Learn more about Shamash Alidina, our course and previous attendees.
Mindfulness?
How it all started
Shamash has been practising mindfulness since 1998 and runs his own successful training organisation.
He is the international bestselling author of the Mindfulness For Dummies series and The Mindful Way through Stress. He frequently pops up in newspapers, magazines and on radio shows.
Based in London, he runs workshops and speaks at conferences all over the world and now uses webinars to show others how to teach mindfulness, too.
Shamash has also co-founded the world's first Museum of Happiness in London. The museum is open to the public, and housed inside the UK's largest homeless hostel, Arlington House.
More recently, Shamash co-founded the Zen of Business - a movement to empower anyone in business to work with greater wisdom and compassion, to try and leave people and planet in a better state than we found it.
He has had the honour and privilege of training with the father of ‘Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction’, Jon Kabat-Zinn PhD through the Center for Mindfulness in Massachusetts, United States. He has also trained extensively with the Centre of Mindfulness at Bangor University in Wales. And he's attended many retreats with his favourite teacher, Ajahn Brahm.
Forget Mindfulness. We need Kindfulness.
After a period of intense work, Shamash found that mindfulness alone didn't recharge him. He came across a teaching by Buddhist teacher Ajahn Brahm, and the concept of Kindfulness was born. Kindfulness is now his biggest passion.
"If mindfulness is practiced without lots of kindness, it's missing something vital. If you're just more aware of your stress, or anxiety or depression, that alone won't help. You need to be kind to your emotions. You need to forgiving of your mistakes. Mindfulness tells you want's going on. Kindfulness heals."format_quote
Thank you, Shamash, for your great support in this journey. And the content was AMAZING!
10 weeks back I could not imagine myself as a mindfulness teacher but this program gave me the confidence and support I was looking for.
Shraddha Shabbir
format_quote
Kindfulness?
The concept that expands and focuses on a new perspective
Кindfulness is a concept that builds on top of Mindfulness, developed by Ajahn Chah, Ajahn Brahm, Shamash Alidina and originally from core Buddhist principles that have often been lost in modern mindfulness training programs.
Kindfulness focuses on the discovery and cultivation of kindness towards your own self and the difference it has on your life.
Mindfulness, Kindness and Compassion work together to result in Kindfulness are proven in the latest scientific research to be the best way to optimise your body and mind for a happy, healthy, productive and successful life. And it feels great too!
Kindfulness focuses on the discovery and cultivation of kindness towards your own self and the difference it has on your life.
Mindfulness, Kindness and Compassion work together to result in Kindfulness are proven in the latest scientific research to be the best way to optimise your body and mind for a happy, healthy, productive and successful life. And it feels great too!
Teach Mindfulness Online
The leading online training for mindfulness teachers since 2013
Shamash's Story
How life lead him to Mindfulness teaching
“As a kid I was really into science. I loved making robots and fiddling with chemistry sets. It was no surprise that I went to university to study chemical engineering – to the delight of my parents. It was almost as if my life was already mapped out for me."
Searching for meaning
One evening in his first year of university, Shamash found himself talking to a friend who was into spirituality.
“We were out looking at the stars and my friend started talking about how much order there was in the universe. Something in me clicked - I suddenly knew there was more to life than just randomness and science.”After that, his well-mapped out career path began to unravel.
It’s safe to say Shamash didn’t exactly give the job his all.
Scientist by day, philosopher by night
Back at university for another term, Shamash saw a poster on the underground advertising the School of Practical Philosophy with the Socrates quote: ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’.
“I signed up for an evening course and the very first session was a life-changing moment for me. Finally I felt that people were talking about all the stuff I’d been thinking about.”Shamash threw himself into mindfulness and meditation with a passion. He even started running his own workshops at the philosophy school, all while (half-heartedly) working on his degree during the day.
It was then Shamash decided to become a teacher.
“There was a careers’ fair at my university and they asked who wanted to be a teacher. I was the only one who put my hand up out of a massive cohort of 100 people, as everyone was going into banking or engineering.”To friends and family, it seemed like a crazy move. But to Shamash it made perfect sense.
“I only wanted to be a teacher so I could work in this particular school - the secondary school connected to the School of Philosophy. Called the St James School, the children do mindfulness meditation every day and have a philosophy class once a week. Luckily, after a stressful year teacher training, they offered me a job.”Something missing
Shamash loved teaching at the school, but still felt he hadn't really found his true calling.
"It really was the perfect job as it combined all of my passions. I taught the children science, and as a form teacher I also ran their daily meditation and weekly philosophy classes. But what I really enjoyed was coaching to the students one-to one, as I could see what a difference it made. to them."In fact, he enjoyed life coaching so much, Shamash set up his own life coaching group for adults, which was part of a wider organisation called ‘Life Clubs’. And it was here something interesting happened.
“While I was at another Life Club group, we did a little visualisation. You had to imagine yourself going up into space and landing in your ideal life. I did the exercise and in my dream life, people were coming to my home and I was teaching them mindfulness. Before that, I’d never realised how important mindfulness was to me. This was what I should be doing.”Amazingly within six months, that visualisation had come true when Shamash started the London Mindfulness and Meditation meet-up group from his own home.
When Mindfulness for Dummies was released, Shamash had been a secondary school teacher for ten years.
“I didn’t have a clue if the book would be a success or not, but I knew I had to quit and be a mindfulness teacher full-time. It felt like it would be too painful not to do what I really wanted.”Luckily for him, Mindfulness for Dummies did very well. More books followed, people from all over the world started asking him to train them in how to teach mindfulness, and his great passion finally became his job.
“I couldn't imagine myself doing anything else now. Once you discover this incredible way of transforming your own inner state of mind, you just want to share it with others so that they can do it, too."Forget Mindfulness. We need Kindfulness.
After a period of intense work, Shamash found that mindfulness alone didn't recharge him. He came across a teaching by Buddhist teacher Ajahn Brahm, and the concept of Kindfulness was born. Kindfulness is now his biggest passion.
"If mindfulness is practiced without lots of kindness, it's missing something vital. If you're just more aware of your stress, or anxiety or depression, that alone won't help. You need to be kind to your emotions. You need to forgiving of your mistakes. Mindfulness tells you want's going on. Kindfulness heals."