The Truth Demands To Be Lived
Among many other assignments, Americ Azevedo, philosopher, author and lecturer of peace studies, now leads a meditation class with 603 students in one of the largest lecture halls on the UC Berkeley campus. He has taught university classes in philosophy, religion, leadership, finance, business and information systems,and held the first podcast at UC Berkeley in 2005. He now co-teaches a class on i... posted on Nov 12, 29576 reads

Politics & The Sharing Economy
"Can the sharing economy movement address the root causes of the world’s converging crises? In recent years, the concept and practice of sharing resources is fast becoming a mainstream phenomenon across North America, Western Europe and other world regions. According to most general definitions that are widely available online, the sharing economy leverages information technology to empower... posted on Mar 2, 11673 reads

A Safe Haven In Nepal
2010 CNN Hero of the Year, Anuradha Koirala, started Maiti Nepal (roughly translated to "mother's home") to protect Nepali women and girls from crimes such as domestic violence, trafficking, prostitution, child labor, and other forms of exploitation and torture. Since 1993, Maiti Nepal has helped rescue and rehabilitate more than 12,000 women and girls, providing a safe place for them to recover a... posted on Aug 1, 2689 reads

I'm Just Like You
Videographer Ellie Walton flew to Liberia to film a documentary highlighting the beauty and strengths of the children of the Hope for the Deaf School -- children who face immense discrimination and are often abandoned by their families. Coincidentally, she arrived in Monrovia on the same day as Hip Hop artist Chad Harper (aka Famus), whom she had met the month before in India. Chad had come to exp... posted on Mar 16, 3653 reads

Clean Your House, Your Mind Will Follow
"With spring cleaning in effect, many are rolling up their sleeves and reaching into the corners and hard-to-reach places that have often been long neglected. As a merely physical task, cleaning can be arduous, gratifying, and everything in between. But if taken up with the spirit of self-purification, cleaning serves as a powerful instrument for heightening awareness of the present moment and of ... posted on May 11, 25142 reads

Toy Stories: Children and Their Favorite Things
For over a year, photographer and journalist Gabriele Galimberti visited more than 50 countries and created colorful images of boys and girls with their most prized possessions: their toys. From Texas to India, Malawi to China, Iceland, Morocco, and Fiji, Galimberti recorded the spontaneous and natural joy that unites kids despite their diverse backgrounds. Whether the child owns a veritable fleet... posted on May 21, 17058 reads

Why Compassion In the Workplace Matters
Workplaces vary on the extent to which "companionate love" is present. According to Wharton Management professor Sigal Barsade, companionate love is shown "when colleagues who are together day in and day out, ask and care about each other's work and even non-work issues...They are careful of each other's feelings. They show compassion when things don't go well. And they also show affection and car... posted on Jun 12, 22971 reads

The Lost Voice of A Generation
None of us can know the span of our life. Some of us will live a long life and die in old age; others leave much sooner. No, the meaning of life is not how long we live, it's about the fact that we lived at all, and that we touch the lives of others by living. Poet Marina Keegan may have died young, and tragically, but she had found her voice, and expressed it through poetry that touched the lives... posted on Jul 28, 25889 reads

A Physicist Speaks On Randomness & Choice
"When you look at your life...if you think about all the details of what happened to you, you will find that there was a time where you had the extra cup of coffee, where if you hadn't, you wouldn't have met Person A. When I look back in my life, I could find so many instances like that...And the course of your life depends on how you react to those opportunities and challenges that the randomness... posted on Jul 15, 26437 reads

Tools Of Our Tools: The Role Of Technology In Our Lives
These days, we function in many ways as the "tools of our tools" -- beings bound to our devices and technology. "But even as our ancestors developed tools over time to leverage their muscles, senses and brains, they also developed tools to leverage their soul, or psyche, so as to be composed within themselves, and thus try to establish just and civil societies." Here Tom Mahon shares his thoughts ... posted on Aug 4, 25065 reads

The Innovation of Loneliness
While our focus is shifting towards individual achievements over community, more and more people are feeling lonely. They feel vulnerable opening up to others for warm, friendly, heart-to-heart conversations. Then, along comes social media...As people share and chat from islands of isolation, filtering and massaging information, they are undermining the genuine credibility of conversation. Bits an... posted on Jul 23, 5770 reads

9 Ways In Which The Culture of Watching Is Changing Us
Our constant use of cameras, TVs, computers, and smart devices is affecting our thoughts and behavior to a degree we may not even realize, changing how we identify ourselves and how others understand us. We are watching so many -- and so many are watching us in so many different places and ways -- that watching and being watched fundamentally alter how we think and behave.... posted on Sep 11, 33925 reads

Songwriting With Soldiers
A chance meeting with a soldier after performing in a hospital in Germany inspired songwriter Darden Smith to work with members of the military to turn their stories into music. Smith now runs Songwriting With:Soldiers, a non-profit organization which pairs veterans and troops with professional songwriters in a peaceful environment. The service members share their stories and the songwriters mold ... posted on Aug 20, 14892 reads

Margaret Wheatley: On Working With Human Goodness
"There is nothing equal to human creativity, caring and will. We can be incredibly generous, imaginative and open-hearted. We can do the impossible, learn and change quickly, and extend instant compassion to those in distress. And these are not behaviors we keep hidden. We exhibit them daily." When faced with everyday struggles, and more broadly, the weight of wars and human suffering, Margaret Wh... posted on Sep 20, 30285 reads

Father Rocky's Safe Haven For Street Children
What is the link between a Catholic priest and at-risk youth in the Phillippines? Hope for the future. In 1997, Father Marciano "Rocky" G. Evangelista, known as Father Rocky, founded the Tuloy sa Don Bosco School. Since its inception, the Don Bosco School has functioned as a refuge for thousands of teenagers and street children who could otherwise have become absorbed into the prevailing system of... posted on Oct 12, 11034 reads

No Regrets: Living With Dying
Patti Pansa knew the common regrets of the dying, and with stage-four metastasized breast cancer, she wanted to live her last days without them. "Between radiation treatments, spinal surgery, and a bucket list trip to Alaska, Patti wrote essays, talked with anyone who would listen, dreamed and created...Patti spent the last five months of her life celebrating, sharing, creating, loving, and living... posted on Mar 4, 49526 reads

Lily Yeh & Barefoot Artists
Lily Yeh launched Barefoot Artists "to spark transformation, healing and social change in places plagued by poverty, crime and despair." Since its launch, the group started by Yeh has carried out projects and workshops in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas. In this brief article, Yeh describes her journey as an artist and her calling to "bring colors" and beauty to communities plague... posted on May 30, 12982 reads

The 21-Day Technology Challenge
"The hustle of family life -- work, school, appointments, practice, homework, dinner, bed -- is constant. We move in and out of activities and commitments with ferocity...And since our life is designed to fully embrace living it, we have to be mindful of all the pieces that might creep in and occupy more than their fair share. Technology is one of those pieces." Author Janell Burley Hofmann works ... posted on Apr 17, 17887 reads

Seeds: A Story of Uncommon Change
Discover the story of Aruna, who's journey speaks of the transformative power of love and service. Aruna grew up in a poor leprosy community in India and, like so many other kids growing up in the harsh reality of a slum, did not believe in her dreams or that much good would come from her life, other than a prescribed arranged marriage. That was, until, she met Jayesh Patel, co-founder of Manav Sa... posted on Sep 7, 3024 reads

Rudy Corpuz: It Takes a Hood to Save the Hood
Rudy Corpuz, an anti-violence activist was born and raised in San Francisco in the 1970s and 80s in a neighborhood where drugs and gangs were the norm. He had a rough start, never graduated from high school, didn't start reading until he was in the eighth grade, dealt and did drugs, and was a gang leader. He then had a magical turning point, a "a dramatic change of heart" that catapulted him into ... posted on Oct 20, 7880 reads

Slowness is an Act of Resistance
"The four horsemen of my apocalypse are called Efficiency, Convenience, Profitability, and Security, and in their names, crimes against poetry, pleasure, sociability, and the very largeness of the world are daily, hourly, constantly carried out. These marauding horsemen are deployed by technophiles, advertisers, and profiteers to assault the nameless pleasures and meanings that knit together our l... posted on Nov 2, 8850 reads

Conversational Leadership: Thinking Together for a Change
If our conversations and personal relations are at the heart of our work, then how do we contribute to or take energy away from this natural process? Are we using the intelligence of just a few people instead of hundreds or thousands? What if increasing the success of efforts to cut costs and make organizations more efficient, innovative, and competitive depended on focusing on the core process o... posted on Nov 27, 5171 reads

Peace is Possible: The Remarkable Story of A Prison Friendship
"For more than 50 years, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (in Spanish, FARC) have been fighting a guerrilla war for social justice. In response, the rich and powerful created paramilitary forces to defend the existing social order. On both sides, those doing the fighting are mostly poor villagers and workers." In this interview, we learn of an extraordinary and unlikely friendship betwe... posted on Apr 26, 8280 reads

What If Schools Taught Kindness?
"The school environment can be very stressful; in addition to any issues they bring from home, many students struggle to make friends and perform well in class. Being excluded, ignored, or teased is very painful for a young child, and we thought it could be impactful to teach empathy and compassion. When other kids are suffering-- like that boy who split his chin-- can we understand how they might... posted on Feb 10, 32554 reads

Art & Science Fusion
"Diane and I feel like the students need to break across what E.O. Wilson calls "the borderland." We have an entomologist, a botanist, a horticulturist; artists, musicians and photographers come in and talk to the students. We have a photography class and the professor, Terry Nathan, is an atmospheric scientist. He came to us and said, "I've been a bit of a photographer all my life, but there was ... posted on Apr 30, 10234 reads

How Imaginative Storytelling Expands Our Scope of the Possible
""We must always take sides," Elie Wiesel urged in his spectacular Nobel Prize acceptance speech. "Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." And yet part of the human tragedy is that despite our best intentions and our most ardent ideals, we often lull ourselves into neutrality in the face of injustice -- be it out of fear for our own... posted on May 7, 9718 reads

The Mystery and Art of Living
Krista Tippett is best known as the host of "On Being," the award-winning public radio conversation, podcast, and website which explores the questions at the center of human life: What does it mean to be human, and how do we want to live? In this interview, Pico Iyer turns the tables on Krista and interviews her about her life, her inspirations, and the topics in her eloquent and passionate book, ... posted on Jul 10, 14343 reads

How Smartphones Are Killing Conversation
Today's cell phones threaten to hinder humanity rather than help unless we take control of our behavior and put people first. In her new book, "Reclaiming Conversation," MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle, author of the bestseller "Alone Together," explores the social effects of cell phones and the importance of honoring and protecting the quality of conversation in our everyday lives. In this intervie... posted on Jul 31, 31080 reads

Running as Spiritual Practice
"For the Summer Olympics, we explore a topic our listeners have called out as a passionate force and a connector across all kinds of boundaries in American culture: running. Not just as exercise, or as a merely physical pursuit, but running as a source of bonding between parents and children and friends; running as an interplay between competition and contemplation; running and body image and surv... posted on Aug 30, 10883 reads

Social Permaculture
We need the power of creative and compassionate groups and communities working together to move us toward a more kind and sustainable world. However, maneuvering relationships within communities and keeping them united can be very challenging. In this piece, a life-long permaculturist shares the wisdom she's gathered from four decades of work with intentional communities and groups of changemakers... posted on Dec 4, 5733 reads

Fierce Contemplation: The Nuns Who Stopped a Pipeline
On August 8, 2013, Ceciliana Skees and other sisters from Loretto and several other convents attended an informational meeting held by representatives of the Bluegrass Pipeline. A joint venture between Williams and Boardwalk Pipeline Partners, the project would have transported natural gas liquids from fracking fields in Pennsylvania and Ohio southwest across Kentucky to connect with an existing p... posted on Sep 26, 9643 reads

Anne-Marie Bauer: An Ethic of Care
Growing up in the US and Finland as one of six children, and big sister to three younger brothers, Anne-Marie donned a care-taking cap and cross-cultural competency from an early age. In her late-teens, she landed in New York City. Migrating between the Big Apple, PA, and NJ, she quickly grew a sense of independence and studied to become a pediatric nurse. Today, she's based in California and spen... posted on Sep 18, 10467 reads

Lessons from Living in Nature
Nisha Srinivasan and her husband Ragu Padmanabhan had Silicon Valley careers, when in 2008, soon after having their son Aum, they promptly sold everything and moved to rural India. They wanted to farm, but had no experience in it and so set out as students of the land -- for instance, when they planted 9000 trees on their barren land, thousands didn't make it, but thousands blossomed into a mini-f... posted on Sep 22, 25756 reads

Mary Oliver on the Third Self
"Mary Oliver sets out to excavate the building blocks of the self in order to understand its parallel capacities for focused creative flow and merciless interruption. She identifies three primary selves that she inhabits, and that inhabit her, as they do all of us: the childhood self, which we spend our lives trying to weave into the continuity of our personal identity; the social self, "fettered ... posted on Oct 23, 19087 reads

The Organic Food Company That Puts Ex-Offenders Back to Work
While many employers avoid hiring those who were formerly incarcerated, one Pennsylvania company actively seeks them out. Lancaster Food Company makes a point of finding and hiring people who need help getting back on their feet. According to founder Mike Miles, it's a segment of the population that needs jobs just like anyone else, and should not be denied the chance to live healthy and productiv... posted on Jan 9, 10297 reads

Gandhi 3.0: Bridging the Internet and the Inner-Net
On the 147th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's birth, Service Space founder Nipun Mehta gave a talk at Emory University that weaves stories from Gandhi's life into an illuminating take on how to live the ideal of 'change yourself, change the world' in modern times. His talk explores how our highly interconnected and technologically advanced age has the potential to make the power of love exponential... posted on Jan 30, 4343 reads

Ron Nakasone & the Art of Sho
"There are still things I don't understand about the brush; I know that when I practice. I know what kind of lines I want. The lines have to be ones with great integrity, a great rationality; and also ones that are visually appealing, because the role of an artist, of course, is to communicate. Hopefully my sho, my calligraphy, will get better and more mature as I get older. I remember when I firs... posted on Feb 22, 7985 reads

The Vet Who Is Saving India's Orphaned Animals
For over 16 years now, Dr. Bhaskar Choudhary and his team at the Wildlife Rescue Center in Assam, India, have been working tirelessly to rehabilitate over a thousand orphan and injured wild animals, including elephant and rhino calves, wild buffaloes, tigers, leopards, deer, and birds, and to return to the forest and survive independently. Choudhary also provides information on displaced animals t... posted on Mar 25, 14898 reads

Honorable Harvest: Indigenous Lessons in Giving Thanks
In a consumer-driven society, it's easy to take for granted the abundance of Earth's natural resources by which we're surrounded: fresh air to breathe, plants, water, and food. What if we looked at each of these life-giving sources as gifts, fellow persons even, rather than mere objects for our taking? YES! Magazine writer Robin Wall Kimmerer challenges readers to consider how we treat and interac... posted on Apr 27, 10859 reads

OptOutside: REI's Audacious Experiment in Integrity
For the last two Black Fridays, REI has done a remarkable thing. It closed the doors of all 143 of its retail stores, its headquarters and its two distribution centres and paid every one of its over 12,000 employees to enjoy the great outdoors with friends and family. Here's how Jerry Stritzke, REI's president and CEO, explained the decision: "As a member-owned co-op, our definition of success goe... posted on Jun 28, 16003 reads

Belonging Creates & Undoes Us Both
Padraig O Tuama is a poet, theologian, and extraordinary healer in our world of fracture. He leads the Corrymeela community of Northern Ireland, a place that has offered refuge since the violent division that defined that country until the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. And Padraig and Corrymeela extend a quiet, generative, and joyful force far beyond their northern coast to people around the world. ... posted on May 6, 10033 reads

Music, the Brain & the Secret Language of the Heart
When was the last time you heard a song that brought you to tears, or reminded you of a favorite place? Music has the power to shape our moods, our minds, and even our memories. Barry Goldstein, a producer, composer, and music researcher, shares the incredible ways music can enrich our experience on conscious and subconscious levels. Through engaging in activities like singing or chanting, we can ... posted on Jul 27, 76613 reads

The Women in Spiti Valley who are Saving the Snow Leopard
In the Spitian language, "shen" means snow leopard. Located in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, Spiti Valley is one of the few remaining places on earth where snow leopards can be found. Since 2013, women from two of the region's villages have been working with the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) to help protect this endangered species. Known as Project SHEN, the women engage in communit... posted on Jun 24, 14570 reads

She Gave Street Children Her Cell Phone Number and That Changed
Jeroo Billimoria isn't one to see a person in need and hope that someone else will take action. She is a social entrepreneur who responds by getting involved in big and small ways. She became a social activist many years ago at the age of 11 when she encouraged her neighbors to open bank accounts and become financially literate. She wanted to enable their freedom from poverty. In recent years, Jer... posted on Jun 7, 9714 reads

How to Kick Your Digital Addiction
Technology can bring happiness. Anyone who's found the perfect meditation app or downloaded a grandchild's photo won't doubt that.But technology can also bring anxiety, stress, and frustration. And that seems to be a given, too, making us throw our hands in the air. Amy Blankson, author of the new book "The Future of Happiness: 5 Modern Strategies for Balancing Productivity and Well-Being in the D... posted on Jun 25, 12669 reads

Resilience After Unimaginable Loss
Sheryl Sandberg is synonymous with Facebook and Silicon Valley success, and she's the voice of Lean In. She joins On Being, host Krista Tippet, frank and vulnerable, together with the psychologist Adam Grant. His friendship and his research on resilience helped Sandburg survive the shocking death of her husband while on vacation. They share what they've learned about planting deep resilience in ou... posted on Jun 17, 17819 reads

David Whyte on Courage
We all have an idea of what courage looks like from the outside, but what about the inside? Is it angry? Energetic? Excited? Or something else? In this essay, poet David Whyte looks deep within to find the source of courage. Perhaps surprisingly, it's a place that's not hard but soft. And it can be both confusing and vulnerable. "We become courageous whenever we live closely to the point of tears ... posted on Jun 15, 17749 reads

Experiments in Kindness
Audrey Lin is a volunteer extraordinaire with ServiceSpace. With a degree in Peace and Conflict Studies, Lin has volunteered at the Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad, India; at Karma Kitchen in Berkeley, California;and has served as an educator on both the east and west coasts of the United States. While not everyone has the ability to travel abroad to volunteer, Lin's life and perspectives remind us tha... posted on Aug 15, 2720 reads

Guy Standing on an Economy that Works for Everyone
Through research and advocacy, economist Guy Standing has been fighting for an economy that works for everyone and for the environment for years. In his books and other publications, he argues that our current economic ideology has created an antagonistic world in which a small percent are "winners" and a large percent are "losers," resulting in an environment of insecurity and tension. In this in... posted on Nov 26, 21221 reads

Linda Cruse: Marmalade & Machine Guns
Linda Cruse spent a decade as a nurse, but needed a more steady schedule and extra income. She took an opportunity to work in pharmaceuticals, but it was killing her spirit, and she became very negative. After going temporarily blind from the stress of her new life, she made a promise to become more authentic and find her purpose. This led her to the decision to sell her possessions and travel the... posted on Aug 3, 4644 reads