developed its own version of what has been called the Golden Rule – always treat all others as you would wish to be treated yourself – and insisted that this is the core of faith and the test of true religion, taking precedence over all other beliefs and practices; they have also insisted that we cannot confine our benevolence to those we find congenial. We must have what one of the Chinese sages called jian ai, “concern for everybody.” We are to honour the stranger, love even our enemies, and reach out to all tribes and nations. If practised assiduously – “all day and every day”, as Confucius said – we begin to appreciate our profound inte... posted on Feb 16 2016 (15,588 reads)

but sometimes he would say ‘it’s enough already’. “And it is, it’s enough already. For the sake of our children, and our children’s children, we, each of us, have to now stand up and be counted.” Inside the mind of Lawrence Bloom If I could rule the world, I would… help people to understand the intimate connection we have with each other and the planet. If I help another it is not an act of love or even service, in the same way as if I hurt my finger and heal it. It is the simple recognition that I am healing my own body. Also this is truly a realm of love. Every act is either a gift of ... posted on Mar 19 2016 (11,787 reads)

was if my mom asked me to do it. I was so desperate for my independence that I built walls about a mile high and a mile in every direction. Plus thorns. Plus moats. Plus crocodiles (with fangs). Sometime in college, when distance gave me the space the walls had meant to create, I began to take them down; brick by tedious brick. I wish I could say it was for my mom’s sake, or even for my dad who asked me frequently to be nicer. But it was for my own sake. I knew that my mom loved me, and I knew that I loved her too. It felt absolutely terrible to be jerk to her. But jerk is exactly what I was, because the things that came out of my mouth jerked out faster than I had any ... posted on May 5 2016 (24,197 reads)

to the subject of resistance to oppression, Le Guin invokes the memorable words of the poet and onetime slave Phillis Wheatley, who wrote in 1774: “In every human Breast, God has implanted a principle, which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance.” Le Guin considers the discomfiting paradox at the heart of this abiding truth: All that is good in the institutions and politics of my country rests on it. And yet I see that though we love freedom we are mostly patient of oppression, and even refuse deliverance. I see a danger in insisting that our love of freedom always outweighs whatever force or inertia keeps us from resistin... posted on May 7 2016 (9,638 reads)

survived. Those iconic images of the astronauts bouncing on the Moon obscure the alcoholism and depression on Earth. Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, asked during the time of Apollo, "What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?" And what can we gain by the right to marry if we are not able to cross the acrimony and emotional distance that so often separates us from our love? And not just in marriage. I have seen the most hurtful, destructive, tragic infighting in LGBT and AIDS and breast cancer and non-profit activism, all in the name of lov... posted on Sep 7 2016 (15,225 reads)

a regenerative effect that can build all the way into eternity. Last year, I was asked to join President Obama’s advisory council for addressing poverty and inequality. Quite an honor, and I was happy to serve. At our first White House meeting, we did an introductory circle around the question -- What gives you hope? Before I could think up something smart to say, it was already my turn to speak. And this is what spontaneously came to my mind, "Well, what gives me hope is love. What gives me hope is reading the NY Times story of how one person paid for coffee for the person behind her in line, and 226 people followed suit. Two hundred and twenty six people were volunta... posted on May 31 2016 (48,586 reads)

special child named Binny was the recipient of extraordinary love and care by software engineer Aditya Tiwari. On January 1, 2016, Aditya made history by becoming the youngest single adoptive parent in the country — he adopted Binny. This is the story of his long struggle against the system to bring Binny home. Being blessed with a child with disabilities is an experience that brings unique gifts and challenges. Not all parents are able to embrace both the joy and struggle of raising these special children. Binny was born in a rich family. But they abandoned him because of his special condition. On March 16, 2014, a child was born to a well-to-d... posted on Jun 14 2016 (17,156 reads)

At the time, prevailing wisdom was that if a female attempted to cover this distance, she would likely die in the process. But Gibb harbored an unshakable self-belief—and she knew she had to try. In her own words, here is Gibb’s incredible story of her two-year journey—one that took her across the country and back again before she became the very first woman to cross the Boston Marathon’s finish line. Bobbi’s Story I always loved to run even as a little kid—I would just take off across a green field. Sometimes, I used to go up in the woods and run with the neighborhood dogs. I loved the sense of runn... posted on Jun 23 2016 (25,053 reads)

masters or Jan Steen or just looking at how they portray human joy, and just looking carefully at the aesthetic portrayal of emotion. Again, my dad was an artist. In this very unusual home that was full of these radical ideas, I was a born scientist. In first grade, I got second prize in the cake-baking contest, with my cake that was a Tyrannosaurus Rex. All these young girls got first and third and fourth prizes, and I claimed second prize with a little cake of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. I loved dinosaurs. I pathologically used to keep track of scores of baseball. For a year, I played solitaire and wrote down every outcome of every hand that I got. I had them in little booklets. My m... posted on Nov 4 2016 (30,410 reads)

politeness. He breaks in, corners the teacher and asks, "What is the essence of truth?" The teacher studies him for a moment, slaps him hard and returns to his book. The stunned man goes to a tavern across the road, complaining loudly about his mistreatment. Finally, one of the teacher's disciples takes pity on him, and explains: "The teacher slapped you out of great kindness. He was saying, 'Never surrender a good question for a mere answer.'"  I have loved questions all my life, in different ways. I've loved them out of curiosity and I've loved them out of the hunger for good conversations and I've loved them out of desperation. I'... posted on Aug 1 2016 (18,996 reads)

not let the circumstances limit us and that’s the crux of my perspective on making a shift. I was raised very simply in a small town and my father built a house which was very far away from the city because that was the space he could afford. And we had a garden so I always had this connection with the soil. Right from Grade 1, most of my vacations were spent roaming around the neighborhood, planting cuttings from neighbors and asking people for seeds from their gardens. I realized my love for greenery was there – a value that my father had that he subliminally transmitted it to me. Making Life Choices: The Three Guiding Principles As we grew up then, the whole focus was ... posted on Sep 22 2016 (24,798 reads)

Agnes Martin admonished aspiring artists to exercise discernment in the interruptions they allow, or else corrupt the mental, emotional, and spiritual privacy where inspiration arises. But just as self-criticism is the most merciless kind of criticism and self-compassion the most elusive kind of compassion, self-distraction is the most hazardous kind of distraction, and the most difficult to protect creative work against. How to hedge against that hazard is what beloved poet Mary Oliver (b. September 10, 1935) explores in a wonderful piece titled “Of Power and Time,” found in the altogether enchanting Upstream: Selected Essays (p... posted on Oct 23 2016 (18,866 reads)

lot, but in fact don’t. Even more, it’s full of details that we either ignore completely or don’t think matter, but that turn out to be important. By understanding motivation, we can structure both our workplaces and our personal lives in ways to make us more productive, more fulfilled, and happier. But how can we increase motivation? To answer this question, let’s think about building something — specifically, a piece of IKEA furniture. The IKEA effect: we love whatever we build IKEA came up with a brilliantly diabolical idea: the company would offer boxes of furniture parts and make customers assemble the items by themselves, with only the help of t... posted on Dec 26 2016 (15,535 reads)

extrinsic side of things while compassion is on the intrinsic side of things, and of course, there's many in between from power to fame to growth to meaning. Each type of incentive has its strengths, and the strength of intrinsic rewards is that they are regenerative. If some has a fulfilling giving experience, they'll want to give again without any external intervention, coercion, or marketing. In ServiceSpace experience, we noted that volunteers are strongest when they are moved by love. :) (Reference: Do Nothing Generosity) Do other incentives, like offering small stipends or school credit, increase their commitment? It actually does the opposite. Research shows that... posted on Jan 12 2017 (18,996 reads)

years ago I moved to the heart of the Navajo Reservation in northern Arizona. I was a graduate student, working on my PhD at the University of Illinois, and I wanted to live for a while among the People, the Dine’, to find out what research for my dissertation would be most helpful to the tribe. Within a few weeks, I fell in love: in love with the incredible landscape of red sandstone cliffs and mesas that was as different from the Midwestern rain and black soil as if I had moved to Mars. And in love with the magnificent people and the way they welcomed me as family. So I dropped out of my doctoral program and decided to stay in Navajoland. I needed to provide something in ret... posted on Feb 11 2017 (19,100 reads)

out of remission from a rare blood cancer, and the only treatment left for her was a bone marrow transplant. And against the odds, we found a match for her, who turned out to be me. I come from a family of four girls, and when my sisters found out that I was my sister's perfect genetic match, their reaction was, "Really? You?" (Laughter) "A perfect match for her?" Which is pretty typical for siblings. In a sibling society, there's lots of things.There's love and there's friendship and there's protection. But there's also jealousy and competition and rejection and attack. In siblinghood, that's where we start assembling many of those f... posted on Feb 25 2017 (24,221 reads)

and meditation used to be two terms that made people raise their eyebrows twenty some years ago. Now, there are lots of people interested in these ideas, and lots of people who are practicing. There's been cultural resonance for this work. I don't want to overstate how powerful that resonance is, but there are plenty of lawyers doing this work and there are lawyer sanghas in many cities. It's relatively easy to set one up too.   Birju: Alyssa and Charlie I'd love to jump in here. I really appreciate where this conversation is going, and it strikes me that we're moving to the crux of the kinds of questions our callers would be intrigued to reflect on h... posted on Jul 13 2017 (6,460 reads)

the force of a Zen koan. Dorothy Day was saying, "Do not give to the poor expecting to get their gratitude so that you can feel good about yourself. If you do, your giving will be thin and short-lived, and that is not what the poor need; it will only impoverish them further. Give only if you have something you must give; give only if you are someone for whom giving is its own reward." When I give something I do not possess, I give a false and dangerous gift, a gift that looks like love but is, in reality, loveless - a gift given more from my need to prove myself than from the other's need to be cared for. That kind of giving is not only loveless and faithless, based on the ... posted on Jun 12 2017 (12,271 reads)

is constantly changing. Nothing is permanent. This idea can both frighten and inspire us. Yet, embracing the truth of life’s precariousness helps us to appreciate its preciousness.  We stop wasting our lives on meaningless activities. We learn to not hold our opinions, our desires, and even our own identities so tightly. Instead of pinning our hopes on a better future, we focus on the present and being grateful for what we have in front of us right now. We say, “I love you” more often. We become kinder, more compassionate and more forgiving. 2. Welcome Everything; Push Away Nothing In welcoming everything, we don't have to like what's arisin... posted on Aug 2 2017 (51,369 reads)

She was in awe when she finally found herself standing in Jeong Kwan’s kitchen. “In her kitchen for the first time, I was swept immediately into the warmth and bustle of a morning at Chunjinam…  I was in Jeong Kwan’s kitchen. I tried not to pass out. ”  Kwan is full of warmth and laughter in her kitchen, yet has a focus on her food preparation that is akin to meditation.  People come not only for her good food, but because she is a force of love in her simple wisdom.  The Garden is the Kitchen Writer Jeff Gordinier is a New York Times writer who was lucky enough to make a trip to meet Kwan. In an article about his expedition i... posted on Jul 26 2017 (17,031 reads)