the world we find. For me, we find this beauty through relationships, with people in place with other species. Integrity is the word that comes to mind. Integrity and presence. A friend of mine said to me not long ago, "Terry you are married to sorrow." I looked at him and said, "No, I am not married to sorrow, I just choose not to look away." To not avert our eyes to suffering is to trust the power of presence. Joy emerges through suffering. Suffering is a component of joy. Whether we are sitting with a loved one dying or witnessing dolphins side-by-side watching the oil burning in the Gulf of Mexico, to be present with the world is to be alive. I think of Rilke onc... posted on Mar 22 2014 (12,463 reads)

would one day be included in the Library of Congress digital archive of “materials of historical importance” and the few friends would become millions of monthly readers all over the world, ranging from the Dutch high school student who wrote to me this morning to my 77-year-old grandmother in Bulgaria to the person in Wisconsin who mailed me strudel last week. (Thank you!) Above all, I had no idea that in the seven years to follow, this labor of love would become my greatest joy and most profound source of personal growth, my life and my living, my sense of purpose, my center. (For the curious, more on the origin story here.) Illustration by Maurice Sendak... posted on Mar 18 2014 (42,916 reads)

blue-collar city called Springfield, Ohio. I was surrounded by family, including 2 loving parents who cared so much about our education that they home-schooled us for several years during grade school. And they took the time to teach us more than academics. They taught us about character, about what it meant to live a good life. My father often talked to us about his definition of success. He told us that it wasn't measured in money and material things, but it was measured in love and joy and the lives you're able to touch -- the lives you're able to help. And my parents walked the walk. They gave of themselves to our church. They took in foster kids and helped the homeless... posted on Jun 29 2014 (29,691 reads)

in the world. A month and a half later, he did it again with Grateful, a musical offering inspired by the 11.5K participants and their small acts throughout the 21-Day Gratitude Challenge. In the tailwinds of these heart-opening productions, Nimo has most recently embarked on a pilgrimage to bridge music, love and selfless service, through Empty Hands Music. Over the last year, he has produced a new genre of hip-hop that ignites the values of kindness, gratitude, service, love, and joy. In May 2014, the Empty Hands album was released as a 100% labor-of-love gift, downloadable at no cost for all who wish to listen to it. The immediate response from many after listening to the&nbs... posted on Jun 16 2014 (47,798 reads)

as important, this culture of violence can be systematically reversed through interlinked, personal and political action. For Rice, Walli and Boertje-Obed, this process ends with “the transformation of weapons of mass destruction to sustainable life-giving alternatives,” but it starts by modeling a radically different set of relationships with other people wherever they are. What shines out from Rice’s writings is always life over death, love over fear, and joyful subversion instead of the passive acceptance of our circumstances. “Dear sisters and brothers,” she begins her letters to her supporters, “united as we are in efforts to tr... posted on Oct 1 2014 (33,821 reads)

offer to share his meal with a friend when we ran out of lunches. We offered a meal to a homeless man sitting on a bench who had a line up of packets of butter and jam that he had to eat. When we offered him lunch, he scooped up every package of butter and jam and offered them to me in kind. There is nothing you could have offered me that would have touched me as deeply as his gesture. The other thing I learned is how suspicious we all have become when you offer up something for the sheer joy of it - cold drinks on a hot day, flowers for women on Mother's Day, valentines, a compliment or a hot drink for a cold bus ride. We have been so socialized into being suspicious and we are... posted on Feb 13 2015 (35,881 reads)

exclaimed, ignoring my comment about his camera. “I’ve got to get a picture of that! Just a couple of days ago, there was a great one and I missed it! Did you see it?” He paused to look at me with genuine hopefulness. Smith’s speech was declamatory and amped-up a notch or two as if to penetrate some invisible barrier. There was so much beauty around! The views across the bay! The fog! The trees and flowers! A hawk! A dog! The light! A feast! And only so much time to enjoy it. Not enough, likely, and whatever the impropriety of walking down a stranger’s driveway to capture such a moment, it was worth any disturbance it might stir up.  Names When we... posted on Feb 15 2015 (12,343 reads)

say that’s an open question. Here’s how ServiceSpace introduced our conversation: “Our guest speaker, Lily Yeh, took on an initiative that transformed an abandoned lot in inner-city north Philadelphia into an art park. The park blossomed into the Village of Arts and Humanities—an organization that has built many more art parks and gardens, renovated abandoned homes, and created educational programs, art workshops, after-school programs, a youth theater, and joyful community celebrations. Lily’s new organization, Barefoot Artists Inc., now teaches residents and artists how to replicate the Village model in devastated communities around the world.&rd... posted on Feb 22 2015 (25,084 reads)

even know if she’ll take to the nickname we’ve given her. There is perhaps only one thing to say to this infant, who is all future, overlapping briefly with me, whose life, barring the improbable, is all but past. That message is simple: When you come to one of the many moments in life when you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more, but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing. ... posted on Mar 30 2015 (65,871 reads)

guilty about leaving my mother behind, and I was worried that my bosses wouldn't be able to find me for three days. And as soon as I arrived in that place, I realized that none of that mattered and that, really, by being here, I would have so much more to offer my mother and my friends and my bosses. The last thing I'll say about this is that nowadays when I visit my mother, she lives in the hills of California at exactly the same elevation as the monastery — 1200 feet, and she enjoys a beautiful view over the Pacific Ocean. And to anybody looking at her house, they would say it's the last word in tranquility and seclusion. But of course, when I’m at home, if ever... posted on Jul 10 2015 (19,993 reads)

in. Somehow just looking at that one point, the whole world emerges. As William Blake said, “seeing the world in a grain of sand.” The “looking over” of equanimity can mean looking through that one point to everything, seeing the whole picture by looking closely and carefully at one point. COCHRAN So this looking over doesn’t mean overlooking. SHARPE No. Practicing equanimity we come to a point where we understand what the Taoists call the ten thousand joys and the ten thousand sorrows, because a beautiful balance comes into our lives. We see that through the sorrow, we can also have joy, and that without joy, our sorrows would be unbearable. We see... posted on Jan 30 2016 (19,137 reads)

students often get stereotyped as stressed out and sleep-deprived. But at universities across the country, students are aiming to change that as they join clubs dedicated to a common, joyful purpose: spreading happiness. Eleanor Collier / Stanford Happiness Collective The Stanford Happiness Collective was started three years ago "with the goal of doing things to brighten people's days," its president, junior Eleanor Collier told TODAY. Northwestern University is home to one of the country's oldest college happiness clubs, which began unofficially in 2008 when a group of students handed out hot chocolate outside the library on a cold evening right before fin... posted on Feb 24 2016 (11,983 reads)

journey as a parent of a specially-abled son has been one of extreme emotions – from disappointment to hope; from pain to joy; from love to anguish – it’s been a journey like never before. When Vivaan was born, one of my close friends sent me Kahlil Gibran’s famous poem On Children. The first verse in the poem is often quoted, but I would still like to share it here. Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. My journey as a parent of a differently abled son has been one of extreme emotions &ndash... posted on May 2 2016 (15,008 reads)

name to Vivian because she wanted to fit in here in America. Her first job was at an inner-city motel in San Francisco as a maid. I happened to buy that motel about three months after Vivian started working there. So Vivian and I have been working together for 23 years. With the youthful idealism of a 26-year-old, in 1987, I started my company and I called it Joie de Vivre, a very impractical name, because I actually was looking to create joy of life. And this first hotel that I bought, motel, was a pay-by-the-hour, no-tell motel in the inner-city of San Francisco. As I spent time with Vivian, I saw that she ha... posted on Sep 2 2016 (26,434 reads)

and reaches into the psychological, even the spiritual: Violinists practicing scales and dancers repeating the same movements over decades are not simply warming up or mechanically training their muscles. They are learning how to attend unswervingly, moment by moment, to themselves and their art; learning to come into steady presence, free from the distractions of interest or boredom. Illustration by Sydney Smith from The White Cat and the Monk, a 9th-century ode to the joy of uncompetitive purposefulness With an eye to the obsessive daily routines and strange creative rituals of many writers, and to the state of intense focus in the creative a... posted on Sep 6 2016 (10,856 reads)

 They are each dealing a wide variety of different situations, from blindness to abuse to open sores to autism.  There are only 1-2 adults supervising throughout the day, and they aren’t social workers, just underpaid guys who use sticks to force the kids into order because they don’t know how else to control the situation.   Different NGO’s come throughout the week, but no one comes on Sundays.   So, we try to bring some light and joy in to the space, painting murals with the kids, showing movies, playing games, music etc.  And they teach us! They are able to make the most incredible things from the paper, cameras and... posted on Sep 8 2016 (13,713 reads)

It is very difficult. If I say yes to one family I am saying no to 10 others. At present we don’t have enough accommodation or resources to take any new kids. Finally, what is your practice? My main practice is always based on my training to generate more compassion, stabilize myself, remain focused, and practice on patience and perseverance. Human beings—rich or poor, East or West, educated or uneducated, man or woman—all have one thing in common: we all want joy and happiness in our life. I feel lucky that I found something in my life where there’s so much happiness and joy doing something useful and meaningful. That is what I feel. I am so lucky... posted on Oct 18 2018 (122,617 reads)

text is an adaptation of the first chapter in The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life (Jossey-Bass, 2007) by Parker J. Palmer. We Teach Who We Are I am a teacher at heart, and there are moments in the classroom when I can hardly hold the joy. When my students and I discover uncharted territory to explore, when the pathway out of a thicket opens up before us, when our experience is illumined by the lightning-life of the mind—then teaching is the finest work I know. But at other moments, the classroom is so lifeless or painful or confused—and I am so powerless to do anything about it that my claim to be a teacher seems a tra... posted on Oct 3 2016 (31,724 reads)

into something more manageable. This is a different process than organizing your to-do list, or formatting it in a more effective way. This is about shortening that list—dumping the stuff you dread—without suffering the consequences of not doing what you actually have to do to get done. In an ideal world, we would all be able to apply Marie Kondo’s world-famous principles for cleaning out our closet to our to-do list: Anything that doesn’t “spark joy” we put in the trash (delete) or give away (delegate). Most of my clients start off with very little on their task list that they look forward to doing; one recently declared that she o... posted on Dec 17 2016 (22,587 reads)

Yogi’s Guide to Joy by Sadhguru Spiegel & Grau “Fun” isn’t usually the first word to spring to mind when it comes to the writings of Indian gurus, but that description applies to the latest in a long list of books by Jaggi Vasudev, better known as Sadhguru. He has honed his ability to communicate mystical concepts in an informal, accessible way, presenting perspectives and practices designed to further the author’s stated goal of helping “make joy your constant companion.”  —DO   Awake at the Bedside Contemplative Teachings on Palliative and End-of-Life Care Edited by Koshin Paley Ellison and Mat... posted on Apr 4 2017 (37,472 reads)