Zen TV
Many viewers of the latest solar eclipse chose to watch a "live stream" of the event on their televisions. This short Awakin Reading provides a profound thought experiment that can help us "wake up" to what might be really going on when we turn on the television.... posted on Oct 01 2017, 0 reads

Seeing Through the Lens of Good
Jeanine Lim has been working with villagers in Vietnam for more than 20 years. Starting as a personal endeavor with her mother, Project Give Pray Love has grown to become a community effort that helps children in the Mekong Delta region stay in school through tuition grants, books, stationery and bicycles to get to school. Now the filmmaker and lecturer is helping introduce students to overseas co... posted on Sep 30 2017, 2,416 reads

The Kindness Bus
Bob Votruba lives in converted bus, a response to a mass shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007. Instead of falling into fear and hate, Bob decided to fight hate with kindness. He bought an old school bus, sold everything, and hit the road. His goal? To commit one million acts of kindness in his lifetime. Bob's particular focus is on ending bullying and associated adolescent suicides, but he encourages... posted on Sep 29 2017, 14,117 reads

On Death Row: Creating Art from Pain
"American Buddhist artist, Moyo, studies the image of the Buddha using a multitude of mediums. Purposeful strokes of prison-issued watercolor paint, jewel-toned ink, colored pencil, and crayon all come together to manifest his unique vision of the Buddha almost always depicted with a delicate smile. He does this from his cell in solitary confinement, smaller than the average parking space, where h... posted on Sep 28 2017, 13,403 reads

Garden Gloves
What can a simple pair of garden gloves teach us? In delving deep into her gardening practice, Alanda Greene found a profound insight in her experience of being pulled between the need to wear them for protection, and the desire to feel all the sensations of the earth. Gloves give us protection and safety. Much like when we choose to wear mental gloves to protect ourselves in life from overwhelmin... posted on Sep 27 2017, 8,426 reads

Healing Children & Communities One Breath at a Time
When he was just 6 years old, J.G. Larochette felt a deep calling to bring love and awareness to communities overwrought by racism, oppression, and inequality. While teaching in Richmond, CA, he recognized a significant gap between providing academic instruction and maintaining a sense of nurturance and compassion. "Reading is fundamental, but if we create a stressful environment, we counteract ed... posted on Sep 26 2017, 11,089 reads

The Why Behind Asking Why: The Science of Curiosity
Curiosity is a fundamental human trait. Everyone is curious, but the object and degree of that curiosity is different depending on the person and the situation. Astrophysicist and author Mario Livio was so curious about curiosity that he wrote a book about it titled, 'Why? What Makes Us Curious.' He shares more about what he learned in the process here. ... posted on Sep 25 2017, 12,406 reads

The Power of Dabbling: How Hobbies Make Us More Creative
Productivity expert James Clear uses behavioral science to help nearly half a million newsletter subscribers optimize their habits. Here is his recent filmed conversation with bestselling author Steven Johnson (author of ten books, including Where Good Ideas Come From and, most recently Wonderland, highlighting the influence of wonder and delight on the movements that shape history). This conversa... posted on Sep 24 2017, 9,340 reads

What Fear Can Teach Us
We all have fears, some of which can be quite vivid for those with active imaginations. As children, we’re encouraged to think of fear as a weakness, something we must conquer, fight, or overcome. In this TED Talk, Karen Thompson Walker invites listeners to conceptualize their fears in a different way: as stories. Fear is an unintentional form of storytelling, she argues, with characters, p... posted on Sep 23 2017, 16,375 reads

Skateboarding Like a Girl
Behind the sweet, innocent eyes of a young girl is a strength of resolve, waiting to show the world what she's made of. Sisu - the Finnish word for 'determination, courage and resilience' - is this spark of strength that Chloe Chick - mother, and founder of the organization 'SisuGirls' - aims to inspire in young girls all over the world. Believing that the experience of stumbling and failing when ... posted on Sep 22 2017, 2,564 reads