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Knowing How it Feels - Feeling Tone (vedana) and the Practice of Mindfulness
Date: 19/06/2025
Location: Lady Margaret Hall
During the course of this day we will examine the crucially important topic of 'feeling tone', or the 'taste of our experience.,' and its implications on the practice of mindfulness.
'Feeling tone' (vedana) can be seen as a crucial pivotal point in understanding the cognitive process in contemporary and traditional forms of mindfulness meditation practice. 'The taste of experience' comes as 'pleasant', 'unpleasant' and 'neither pleasant nor unpleasant' , and these 'tones' or 'tastes' inevitably follow from human embodiment and sense experience. That experience comes in this way is unavoidable, but what follows from can be viewed in terms of our reactivity or responsiveness. During the course of the day we will examine 'feeling tone' in depth and trace its implications in our daily lives.
The day will commence at 10:00 (with the option to arrive from 09:30 for registration and networking) and end at 16:00. Lunch and refreshments are included in the fee.
John Peacock is a retired academic and a Buddhist practitioner for over fifty years. He initially trained in the Tibetan Gelugpa tradition in India and subsequently studied Theravada in Sri Lanka. He lectured in philosophy at the University of Manchester, Buddhist Studies at the University of Bristol before becoming the co-director of the Masters degree in Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy at the University of Oxford.
Now retired from his position at the University of Oxford, John remains a close supporter of the work at the Oxford Mindfulness Foundation.