Beyond the Temple community
We’ve all moved on since the spiritual abuse debacle that brought us together as a community, but I have tried to post occasionally, just to keep in touch and give us a chance to reconnect. But the outrage that drove our community – or at least me – in its early days has faded with the passage of time, and our paths have diverged in many different directions. Nevertheless, we do share a bond that I feel will always be there. I value your friendship and don’t want to lose it.
Beyond the Temple as a blog remains primarily as a source of historical information on a particular time in the story of Tibetan Buddhism’s integration (or lack of it) into Western societies. Though my life will always be beyond the temple, I don’t feel to inundate this space with my more recent musings which take a more creative direction. So I wanted to give you an update on where I’m heading and tell you how you can stay connected, because, apart from the occasional update if I do something major, like publish a book, I’ll not be posting on this blog.
YouTube, Facebook and What Now?
I will continue to post occasionally and irregularly on the YouTube Channel, mostly in a new playlist called Exploring the Psyche: Reflections on Our Inner Landscape. I’ll create these videos when the inspiration to make them comes as a natural extension of the writing I’m posting on my personal blog.
The Beyond the Temple Facebook page remains active and now takes the additional words ‘at Diamond Light Retreat’ which is my property in Australia. It shares lots of nature, posts related to forest bathing, our developing public accommodation, mental health, and neurodivergence. Most of the same stuff is posted on my Tahlia Newland Instagram account. Anything related to Tibetan Buddhism that comes my way, I post on that Facebook page.
The Beyond the Temple Facebook group became ‘After Tibetan Buddhism’ and is run my Michael Nolan now. The What Now? group is in the process of shifting from Facebook to signal. If you want to stay in the group, please let me know and I’ll send you a QR code to join the group on Signal. This is only for people who are in the original Facebook group or who were and would like to reconnect. We don’t talk much and rarely about Rigpa, but when we do talk, it’s as deep and meaningful as ever.
Read on for what I’m up to now.
My path onwards: uniting my core passions
Though my life has taken different twists and turns, my core passions have remained the same—books and stories, art and craft, mind and spirit, and nature in all its wild glory. Until now, these threads have lived in separate places on the web. But I’ve recently felt the call to bring everything together under one roof—my original Tahlia Newland blog. I have long wanted to gather my creative and contemplative work into one space, to be less scattered and more efficient in how I use my time, but I just didn’t know how to do that until recently.
The inspiration that lead to Psychemagination: Journey into the Psyche was a game changer because it showed me how I could tie my love of story, spirit and art together with words – and I could even explore nature within the story. The advent of AI art has provided me with a way to illustrate my contemplative writing, such that the words and images together create the art, and I’ve found that new pairing of my passions most inspiring.
I’ve written 13 books and had 10 published, but I’d stopped writing due to having my time taken up with working on other people’s books, and also my inspiration faded because the prospect of trying to market anything I wrote was just too daunting.
Words as the vehicle
But now, (I’ll be 70 in July) I just want to bring my disparate passions together, so I can follow my inspiration wherever it takes me and talk about it all on one website. And I’ve realised that the way to do that bringing together is with words.
Words are my core medium—whether I’m writing books, crafting reflections, or creating art paired with narrative. So yes, I’m writing again. And to make it easier, I’ve found a new rhythm: I record my thoughts using a voice recorder, then turn the transcripts into blog posts. Some topics will also become videos—because some things are best expressed in moving images and voice, and some people prefer to listen than read.
The neurodivergent perspective
This new burst of inspired writing is essentially reflections on navigating this crazy world, and many of my articles now include the neurodivergent perspective. Discovering my own neurodivergence was profoundly life-changing, and I know many of you share similar experiences. Writing from that lens just makes sense—it brings depth and clarity to the inner work to which I’ve always been drawn.
I hope that you’ll come to my Tahlia Newland blog to read my musings, and that you will find them useful for your own reflections.
New projects
I have some exciting new projects coming up:
- Psychemagination: Introspective AI Art Guide – launching in July;
- A new book on writing and the creative process called Novel Writing Mastery: A Step-by-Step Guide from Concept to Publication;
- And Psychemagination: A Neurodivergent Journey of Self-Discovery – an illustrated book using the words and images from my video art series. The audio-visual version can be viewed here now.
If you’d like to learn more about these projects or just stay in touch, subscribe to my Tahlia Newland newsletter. When you sign up, you’ll receive:
- A mental health checklist for mindful social media use;
- A loving light guided meditation to inspire meditation.
- Below are links to my latest video, the first in the aforementioned playlist, and some blog posts from my Tahlia Newland blog that you might enjoy.