it. He has to find principles of action and decision making which replace the principles of instinct. He has to have a frame of orientation that permits him to organize a consistent picture of the world as a condition for consistent actions. He has to fight not only against the dangers of dying, starving, and being hurt, but also against another danger that is specifically human: that of becoming insane. In other words, he has to protect himself not only against the danger of losing his life but also against the danger of losing his mind. The human being, born under the conditions described here, would indeed go mad if he did not find a frame of reference which permitted him to feel ... posted on Mar 30 2020 (14,675 reads)

experiences, moments when we feel as if awakening from the slumber of habitual separateness. The current situation quite dramatically makes the truth of oneness visible. We can see more clearly how the destiny of other human beings is interwoven with our own, how in fact all of creation is a web of intricately interconnected relations. As the Persian Sufi poet Saadi spoke almost 800 years ago: “Adam's children are limbs of one body / That in creation are made of one gem. / When life and time hurt a limb, / Other limbs will not be at ease. / You who are not sad for the suffering of others, / Do not deserve to be called human.” 2. Everything prepared us for this m... posted on Apr 5 2020 (63,796 reads)

by Michelle Urra Two years ago, I had an ectopic pregnancy. It was sudden and unexpected, and left me reeling. It happened during this time of year. The weather was slowly turning. The days suddenly getting longer. I sat in our new backyard and read and deep-breathed and cried. I scooted my chair to chase the sun across the lawn. I watched spring outside my living room window, the women in their sundresses and sandals. Their joy felt a lifetime away from my bitterness. I waited. I waited to see if my body would erupt. This is what these days remind me of. These days of waiting and foreboding. I sit and wait. But there’s one difference—this time, the wh... posted on Apr 11 2020 (12,219 reads)

others. There is a worldview that has come to dominate every aspect of global reality affecting human civilization, the natural world and planetary climate conditions. It can be summarized as the quantitative worldview. The quantitative worldview is in a crisis so deep it is leading, in an interconnected and interdependent world, to deep systemic disruptions, chaotic conditions and signs of complete failure. If this worldview were a patient receiving care it would be in intensive care on life support. There is another emerging worldview that is, from a whole world-whole systems perspective, in the natal unit being born into the world exactly as the quantitative worldview is on life... posted on Apr 17 2020 (10,848 reads)

his family by boat -- narrowly escaping death at sea. Now a highly educated and trained physician, Phuoc has worked with Dr. Paul Farmer and Partners in Health to provide healthcare to the world's poor in their homes and communities, including in Africa and post-earthquake Haiti. "For the vast majority of people, it doesn't turn out the way it did for me," he says. "As much as I've been blessed with, what I expect of myself is to focus on health disparities [as] my life's work." Read on to be inspired by one doctor's journey of transforming his life's difficulties into good medicine for the world -- for body, mind and heart. The following is ... posted on Dec 31 1969 (258 reads)

that comes with what could feel like an obligation. Metta Meditation by Sylvia Boorstein (7:30): This meditation, offered as a resource through On Being, invites us to cultivate loving-kindness toward ourselves and others. This simple practice can profoundly impact the way we orient toward ourselves and others, especially during this time of hardship. Practicing Faith in Life: Using the foundation of Stop. Look. Go., this practice helps us let go of our need to control life, inspiring us instead to be with the unknown. Karuna Virus: Make a practice of reading uplifting news stories. Our partners at Service Space have created the Karuna Virus site to catalogu... posted on May 12 2020 (6,919 reads)

beings are part of nature and are thus capable of manifesting the natural beauty of li. The philosopher Lao Zi (fourth century B.C.) says, “People follow the earth; earth follows heaven, heaven follows Tao, Tao follows its own nature.” Li is inborn; zi is acquired — unfortunately it is too easily acquired in a society that urges us to follow clocks rather than the cycles of nature. Rushing about from one place to the next, spending more time reading or thinking about life than living it, we lose the grace of our animal-nature. “Slowness is beauty,” declared the artist, Rodin. The flowing, graceful exercises of Taiji Quan help us to slow down and pay... posted on Aug 17 2020 (9,235 reads)

the boy, and said, “This'll make it better.” The little boy got up, and he and the rest of the runners linked their arms together, and joyfully walked to the finish line. They all finished the race at the same time. And when they did, everyone in that stadium stood up, and clapped, and whistled, and cheered for a long, long time. People who were there are still telling this story with great delight. And you know why. Because deep down, we know that what matters in this life is more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win, too. Even if it means slowing down and changing our course now and then. Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius&mdash... posted on Aug 31 2020 (11,812 reads)

do business and spirituality meet? How does one use creativity to unite? How might we walk our unique path in solving problems outside and dissolving the ego inside?    A weekday brand-consultant, a weekend rock-climber, author during nights and a lifetime seeker of Truth -- Kiran Khalap’s journey is a striking example of a life of emergence which defies linear planning.  At the early age of 17, when most are concerned about grades and friends, Kiran’s strongest yearning was “to know the Truth”. He read most contemporary philosophers and ancient scriptures, but finally it was J Krishnamurti’s words which c... posted on Sep 25 2020 (4,264 reads)

living in an era of deep divisions. Cable television, social media feeds, and fraying personal relationships all reflect the same troubling pattern: Differences of opinion quickly escalate into attacks, mistrust, and civic stalemates. In this contentious climate, many Americans have retreated from civic life, or have responded to social conflict with calls for civility. But abstaining from civic life only cedes our public dialogue to the most contentious and polarizing voices. And too often “civility” means the mere absence of argument, or politely ignoring our differences. We believe that American civic life doesn’t need fewer arguments. Instead... posted on Sep 30 2020 (8,729 reads)

going on inside of it. So, you might break your inquiry down into even more specific questions, as suggested by UC Berkeley’s Dacher Keltner and Colorado State’s Michael Steger: Is the election disrupting my sleep? Is it interfering with my ability to concentrate? Do I feel breathless, or feel any pressure in my chest? You can also look to your mind for information: Is the election bringing back bad memories—for example, of abusive men in your life? Do thoughts of the election intrude or arise when you wish they wouldn’t? Do you find yourself thinking of the election even when you would rather be thinking about other things? ... posted on Oct 21 2020 (11,213 reads)

and instead desecrates and destroys the earth on a global scale. The earth needs our prayers more that we know. It needs us to acknowledge its sacred nature, that it is not just something to use and dispose. Many of us know the effectiveness of prayers for others, how healing and help is given, even in the most unexpected ways. There are many ways to pray for the earth. It can be helpful first to acknowledge that it is not “unfeeling matter” but a living being that has given us life. And then we can sense its suffering: the physical suffering we see in the dying species and polluted waters—the deeper suffering of our collective disregard for its sacred nature. Would we... posted on Nov 20 2020 (7,836 reads)

labor of reckoning, reimagining and remaking our nation block-by-block, heart-to-heart.” Learn more + sign up at https://tinyurl.com/ybvn88sb - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - More from Parker Palmer here. Rhonda Magee:Law professor, mindfulness teacher, social justice activist I teach about the history and dynamic maintenance of White Supremacy through law. We need to study this to understand how systemic racism has been preserved-through-transformation over our very lifetimes, and what we can do about it More from Rhonda Magee here. Bishop Steven Charleston ,Native American elder, author Stay steady in the Spirit. We knew these days would be difficult.... posted on Jan 9 2021 (8,634 reads)

is an appreciator of earthly gifts and a professor and past president of the US Society for Ecological Economics. Ecological economics is a growing economic theory that expands the conventional definition by working to integrate Earth’s natural systems and human values. But it has not been standard practice to include these foundational elements—they are usually left out of the equation. Valerie prefers the definition that “economics is how we organize ourselves to sustain life and enhance its quality. It’s a way of considering how we provide for ourselves.” The words ecology and economy come from the same root, the Greek oikos, meaning “home&r... posted on Jan 19 2021 (10,488 reads)

following passages are excerpted from Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, by Katherine May, published by Riverhead Books, Nov 2020  Everybody winters at one time or another; some winter over and over again. Wintering is a season in the cold. It is a fallow period in life when you’re cut off from the world, feeing rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider. Perhaps it results from an illness or life event such as bereavement or the birth of a child; perhaps it comes from a humiliation or failure. Perhaps you’re in a period of transition and have temporarily fallen between two worlds. Some winterings cree... posted on Feb 17 2021 (11,292 reads)

an unsettled, lonely. time and  I started taking walks in the evening to relax. It was spring.  Lemon blossoms.  Amazingly, I felt something in me wanting to flow out and dance-- and words-- short poems tumbled out of me.  I was surprised, encouraged, and felt happily hooked. Then one day I serendipitously discovered another poet, and then a small community of poets. For the next 25 years I shared poetry with them. Poetry is a discovery I have made on my way to finding my life. ***   “Slow Road” Last year, my partner and I spent time at an artist residency in Chianti, Italy.  A long winding road led through the countryside,  past... posted on Feb 22 2021 (4,788 reads)

protesting apartheid.   That’s not all.  My mother organized support for people  forcibly removed from towns where they had lived for generations. This was occurring regularly as White areas were “cleansed” of Blacks.  And she offered daily, practical help to a constant stream of Black South Africans caught up in the bureaucratic nightmare of dispossession.  She found allies in government agencies who could keep families together and get life-saving pension and disability payments through the almost impenetrable Catch 22 of South Africa’s many new laws and regulations.  She marched into police stations demanding t... posted on Mar 24 2021 (4,480 reads)

is what love seeks,” Hannah Arendt wrote in her superb 1929 meditation on love and how to live with the fundamental fear of loss. “Such fearlessness exists only in the complete calm that can no longer be shaken by events expected of the future… Hence the only valid tense is the present, the Now.” Half a century before her, Leo Tolstoy — who befriended a Buddhist monk late in life and became deeply influenced by Buddhist philosophy — echoed these ancient truths as he contemplated the paradoxical nature of love: “Future love does not exist. Love is a present activity only.” That in love and in life, freedo... posted on Apr 4 2021 (7,309 reads)

(as opposed to the mental operations of the mind), and so the instruction will be inevitably heard as “get out of your mind and into your emotions”—which is, alas, pretty close to 180 degrees from what the instruction is actually saying. Yes, it is certainly true that the heart’s native language is affectivity—perception through deep feelingness. But it may come as a shock to contemporary seekers to learn that the things we nowadays identify with the feeling life—passion, drama, intensity, compelling emotion—are qualities that in the ancient anatomical treatises were associated not with the heart but with the liver! They are signs of agitation... posted on Apr 10 2021 (8,761 reads)

a National Science Foundation grant a few years earlier to recycle steel waste, and as the first Native American to receive such a prestigious grant, he shared that he was feeling pretty cocky. He said that when he first approached the enormous mound of steel waste, his inclination was to think of it as something to be overcome, battled against. Then he told me, “I realized that the waste was not an enemy to be conquered. It was an orphan that had gotten separated from the circle of life. My job was to bring it back to the circle of life.” I was very touched by these words. This concept of waste seemed like a way to recycle damaged, toxic places in the mind as well as in... posted on Apr 26 2021 (4,897 reads)