Meeting Our Pain With Compassion
"I'd like to explore the essential place of compassion in our lives in a very simple way. As human beings we have a conscious awareness that is open to what is. Our very nature is openness. On a feeling level this openness shows up as sensitivity, tenderness, rawness, as an exquisite receptivity and responsiveness. As a consequence of this delicacy, we are also easily hurt. Its like the softness o... posted on Oct 05 2020, 3,415 reads

Zen TV
""How many of you know how to watch television?" I asked my class one day. After a few bewildered and silent moments, slowly, one by one, everyone haltingly raised their hands. We soon acknowledged that we were all 'experts,' as Harold Garfinkle would say, in the practice of 'watching television.'"This short excerpt by Bernard McGrane provides a profound thought experiment that can help us "wake ... posted on Oct 04 2020, 0 reads

The Dugnad in Our DNA
Traditionally, dugnad (a Norwegian word) refers to "the collective effort of individual Norwegians who sacrifice their personal desires, and allow their own sense of 'normal' to be temporarily disrupted, for the benefit of their community or country. On March 12 of this year, after the first Norwegian died from COVID-19, Prime Minister Erna Solberg called for a national dugnad. She asked everyone ... posted on Oct 03 2020, 8,114 reads

Trail of Light
This beautifully moving film features Aralyn Doiron, a delightful woman who has trained to be a Death Walker, someone who values a relationship with death and someone who values life. She suggests that it is only when we acknowledge that we are going to die one day, that we can truly start to live. The fact that many of us are separated from death is a disconnect from our humanity. She encourages ... posted on Oct 02 2020, 3,543 reads

Joanna Macy: Entering the Bardo
"In this op-ed, eco-philosopher and Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy introduces us to the bardo--the Tibetan Buddhist concept of a gap between worlds where transition is possible. As the pandemic reveals ongoing collapse and holds a mirror to our collective ills, she writes, we have the opportunity to step into a space of reimagining."... posted on Oct 01 2020, 20,419 reads

Is There A Better Way to Have An Argument?
"Were 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."Here are five principles for more constructive and respectful disagreements.... posted on Sep 30 2020, 8,859 reads

Visiting Rachel: 50 Years After Silent Spring
"'Primavers Silencia.' So reads the cover of the Italian edition of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. It sits on the desk beside me--the small built-in desk looking out on a thicket of cedars and pine--a desk with one simple drawer holding some pencils and not much else, in the cozy pine-paneled study where Carson wrote much of her landmark book during the summers of 1960 and 1961. Other foreign edit... posted on Sep 29 2020, 3,751 reads

The World is Our Field of Practice
This prophetic conversation, which Rev. angel Kyodo williams had with Krista in 2018, is an invitation to imagine and nourish the transformative potential of this moment toward human wholeness. Rev. angel is an esteemed Zen priest and the second Black woman recognized as a teacher in the Japanese Zen lineage. She is one of our wisest voices on social evolution and the spiritual aspect of social h... posted on Sep 28 2020, 4,713 reads

How to Be at Home
This tender animation on the theme of isolation reunites filmmaker Andrea Dorfman with poet Tanya Davis ten years after their first collaboration on the viral film "How To Be Alone." "How To Be At Home" speaks to what so many of us are going through these days with quarantines, lock-downs and stay-at-home orders. "Lean into lonelinessand know youre not alone in it." And remember: we are connected.... posted on Sep 27 2020, 4,145 reads

Healing the Heart of Democracy
"For those of us who want to see democracy survive and thrive --and we are legion --the heart is where everything begins: that grounded place in each of us where we can overcome fear, rediscover that we are members of one another, and embrace the conflicts that threaten democracy as openings to new life for us and for our nation." Parker Palmer shares more in this piece.... posted on Sep 26 2020, 3,204 reads