About me

Later, I discovered lucid dream practises through the books of Carlos Castenada, and marijuana through my best mate, Matty. The hedonism continued, yet once again something was starting to unfurl, quietly, from my spiritual side. In 1995 in the build up to my finals for an economics degree I decided I needed to meditate, to concentrate my mind, to allow more hours of revision, and I needed more revision time!

My first ever meditation happened back when I was 13. The night before my bar-mitzvah, stressed out at the idea of reading the torah (the five books of Moses), in front of the entire synagogue, I was unable to sleep. My dad came into my room and gave me a guided relaxation, I was asleep before he had finished. My mum was a TM (transcendental meditation) meditator, and so were three of my friends. So I had a vague notion of what meditation was. Back in my student accommodation, I started doing some relaxation, and I created a mantra for myself.

That summer I also started teaching myself yoga from a couple of books, and so, a daily practise of yoga and meditation was quickly established. Wanting to know more about meditation I finally got my hands on my first serious Buddhist meditation book, ‘Living Buddhist Masters’ by Jack Kornfield. This helped my practise go to the next level, sitting 40-45 minutes twice a day plus yoga sessions and following better meditation instructions. After this I took my first ten day intensive vipasana meditation course. Three days after that finished, I took my second ten day intensive vipasana course. My practise went up another notch, now sitting two to three hours a day plus yoga sessions. My interest in Buddhist teachings grew from there, becoming more interested in the sutras, the actual texts of the Buddhas teaching.

The more Buddhist literature I read, the more I realised that the Buddha was a master psychologist. His paradigm was not spiritual in any classical sense, but trying to shift the way we conceive and interact with the world around us. I started to delve into psychology and finally discovered transpersonal psychology. I graduated from Liverpool John Moores University with a diploma in transpersonal psychology in 2005, doing academic study for the first time for real pleasure. During that course a fellow student told me about a course in Leicester, ‘Buddhist Psychotherapy’. These two subjects, Buddhism and psychotherapy, at this time, were my true passion, to see them both coming together, synthesised, was too much to resist, I had to go and take the course. I started with their foundation course and then signed up for two more years. Finally, I graduated in 2006 with a certificate in Advanced Buddhist Psychotherapy.

I had also completed my yoga teacher training back in 2001, and set myself up as a yoga teacher in Liverpool during my studies. After this period of study, work and continuing practise, I returned to Asia. I had drifted in ideology from the vipasana tradition I had been following, and now sought to do intensive solitary retreats. I did this initially in the Buddhist forest and cave monasteries of Sri Lanka, and then returned to India and continued to retreat in meditation centers and monasteries over there.

During my time in India I also met a young French lady while I was out walking in the Himalayas. After another ten months in India I returned to Europe, and finally to France. I was now ready to apply my practise to a more engaged life, living in relationship, and trying to find a way of living that aligned with nature, and with my deepest principles. Charlotte and I have been together in France since then, living as lightly on this beautiful planet as we can. First in the Alps, and now in the Pyrenees mountains, where we live as simply, and as off gird as we can manage, now, with our beautiful little boy, Zeph. Watching a little one grow and the responsibilities of parenthood adds a whole new (and wonderful) dimension to the spiritual path.

My personal approach to meditation is grounded in the vipasana traditions, based around the Buddhist teachings on the ‘four noble truths’ and the ‘Satipathana sutra’. I resonate strongly with Advaitas ‘non-dualism’, which is essentially Buddhism’s ‘emptiness’ , and I pay more attention to the chakras than most Buddhist teachers.

My own sense is that we need to have an array of tools at hand when meditating, depending on the condition we find the mind in.

Ultimately the practise needs to resemble the Zen concept of ‘just sitting’. Here we sit with an alert and attentive mind, simply observing, a choiceless awareness, being with the reality in this moment, just as it is.

Through practices such as ‘just sitting’ I started to have an experience, that I quickly understood to be an experience of ‘rebirthing’. A visceral and intense energetic birthing process. This lead to the discovery of a clear and precise technique that I found encrypted in spiritual and religious texts, worldwide teaching stories and even in the 9 times table. This lead to the writing of my second book, ‘Powers of 9’.

‘Powers of 9’ is the reason for developing this web page. As a yogi since 1995, I now feel I have something to offer back to the yogic community (all spiritual seekers). A key part of that, is the technique of rebirthing, and this site is here to create access to the book and to explore, explain and add further teachings that are connected to the Powers of 9 and the ‘art of rebirth’.

I try to continue to grow and learn, and to fall in love, again (and again), with each passing moment. Sometimes I am the master of myself, tall, relaxed, open hearted and present, in other moments I am overwhelmed by the old habit patterns of my mind.

I still see my own spiritual life as a work in progress, but I now see the path with ever greater clarity. If the Buddha’s and Christ’s of this world were really fully awakened beings, then I take my hat off to them. Truly free from mental attachments, and never subterfuged by their craving mind. I also pin my sights on their shoulders, as I now try to graduate one more time, this time, from the great universe of life.