the other's need to be cared for. That kind of giving is not only loveless and faithless, based on the arrogant and mistaken notion that God has no way of channeling love to the other except through me. Yes, we are created in and for community, to be there, in love, for one another. But community cuts both ways: when we reach the limits of our own capacity to love, community means trusting that someone else will be available to the person in need. One sign that I am violating my own nature in the name of nobility is a condition called burnout. Though usually regarded as the result of trying to give too much, burnout in my experience results from trying to give what I do not posse... posted on Jun 12 2017 (12,556 reads)

delicate roots of young saplings. The goal was to grow a forest to stave off erosion in the area. But as his trees grew bigger, Payeng says it dawned on him they were going to be increasingly difficult to protect. “The biggest threat was from men. They would have destroyed the forest for economic gain and the animals would be vulnerable again," he said in a documentary about his forest. He quietly continued planting trees on Majuli for 30 years until he was discovered by nature photographer Jitu Kalita in 2009. Jadav Payeng has been planting trees on Majuli since 1979. Production still courtesy of Will McMaster. “I was exploring a barren part o... posted on Jul 31 2017 (13,755 reads)

apartments and streams and the trees. And it was expansive. If you ever saw the movie Life is Beautiful, my mom was that person—in a way she believed we were in a play. We would get a cardboard box and just think, look at all the things we could do with this! We could make a house! We could make it into a train! I never felt a lack of anything. Audrey: What gives you the ability to be fearless? Arlene: My faith. My connection with the God I am inside of me. Whether it is my Buddha nature or God, or that Life Force. Ameeta: Are you a meditator? Arlene: I am. I could meditate far more than I do. It was funny, the other day a girlfriend asked me how much time I spend practic... posted on Jul 11 2017 (7,542 reads)

of activity, a time of temporary disengagement when we are no longer moving towards any goal. The pause can occur in the midst of almost any activity and can last for an instant, for hours or for seasons of our life. We may take a pause from our ongoing responsibilities by sitting down to meditate. We may pause in the midst of meditation to let go of thoughts and reawaken our attention to the breath. We may pause by stepping out of daily life to go on a retreat or to spend time in nature or to take a sabbatical. We may pause in a conversation, letting go of what we’re about to say, in order to genuinely listen and be with the other person. We may pause when we feel sudden... posted on Jul 16 2017 (25,848 reads)

GREENE uses her experience of planting seeds to discuss the idea of not expecting anything from the work we do. LESSONS FROM THE GARDEN In my Educational Psychology class, I learned about delayed gratification, the ability to wait for a desired result, to postpone an immediate reward for a greater one later. A study of preschool children had been conducted to determine their capacity for delayed gratification. Each student was offered one marshmallow now with the promise of another marshmallow as well if able to wait fifteen minutes without eating the first one. Some gobbled up the marshmallow immediately, others struggled and finally succumbed before the time was up, ... posted on Jul 22 2017 (10,330 reads)

work in the true temper, patient and accurate in trial, not rushing to conclusions, feeling there is a mystery, not eager to call it by name, till they can know it as a reality: such may learn, such may teach. […] The mind is not, I know, a highway, but a temple, and its doors should not be carelessly left open. Complement this fragment of Fuller’s wholly delectable Summer on the Lakes with nineteen-year-old Sylvia Plath on finding transcendence in nature and Diane Ackerman’s secular prayer, then revisit Fuller’s paragon of constructive criticism to the young Thoreau. ... posted on Aug 4 2017 (7,859 reads)

as I think back to the scene, I came to realize that Old Uncle and I shared space, and connected through our spirit. In the midst of an environment that was filled with greed and competition, Old Uncle, a humble tricycle driver guided me to see the beauty of humanity.  Connecting Stories, Pain Becomes Medicine             Sharing makes us more human; becoming more human leads us towards the compassion that is inherent in our nature. Being a ServiceSpace summer intern in these past months, I have been guided into a circle of genuine friends and mentors. It is a space that holds people from different walks of life, and some... posted on Aug 13 2017 (11,555 reads)

economics must be very different from the economics of modern materialism, since the Buddhist sees the essence of civilisation not in a multiplication of wants but in the purification of human character. Character, at the same time, is formed primarily by a man’s work. And work, properly conducted in conditions of human dignity and freedom, blesses those who do it and equally their products. The Indian philosopher and economist J. C. Kumarappa sums the matter up as follows: If the nature of the work is properly appreciated and applied, it will stand in the same relation to the higher faculties as food is to the physical body. It nourishes and enlivens the higher man and urges h... posted on Mar 3 2018 (17,778 reads)

enough. I continued touring the next year, one month in America and another in Europe, and so there was again more money. Then in the year 2000, I started the school with seven students. I rented a house and brought together these girls who wanted to become nuns or wanted to study and would otherwise not have had the chance. And I hired a teacher. At times, I gave lessons myself because I at least know how to teach A B C D—very basic things. I started with that, but then, as is human nature, the more we get, the more we want. I wanted to educate more kids. I couldn't afford to go out and look for them, so I just spread the word around a bit here and there. That was good enough... posted on Nov 20 2017 (10,534 reads)

the southern hemisphere, the night of June 20 is the longest night of the year, marking the arrival of winter. Welcoming the cold as a gift is part of being one with nature and its cycles… Recently we experienced the longest night of the year. The fact might have gone unnoticed–after all, the difference was a matter of seconds. But we all felt the coming of the cold, on time, like a boyfriend arriving for an unbreakable date. Few celebrated, because its arrival officially ends the sweetness of summer and heralds times of hardship and rigor. Cold is an absence, an absence of heat, and yet it feels like a presence…Photo: Jörg Peter/Pixabay... posted on Nov 16 2017 (14,651 reads)

know. So, in description of what you're looking at in that friendship circle, these sounded like all folks who certainly had kind of a human understanding, but it just didn't click. They didn't, the friend didn't get what they needed, which is again I think that very tender, gentle being-with that's so important—and being with past the days of the death, being with weeks and months later. In some way it's sort of like we're talking about with the organic nature of grief, the organic nature of being the helper is to take the pressure off yourself by not figuring out what to say and being present. Now, in that, we write about the discouragement of thing... posted on Jan 17 2018 (62,507 reads)

To even be able to think how an action could impact so far into the future suggests a considerable awareness of their world, an understanding of relationships and interdependency. A natural garden is a mini-world of interactions and balances. With my herb garden plans, it would have been thoughtful to imagine more than one level of the garden. I was attending to what grows above ground, what is visible. Bill Devall, Professor of Sociology at Humboldt University, writes: “But nature is not just a collection of scenery ... Nature is a process of interacting events.” It is an interaction of the visible and invisible. Too often, only the visible is included. The snakes ... posted on Oct 15 2017 (14,450 reads)

They would get the message that they were off the hook for finding solutions. In the end, he was likely to have a room full of people who were deeply disappointed, raging against the injustice of having to bear the outcome of inadequate leadership. On the other hand, he could tell them the truth and acknowledge their betrayal. He could communicate the expectation that they work as adults who could, and should, contribute to the success of the organization. This speaks to the adult nature of everyone’s existence and the fact that we alone choose what we make of our future. At least in the moment of Joe’s speech, employees at this newspaper heard the message that t... posted on Oct 22 2017 (12,107 reads)

than there is in suiseki? How does bonsai differ from suiseki around that? Janet:  They’re similar in that they both share some of the Japanese ideas about composition: the asymmetrical triangle, the use of empty space. But they’re very different, obviously. It’s a completely different medium. One is living, and always changing, and eventually dying. The other isn’t, at least not on a human time scale. But they both share the idea of bringing an abstraction of nature, and in a somewhat idealized vision of that nature, into your house or garden. If you have a beautifully maintained white pine, Goyomatsu—if it’s really well done—it evokes th... posted on Dec 4 2017 (26,364 reads)

existence. To deny the reality of that is to cause ourselves a lot of pain.  Instead what would happen if we turned toward this experience? I think that we rely on impermanence, that really boring dinner party that you are going to go to tonight, it's going to end. Great dictatorships will fall and be replaced by thriving democracies. George Harrison, the great singer, reminded us that all things must pass. I think that to live in harmony with this basic truth and to realize that our nature and the nature of the world is not fundamentally different becomes a liberating opportunity rather than a threat. Without impermanence, your children wouldn't grow up. Pain would not go awa... posted on Jan 26 2018 (31,564 reads)

things I realized is that different spiritual teachers meet a lot of different things when they use this term, "spiritual awakening." Let's start right there. What does spiritual awakening mean to you? Albert DeSilver:Yes, it's sort of like defining God, isn't it? How do you do that? I think for me, spiritual awakening has to do with transcending this sense of separation and difference. It means waking up to the vitality and brilliance of the universe that is our true nature. For so much of my life, I went through kind of trapped in the mind—trapped in the thinking mind, in the perceiving and believing mind. Then for me the awakening experience was this bl... posted on Sep 20 2018 (10,722 reads)

Life of One’s Own: A Penetrating 1930s Field Guide to Self-Possession, Mindful Perception, and the Art of Knowing What You Really Want “I did not know that I could only get the most out of life by giving myself up to it.” “One must know what one wants to be,” the eighteenth-century French mathematician Émilie du Châtelet wrote in weighing the nature of genius. “In the latter endeavors irresolution produces false steps, and in the life of the mind confused ideas.” And yet that inner knowing is the work of a lifetime, for our confusions are ample and our missteps constant amid a world that is constantly telling us who we are an... posted on Jan 1 2018 (13,873 reads)

Maathai “represents an example and a source of inspiration for everyone in Africa fighting for sustainable development, democracy, and peace.” Similarly, Satish Kumar walked from India to the United States for peace, starting at the grave of Mahatma Gandhi and ending at the grave of John F. Kennedy. He walked without money, trusting in the kindness of strangers to support him. "Peace comes from trust. Wars come from fear." He advocates making peace with soil (nature), soul (yourself) and society (others) because the future well being of humanity and the earth is dependent on a new world view in which the care of the planet, nourishment of the soul and the ... posted on Oct 18 2017 (10,135 reads)

me and what kind of life I want to live, and processing the day, and kind of going through what was important. You don't have to do it the whole hour—just five minutes—but actually not being up in the head the last hour of the day, come back down below the shoulders at the end of the day, as well. Like parenthesis. Some of these, and some very basic ones: just don't use while you're eating, taste the food. Just do one thing at a time; if you're taking a walk in nature, turn off the phone, turn off the phone all together and put it away. If you are sitting at a meal with a friend, or having a drink with a friend, don't put the phone in-between the two of ... posted on Feb 8 2018 (18,318 reads)

Low Hero? FP: I used to go to a camp and then co-directed a camp called IncluCity Camp. The campers taught me. The young people again. They would do that in their cabins–Hi Low Hero. I thought, ‘That is great. Why not use it at home?’ KSC: Can we teach people about gratitude? FP: That is a great question. I am not sure how I learned about it. I think it happened when I was very, very young with my parents and my grandparents. It got ingrained. It comes as second nature to me now. I think kindness and gratitude can both be definitely taught. By taught, I don’t mean you open up somebody’s head and put in in there, and you close up their head and the... posted on May 6 2018 (9,126 reads)