Craig Williams Yoga Meditation and Mindfulness

31/08/2026

🍑 Late Summer Practice: When the Plum Is Ripe

There's an old Zen story about the master Mazu Daoyi and his student Fachang — nicknamed "Great Plum."

A monk was sent to test Fachang. "What did you learn from Mazu?" he asked.

"Mazu told me: this very mind is Buddha," Fachang answered.

"Ah, but that was yesterday," the monk said. "Now Mazu teaches 'neither mind nor Buddha.'"

Fachang didn't flinch. "Let that old man confuse people however he likes. I stand by what I know: this very mind is Buddha."

When Mazu heard how his student had answered, he simply smiled and said: "The plum is ripe."

Fachang wasn't clinging to a phrase — he'd absorbed the teaching so fully that no shift in the master's words could shake him. His understanding wasn't borrowed anymore. It was his own, whole and complete. Like fruit that's finished ripening on the branch.

Late summer feels like this. The reaching season is over. What's been growing all year doesn't need to try anymore — it's just ready.

On the mat this week: fewer cues, longer stillness, less adjusting toward some idea of "correct." Just noticing what in you has already ripened.

🧘 Join us for Zen-inspired yoga on Friday evenings 1800 at MBT Fitness in Liskeard.

30/08/2026

**WINTER RETREAT ❄️ | WATERPERRY HOUSE**

Fancy getting away from the noise for a weekend and giving yourself some space to breathe, move and reset?

Join Alan & Craig for a **Yoga for Blokes Winter Retreat** at beautiful **Waterperry House, near Oxford**, from **4th–6th December 2026**.

A weekend combining:

🧘 Asana practice
🌬️ Pranayama
🧘‍♂️ Meditation
🎵 Chanting
📖 Yoga philosophy
🥗 Diet
♂️ Male physiology & yoga
…and plenty of time to simply slow down.

**Catering and accommodation are included**, so you can leave the everyday stuff behind and immerse yourself in the weekend.

Whether you're completely new to yoga or have been practising for years, this is an opportunity to explore what yoga can offer men — physically, mentally and practically.

📅 **4th–6th December 2026**
📍 **Waterperry House, near Oxford**
👥 **Alan & Craig — qualified instructors**

📞 To book: **07901 047573**
🌐 **yogaforblokes.com**

Come and spend a winter weekend looking after yourself.

28/08/2026

A wonderful retreat at Cotswold Zen Centre. Amazing to reconnect with my teacher and fellow teachers.

28/08/2026

The view from my mat this morning. I wish everyone a wonderful bank holiday weekend

16/08/2026

16/08/2026

awesome weekend

Zenways Family Gathering 2026!!

16/08/2026

Just on the way home from a lovely weekend reconnecting with members of the Zenways sangha. I was running a session on Yoga and Pranayama on the Saturday morning. There was a whole host of workshops provided by members. The location was the beautiful Halsway Manor

13/08/2026

The Ocean and the Waves 🌊

I've been thinking a lot about my mind recently.

At the moment, there are certainly some challenging thoughts going around in my head. Thoughts about money, the future, uncertainty, and the occasional “what if?” I have quite a lot going on in my life at the moment.

What's interesting, though, is that I'm becoming more aware of what happens when I don't engage with those thoughts too much.

They come.
They can be uncomfortable.
And then, quite often, they pass. 🍂

Another thought arrives. Then another. And eventually, the original one loses its grip. I avoid engaging with the creation of the stories in my head.

It reminds me of the ocean. I've always liked the metaphor of focusing on the ocean rather than the waves.

The waves are what's happening on the surface—anxiety, excitement, fear, frustration, optimism, doubt. They rise and fall. Sometimes they're calm. Sometimes they're enormous.

But underneath them, the depth and stillness of the deep ocean remains. 💙

Yoga has given me a useful way of looking at this. Patanjali (the ancient Indian sage) describes yoga as the cessation of the fluctuations of consciousness in his work, the Yoga Sutras.

For me, that doesn't mean trying to empty my mind or somehow eliminate difficult thoughts. It's more about not automatically attaching myself to every thought that appears.

A thought about the future is just a thought.
A thought about a “what if” is just a thought.
It doesn't necessarily require an immediate response.

And perhaps this is where yoga has something particularly valuable to offer us all off the mat. We spend so much time trying to manage external uncertainty—our schedules, relationships, expectations, and the endless demands of daily life.

But we also have to learn to manage our relationship with the uncertainty happening inside our own heads. 🧠

I'm certainly still learning this. At the moment, I'm trying to notice the waves rather than fight them.

To let them come.
To let them go.
And occasionally to remember that beneath all of them, there is still the deep ocean.

✨ Perhaps we don't need to calm every wave. Perhaps we just need to remember that we are the ocean. ✨

09/08/2026

Took a little trip to Duloe stone circle yesterday as it was an auspicious astrological event, the Lionsgate Portal. Astrolgers say it can be used as a personal reset to clear old habits, set clear intentions, and practice gratitude.
The Lion's Gate Portal is an astrological term describing the alignment of the sun in Leo, the star Sirius, which is the brightest star as seen from Earth, the constellation Orion's Belt and the Earth. This alignment happens every year.
This year the eighth day of the eighth month is also the start of Obon in Japan a period of buddhist celebration for our ancestors.
I spent time sitting around the stones on what was a beautifully sunny summer afternoon.