where possible we reach out our hand and pull someone else out of the suffering. 

Posted in Blog, Body, Mind, SoulTagged awareness, emotions, innerpeace, mindfulness

The Power of Playfulness ~ A New Way of Meeting Life

Posted on by Silvia Eriksson

There’s a quiet courage in being playful – because to be truly playful means showing up as we are, spontaneously, without hiding behind self-judgment.

As children, playfulness was simply the way we met the world. We explored without hesitation, acted without self-consciousness, and learned through wonder rather than fear. Over time, as life shaped us, many of us learned to be cautious, careful, and controlled – skills that helped us survive, but often at the cost of our natural spontaneity.

Yet even now, beneath the layers of life experiences that shape the way we act and react every day, that playful spirit still lives inside us. It waits for the moments when we are willing to loosen our grip, to soften our seriousness, and to try something new, not perfectly, but with curiosity and less fear of the outcome. In a way, it’s a way of helping us reprogram our usual way of doing things.

Playfulness isn’t about being frivolous or uncaring. It’s about approaching life with a lightness of heart, even when things feel heavy. It’s about finding another way when the old ways no longer serve us.

Sometimes, we experience playfulness mainly when the usual grip of control relaxes – during leisure, laughter, or moments when the stakes feel low. In these times, spontaneity flows naturally, but it remains confined to a narrow part of life. True mature playfulness is different: it is not limited to unconscious moments of release, but becomes a conscious way of engaging. It invites us to bring our spontaneity into many other fields – into our work, relationships, creativity, and challenges, allowing more of our authentic self to come forward, even where we might usually be guarded or serious.

When we meet challenges playfully, we begin to dismantle the walls built by fear and habit. We step beyond familiar pathways and discover that we are more flexible, more creative, and more resilient than we thought.

When I designed my website, I allowed myself to be spontaneous and playful. I didn’t try to follow trends or create something that would simply “fit in.” Instead, I listened to what felt meaningful to me and stood by what I loved, even if it didn’t match the usual standards or expectations.

The result was something totally unique – alive in a way that a carefully calculated design could never have been. Even with its imperfections and limitations, it has continued to attract people in ways I never anticipated. To my surprise, even the web designer loved it so much that they added it to their professional portfolio.

When we dare to trust our playful instincts and what feels meaningful to us, we often create something that speaks more deeply, not just to ourselves, but to others as well.

If you feel called to bring more playfulness into your life, here are a few invitations to explore:

• Let yourself be imperfect. Try something you’re not good at, not to master it, but simply to experience it as it is. Smile at yourself if you stumble or feel embarrassed at not getting it right immediately.

• Change a small routine. Walk a different path. Rearrange something in your home. Notice how it shifts your perception.

• Ask ‘what if’ questions. What if I let this be easier? What if I trusted a little more? What if I didn’t need to have all the answers right now?

• Give yourself permission to experiment. Try a new way of moving, speaking, or creating — not for any outcome, but for the sake of exploration itself.

In returning to playfulness, we bring back a deeper trust in life – and trust in ourselves, a sense that we can meet whatever comes with openness, creativity, and even joy.

The invitation is simple:

What would it feel like to meet this moment with a little more play?

You might find that the path forward unfolds more easily than you expected.

Peter Harper ~ Mandali Insight Questionnaire

Posted on by Silvia Eriksson

In stillness, truth speaks. Through our new “Beyond the Surface – an Insight Questionnaire”, we invite the voices of our Mandali community to echo what’s most real. This time, we turn to Peter Harper—The Drunken Monk—whose words remind us that gentleness can be revolutionary, and silence, a doorway.
Here, he reflects on life, self, and the quiet power of coming home.

What is one important lesson life has taught you so far?

That silence reveals everything.
Not the silence of avoidance, but the living, breathing stillness inside. The awareness that listens to life without filters. I’ve learned that when I’m quiet enough to feel what’s truly here, alive in this moment, beneath the mind, beneath the persona then life shows up in exquisite clarity. It’s not always easy, but it’s always true.

What question do you ask yourself often?

What is the most loving response I can offer… without abandoning myself?
It’s a question that holds the paradox I live with every day,  to be soft without making myself small, to be open without being a door mat, to be kind without compromising my own integrity. It’s the combination of compassion and self-respect.

What would your future self thank you for today?

For choosing truth over comfort. For finally stepping out of the shadows of self-doubt and not trying to explain my intuition to those who don’t want to hear it. For creating sacred space, inside and out, that I can share with others, where people can come home to themselves and co-create something simple, real, and peaceful. That is the best feeling! 

What does the space at Mandali inspire in you?

Mandali has been a powerful mirror on my path. It’s a place where both light and shadow have revealed themselves as important teachers, where I’ve grown, stumbled, opened, and returned again and again. Each time I’m there, I reconnect with something essential; a deeper sense of self, a sharper clarity, and a softer eye.

If your life were a book, what would this chapter be called?


“The Return of the Gentle Rebel.”

It’s the chapter where the protagonist steps out from behind the curtain and speaks plainly, with humour, warmth, and a smile from the heart.
Behind the playfulness, there’s a quiet purpose, an invitation to hang out, share presence, and chew the spiritual fat with lightness… and peace.

A Method to Integrate Your Meditation Practice into Your Digital Life

Posted on by Silvia Eriksson

A confession

It’s 2015 and I’m half-way through the meditation retreat that I attend each year in southern France. The sun is beating down outside, and the large group of practitioners are gathered in the relative cool inside the shrine room.

Only I’m not with them.

Instead, I’m locked in a toilet cubicle and glued to my phone. I’m in a slightly manic state, jumping from email, to app, to web page with an unchained mental hunger to endlessly chase the next hit of stimulation for my mind. As I sit there, I’m suddenly aware of what I’m doing. It’s as if I have caught myself red-handed.

How crazy is it, I thought, that even when I’ve chosen to be in an environment perfectly designed to help observe and still our minds, I’m still unable to control my relationship with my technology, even just for a few days?

The chances are, you may have a similar story to me. Many of my sangha friends that I’ve spoken with have admitted as much. As meditators, the constant distractions, mental attachments and emotional storm clouds that our smartphones can create feel like a significant threat to our practice that we’ve so carefully nurtured in the shelter of retreat.

But given that tech is everywhere (and billions of dollars are spent in designing it to draw in our attention) is there even anything we can realistically do about it?

I am a very undisciplined practitioner, and need all the help I can get on the cushion. So after that retreat in 2015 I set out to try and answer that very question. After many years of experimenting a publisher approached me to write a book sharing all that I have learnt in that time, and now finally (after much procrastination and getting lost down numerous internet rabbit holes) Your Best Digital Life—will be published next month.

The folk at Mandali asked if I’d share some of what I learnt about how to integrate my practice in the digital world with you here—I hope you find it helpful.

Know that technology is an extension of your mind

Humans stand out in the animal kingdom as being skilled at (and obsessed with) building tools.

The thing to understand about our tools is that they are all expressions of our intent. We wanted to travel faster, and more efficiently, so mankind created the wheel. The tool extended our physical capacities.

The same thing is true of any technology—from the microscope, to the newspaper and even the internet-connected cappuccino machine. Each of them extends your capacities to do things (see things in more detail, be more informed, make your morning brew before you even get out of bed).

Why am I talking about this? Because your smartphone, laptop, Ipad (and any other digital tools that you care to think of) generally all extend one thing in particular—your conceptual mind. Steve Jobs described the computer as “a bicycle for the mind” for the exact reason that it enables us to have access to, generate and share ideas much faster (and also more efficiently) than before.

Take a moment to look around you and observe anyone who is currently using a piece of digital tech (yourself included). Where are they right now? They may be sitting in a specific physical location, but its likely that the majority of their current experience is all up in their head. That’s what’s so unnerving about commuting in a train full of people staring at their phones—the carriage is packed, but mentally it’s as if no-one is there.

Understood in this way, your smartphone is an extension of your mind. To pick yours up almost guarantees that you will begin engaging with a long train of thoughts (and as it happens, studies show that the average engages their phone once every 8 minutes of the day throughout their waking hours).

As meditators it’s easy to see our smartphones (and other digital devices) as the enemy, something that disrupts our awareness. And yet we have to live in the world, which pretty much guarantees that we must engage with them all the time.

But I believe that seeing your technology simply as the enemy is a limiting perspective. Seen from another angle—by becoming deeply curious about how tech shapes who we are—our digital devices become a constant invitation to get to know our own minds better, identify what we value most, and ultimately deepen our understanding of what it means to be human.

Instead of trying to turn away from tech in order to understand our minds, I believe we should be turning toward it and using our digital habits as a mirror to understand our mental habits. The inescapable and mundane moments of Zooming, doomscrolling and instant messaging could then be used to deepen our grasp on how the mind works, notice distraction and integrate the practice that we have nurtured in the supportive environment of retreat.

The M.O.R.E. Method

Over many years of trying to do this, I found that it can be a really powerful way to integrate your meditation practice in the realities of the digital world. However, like most practices, doing this consistently can be really hard.

So through trial and error I began to develop a simple framework that would help make it as easy as possible to make this intentional use of technology second nature. I call it the M.O.R.E. Method.

Here is a very brief summary of the four steps:

Mobilise

You start by Mobilizing—taking a moment to consciously check in with your intention and also bring your mind into a space that is open to growth and change. The MORE Method is designed to be used by anyone, but a meditator can use this Mobilize step to bring their mind back home for just 30 seconds or so, and connect with the heart of their practice. By repeating this process—again and again—you increase your capacity to bring awareness to your digital habits in the busyness of the day.

Observe

Next, you spend some time simply being mindful of your activity and observing how your digital tech actually plays a role in shaping your thoughts and behaviour. If you find yourself doomscrolling through twitter, carry on—but use a part of your awareness to watch yourself and take note of the various thoughts, emotions and feelings that show up. As with your practice, try to do so without judgement or trying to change anything. Simply become deeply curious about what is actually happening. This process can be deeply insightful, but it can also be comical (watching yourself pick up your phone to tell the time, only to get lost in YouTube for 20 mins and putting it down again before realising that you never actually checked the time…) and also painful. So be kind to yourself as you do so.

Reflect

The next step involves setting aside some formal time in your week to reflect on everything that you have observed and consider how you feel about it. What did you notice? What were the consequences of your digital habits? Are they aligned with your deeper goals, or distracting yours from them? If you are familiar with a formal contemplation method then this can be a great tool to bring in at this point. Once you have finished reflecting, you will likely have identified something about your digital habits that you would like to change, which leads directly to the final step.

Experiment

The Experiment step helps you make this change by disrupting your existing unconscious digital habits and making a small but highly intentional change to your behaviour. The key here is that the changes are small. You are not looking to redesign your entire relationship with tech overnight but to make a very specific intervention based on your insights into your own digital habits. The very first experiment I ran was putting a sticky note on the screen of my phone, with the intention of making it easier to become aware that I was picking it up. Seeing the sticky note was an invitation to put the phone down without unlocking the phone (unless I really needed to do something specific). Making focused and intentional incremental changes like this will isolate any potential benefits you experience, giving you confidence in that approach as a tool you can rely on in the future.

Join me live to learn how to put this all into practice

On April 24th I’ll be hosting a virtual workshop alongside my co-author Menka Sanghvi to celebrate the launch of our book. For anyone with a meditation practice, this will be a fantastic opportunity to get together with like-minded folk and learn a simple but effective tool that will really help you integrate your practice in the realities of the modern digital world.

This workshop is exclusively available to anyone who pre-orders the book before April 15th—if you would like to join then you can register at yourbestdigitallife.com

I hope to see you there!

The Path of Love: A Transformative Journey to Your True Self

Posted on by Silvia Eriksson

Path of Love is a 7-day immersive experience of deep inner work. It is a transformative journey designed to strip away the masks we wear and reveal the essence of who we truly are. Since its creation 30 years ago, the process has remained fundamentally the same while continually evolving to meet the needs of today’s world.

Imagine being in a room with 30-40 other like-minded, hearted individuals, each of you committed to discovering and transforming the parts of yourselves that no longer serve you. Within this group, you’ll work closely with a smaller group of 8-10 people, guided by highly skilled facilitators. The process unfolds with incredible precision, each day building on the last, taking you deeper into the truth of your being. It’s a journey of intensity, profound connection, and ultimately lightness and freedom—but that lightness is earned through courageous self-exploration.

What makes Path of Love unique?

Path of Love is not about ‘practising’ love: love is the natural byproduct of the process. Through shedding pretences, telling the truth, and embracing vulnerability, participants often experience a profound opening. A deep thread that runs throughout the process is the love of the truth, which is in the very fabric of the infrastructure that holds the Path of Love field together. The environment created is safe, non-judgmental, and deeply supportive, enabling a level of authenticity and trust rarely experienced in daily life.

We acknowledge the personality, recognising it as an intelligent strategy developed to survive life’s early challenges. Yet, we also explore how these patterns may limit us, confining us to outdated ways of being. By asking essential questions—What do you really want in this life? What is holding you back?—we facilitate  your movement beyond your conditioned personality so you can realise your deeper potential.

The process is confidential, preserving the sacredness of each person’s experience. This confidentiality creates a powerful container where participants feel free to express themselves fully, transforming long-held barriers into new possibilities.

Why is it called Path of Love?

Love is our true nature. However, to access it, we must release the facades, fears, and protections that keep us disconnected. This journey is about rediscovering that inherent love by meeting life and others with openness and truth. Participants often describe it as a revelation, uncovering clarity, connection, and a profound sense of freedom.

Longing: The Compass of Transformation

Many of us feel a longing—sometimes referred to as Divine Discontent—a sense that there is more to life than the way we are currently living. This longing is often born from fleeting moments of freedom, love, grace or connection that leave a deep yearning for more. Path of Love helps you trust this longing, this internal ache and assists you to use it as a compass, guiding you toward healing, awakening, and living in alignment with your true essence. Can you hear the calling? 

After the Process

The journey doesn’t end after seven days, nor do you return back to your life in exactly the same way as before. Instead, you return with a sense of inner clarity ready to walk forward in your life. Integration is key, and Path of Love offers continued support, including sharing groups, meditations, online and in person events, individual sessions, and advanced programs. Many participants choose to join the staff team, deepening their learning by holding space for others, which creates a parallel process of transformation. You may also consider yourself part of the extended Path of Love community where reunions can take your experiences into unexpected and joyful places.

FAQs

Do I need prior experience in therapy or meditation?

No, Path of Love is open to everyone, whether you’re new to inner work or very experienced. While it may feel more challenging for those unfamiliar with vulnerability, the process meets you where you are.

What if I don’t know my heart’s longing?

You don’t need to come with answers. The process will guide you to uncover your deepest desires and barriers. It’s designed to gently and effectively take you to where you need to go internally, helping you reconnect with your truth, essence and deepest potential.

Who facilitates Path of Love?

The process is led by experienced facilitators who are professionals in psychotherapy, psychology, trauma work, and spiritual growth. They are passionate about growth and transformation and are dedicated to truth and evolution. They are supported by dedicated staff who have undergone the process themselves and return to create the safe and transformative space they once experienced.

What happens if something challenging arises?

Our facilitators are highly trained to support participants through trauma and intense emotional experiences. The group environment is carefully held, creating safety and trust so you can face whatever arises with compassion and courage.

What if I’m not ready?

The application process helps determine if this is the right time for you. We offer a friendly and comprehensive interview with one of our leaders or facilitators where you will be met compassionately, answer important questions to support your process, and where you can ask all and any questions you may have. You will find you will get from the process what you bring and so finding the right time and place for you to address all your desires will be of uttermost importance. If the time is not quite right for you, we may suggest other preparatory steps to support you in the future and next phases of your life.

Why do so many people call this life-changing?

Path of Love often leads to profound insights, revelations, clarity, and deep shifts in how participants experience themselves and their lives. It’s not uncommon to hear participants describe it as a turning point, where life becomes distinctly measured in “before and after” Path of Love. This process is truly a gift you offer to yourself—a doorway to freedom, authenticity, and a life lived with purpose and joy.

Are you ready to take that step?

Imagine shedding the masks that have weighed you down, reconnecting with the truth of who you are, and stepping into a life of profound love and connection. This is your moment—your invitation to say yes to yourself, your longing, and your potential. If you feel even the faintest pull in your heart, trust it. The Path of Love is calling you to join a journey that will transform not only how you see yourself but how you meet the world.

We are delighted to announce that our first-ever Path of Love Process at Mandali will be taking place on May 4-11, facilitated by its founders Turiya Hanover and Rafia Morgan. In Autumn, we will be welcoming Abigail Iquo Isuo, who will be on the therapist & facilitators team on the Path of Love Process on 18-25 October 2025.

Mandali Moments ~ Beyond the Surface

Posted on by Silvia Eriksson

At Mandali, we believe that your spiritual path deepens by asking the right questions—questions that go beyond the surface to touch the essence of who we are. This questionnaire is an invitation to reflect, explore, and share. It’s playfully designed to spark insights into your life, your journey, and your vision for the future. Whether you are a guest, teacher, or part of our Mandali team, your responses can inspire others and deepen the collective connection within our community.

Beyond the Surface ~ A Self-Inquiry Questionnaire

Feel free to choose one question from each category—or simply the ones that resonate most with you. Take your time, and let your answers flow from the heart. To share with us and our community, please send your answers to mecommunity@mandali.org, but you are welcome to also use the questionnaire as a self-inquiry tool, and keep your insights just for you.

Life

  • What is one important lesson life has taught you so far?
  • How do you define a fulfilling life?
  • What are you most grateful for right now?
  • Tell us about a time in your life when you felt most aligned with your true nature and why.
  • If you could only share one piece of advice with the world, what would it be?

Self

  • What question do you ask yourself often?
  • What do you celebrate the most about yourself?
  • If you could spend one day in total silence, where would you go, would you have company and what would your intention be?
  • Who or what has had the most profound influence on your spiritual journey?
  • What does “being present” mean to you?

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
~ Carl Jung

Envisioning the Future

  • What does your ideal day off/or working day look like?
  • How do you hope to grow in the coming year?
  • What legacy would you like to leave behind?
  • What is one habit you wish to cultivate more?
  • What would your future self thank you for today?

Mandali

  • What is your relationship with Mandali like?
  • What does the space at Mandali inspire in you?
  • What is your most cherished memory from Mandali?
  • If Mandali were a person, what advice would you seek from them?

Creativity

  • If your life were a book, what would this chapter be called?
  • What symbol or image best represents your growth journey?
  • Describe a place (real or imagined) that brings you peace.
  • What makes you feel creative?

Some Ideas on How to Continue after a Retreat

Posted on by Silvia Eriksson

At the end of a retreat I am often asked how to continue a regular meditation practice once we get home.

Usually, on a retreat everyone is meditating together at the same time and everything is laid out for us making it easy do the meditation. It can sometimes feel harder not to practise!

When we get home the opposite is true. Suddenly there is so much to do and so many demands on our time. And however much we may have felt the benefits from a daily meditation practice while on retreat once back home we just forget to do it.

Ironically, it’s while caught up in the busyness of daily life that we may need meditation the most. 

Be Realistic

Often we leave the retreat with high hopes. We are inspired to keep up a regular meditation practice, which is great, but we should be realistic. 

Know that:

  • Even small amounts of practice can have a huge impact.
  • You don’t think you have to do hours of meditation every day for it to be beneficial.
  • It’s much better to succeed at doing 5 minutes a day rather than fail at trying to do 1 hour per day.
  • A little meditation regularly more important than bursts of lots occasionally)
  • Richard Davidson (neuroscientist, professor, and pioneering researcher into the impact of meditation on the brain) has demonstrated that even 8 minutes a day for 2 weeks had a measurable impact on the brain

Short Term Goal

—Make a short term commitment to meditate every day for 1 month (or even 10 days). At the end of that period evaluate whether it’s helping you. If it is, then keep going. Maybe make another goal. If not, give it up and do something else.

—Knowing we only have to continue for a fixed time makes it easier to stick to. We know we can give it up at the end of that time but it also gives us a good opportunity to test out if meditation is helpful for us.

—Don’t give up if you miss a day. Maybe you made a commitment to meditate for 10 minutes every day but something came up on day 6 and you didn’t practice. No problem. That’s life. Just puck it up the next day. Some research suggests that the most successful approach is to aim for every day bit to give ourselves 2 ‘get out’ days per week. Then if we don’t managed to meditate on 1or 2 days we don’t give up and sacrifice the whole project. 

How to Form a Habit

If we can make a habit of meditation then we don’t have to keep making ourselves do it. It just starts to happen automatically. These tips apply to any habit, not just meditation:

—Meditating at the same time every day helps. For some people this is the morning but find a time that suits you. If you really can’t find time at home then maybe on the train, or in a break.

—Meditating every day  helps form the habit much quicker than occasional practice. Even if it’s just 1 minute a day, we will create the habit of sitting.

—Attach your meditation to a pre-existing habit (piggyback!) Find something you do every day, brushing your teeth for example, and decide to practice meditation after that.

—Reward yourself – nice cup of tea/coffee/chocolate…

Trigger / Action / Reward is the basis of forming habits. The gratitude and appreciation that we bring at the end of each practice is also a subtle reward. Saying ‘well done’ and thanking ourselves.

• Don’t judge your practice. There is no such thing as a bad meditation (the only bad meditation is the one you don’t do)

• If you can, create a beautiful space in your house or apartment. It can be very simple, but a clean, clear space – with no distractions. A place you like to go.

Some Additional but Important Points

—Don’t make a separation between your formal meditation and everyday life. We are not trying to become expert meditators on the cushion and then be completely stressed out and distracted during the day.

Find moments during the day to come back to a simple awareness of the present moment – a single breath, or just aware of sounds…. This will really help to bring mindfulness and awareness into everything we do – until eventually it just becomes how we are.

Formal practice will help you remember to come back to these moments during the day.

The more you do this the easier and quicker you will be able to re-centre and ground yourself during the day. Just one breath can bring you straight back into the practice.

—Come together with people. This is really important. Once a week, or even once a month can be such a great help in maintaining inspiration. Find a local group. If that isn’t possible then try to connect digitally (even knowing someone, somewhere is meditating with you can help)

—In Amsterdam: The Meditation Cafe has morning and evening meditations. Feel free to drop in.

Apps

—The Plum Village app. A beautiful app that allows you to time a daily practice with start, stop, and interval bells. There are teachings and other features including a nice way to set mindfulness reminders through the day.

Teachers 

Below are a few Tibetan Buddhist teachers of the Nyingma and Kagyu tradition. They have written a number of books, all of which I would highly recommend, but I have given a few suggestions that may be a good place to start. I also share links to their organisations.  

—Sogyal Rinpoche

His book, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, gives a thorough introduction to Tibetan Buddhism. It also has a full description of the tonglen practice.

His organisation is  Rigpa

—Dzigar Kogtrul Rinpoche, 

His book, Training in Tenderness, is an excellent support for the loving kindness practice. 

His organisation is Mangalashribhuti

—Mingyur Rinpoche,

His first book is, Joy of Living

His organisation is Tergar

—Tsoknnyi Rinpoche,

His organisation is Pundarika

—Jetsun Khandro Rinpoche

And Finally

What I’ve described here are some tips that different people have found useful over time but most important is your own journey of trial and error. Learn what works best for you. Give something a go, see how it works, review and then adapt accordingly.

Feel free to share in the comments what works best for you and any different approaches that you have found to be particularly helpful.