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Brian Conroy: The Art of Storytelling ![](images/quickread.gif) Brian Conroy is a gifted storyteller who comes alive when he sees people of diverse faiths, races, and backgrounds working together. Founder of the Buddhist Storytelling Circle, a group of storytellers from the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery who perform at interfaith gatherings, he first encountered Venerable Master Hsuan Hua in 1976 and took refuge with the Master in 1994. Bringing together his pass... posted on Sep 03 2020, 5,008 reads
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Photographing the Hidden Story ![](images/quickread.gif) Photographer Ryan Lobo tells how conscience led him to search beneath sensational aspects of journalism for the soul of a story. From this shift he discovers, "Focus on what's dignified, courageous, and beautiful, and it grows."... posted on Sep 02 2020, 3,169 reads
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Dial Up the Magic of This Moment ![](images/quickread.gif) "Few people have stood at the gates of hope through world wars and environmental crises and personal loss with more dignity, wisdom, and optimism than Joanna Macy during her six decades as a Buddhist scholar, environmental activist, and pioneering philosopher of ecology. Macy is also the world's greatest translator-enchantress of Rainer Maria Rilke, in whose poetry she found refuge upon the sudd... posted on Sep 01 2020, 6,530 reads
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Revisiting Fred Rogers 2002 Commencement Address ![](images/quickread.gif) "I'm very much interested in choices, and what it is, and who it is, that enable us human beings to make the choices we make all through our lives. What choices lead to ethnic cleansing? What choices lead to healing? What choices lead to the destruction of the environment, the erosion of the Sabbath, suicide bombings, or teenagers shooting teachers. What choices encourage heroism in the midst of c... posted on Aug 31 2020, 12,242 reads
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A Pandemic Letter to My 17-Year-Old Son ![](images/quickread.gif) "Starting when you were just a toddler, you'd crawl into my lap to play a game. I'd lay hands on each part of your body, naming it aloud. Wed begin with the grass of hair on your head and slowly work our way down to your piggy toes. You soon learned even the regions of your brain, the organs in your torso, and your seven chakras." So begins a touching letter written by a mother to her 17-year-old ... posted on Aug 30 2020, 11,015 reads
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Beyond Words: A Conversation with Carl Safina ![](images/quickread.gif) "Safina's journey in ecology and conservation took him through his PhD and then back to the obvious. I learned this is called anthropomorphizing and you're not supposed to do that. The orthodox view is that other animals don't have human thoughts or emotions. I learned all of that and then realized that what I knew when I was seven was actually more accurate." More in this interview with Safina.posted on Aug 29 2020, 2,479 reads
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Lucky Man: Life Lessons from William Segal ![](images/quickread.gif) "How can we find balance and peace in the midst of pain and turmoil? A legendary Zen Buddhist master once sent this startling note to a friend: "Lucky man," wrote Soen Nakagawa Roshi, the abbot of Ryutakuji monastery in Japan. "One accident like yours is worth ten thousand sittings in a monastery!" The accident the Zen master mentioned was a devastating car crash. The "lucky man" was William Sega... posted on Aug 28 2020, 5,727 reads
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The Beauty in Breaking ![](images/quickread.gif) Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is predominantly male and white. In her new book, "The Beauty in Breaking," she explores the themes of race, gender, injustice and hope -- and in doing so shares the story of how her own healing emerged through a life lived in service of others. Read an excerpt from the book here.... posted on Aug 27 2020, 4,259 reads
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The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World ![](images/quickread.gif) Wade Davis, anthropologist and passionate scholar of indigenous cultures that span the globe, shares the value of learning from these dynamic, living societies, as we face the challenges threatening the earth. He takes us on a journey to "the heart of the world" and asks the question, "What does it actually mean for a people to believe that the earth is resonant and alive and responsive to their d... posted on Aug 26 2020, 3,431 reads
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Beyond Hope: Letting Go of a World in Collapse ![](images/quickread.gif) "The rapid acceleration of violent events around the globe: the uprising of religious fundamentalism, xenophobia, homophobia, speciesism, misogyny, societal breakdown, mass animal die-offs, the unparalleled disintegration of the cryosphere, and the rapid decay of our very biosphere; it all weighs heavy on my mind and heart. There is no denying that we are living through what scientists are calling... posted on Aug 25 2020, 8,433 reads
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