the life of each and every one of us, there is a defining moment, one after which we know that our lives will never be the same.  For me, 9/11 was that moment.  I had by that time embarked in earnest on a search for self, leaving behind a lucrative marketing career, and committed to creating a life with meaning, one that went beyond material and professional success. Longing to trust my intuition over my logic, I followed what I believed were omens to Egypt. I meditated in many mosques and, one night, atop the Great Pyramid of Giza. I sat in the desert, and tried to listen to its whispers. I sensed a familiarity there that went beyond words, as if I had come home, and tha... posted on Jul 22 2012 (12,375 reads)

25 years of research reveal about the cognitive skills of happiness and finding life’s greater purpose. “The illiterate of the 21st century,” Alvin Toffler famously said, “will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Our outlook on the world and our daily choices of disposition and behavior are in many ways learned patterns to which Toffler’s insight applies with all the greater urgency — the capacity to “learn, unlearn, and relearn” emotional behaviors and psychological patterns is, indeed, a form of existential literacy. Last week, Oliver Burkeman’s ... posted on Jul 9 2012 (18,263 reads)

be human is to be aware of the passage of time; no concept lies closer to the core of our consciousness.” For millennia, humans have sought to make sense of time, to visualize it, to ride its arrow, to hack it, to understand biological connection to it. “Time is the very foundation of conscious experience,” writes Dan Falk in In Search of Time: The History, Physics, and Philosophy of Time (public library). “To be human is to be aware of the passage of time; no concept lies closer to the core of our consciousness.” And yet that awareness has a long history of friction — to mark... posted on Aug 6 2012 (10,697 reads)

Peck at 92 is full of a radiant loveliness that brings to mind fairy godmothers and enchanted gardens. Visiting her is a little like falling down Alice's rabbit hole. A train track with a real train runs around her Saratoga home. There are ivy-covered walls, crazy winding paths, tree houses, even a Rapunzel tower, and an amphitheater under the trees complete with a Romeo and Juliet balcony. Hundreds of children have played in the sun-dappled creek here, thrilled to the feel of soil under bare feet and rejoiced in a world brimming with creativity, beauty and wonder. This is the world that Betty Peck gifted to multiple generations of children. And now this amazing teacher... posted on Dec 3 2013 (25,367 reads)

driver Tamara Raab is bringing Christmas in July to thousands of animals in Romania. In a 2,000 mile round trip journey, Tamara will drive a massive load of donated dog and cat food, veterinary supplies and pet beds to animal shelters in Romania. She’s undertaken this mission a couple times before, but this time is different. This time she didn’t have the 3,500 Euros required to pay the fuel. And that’s when fate stepped in. On the recommendation of fellow animal advocate Peter Collins, Tamara sent an email to the Harmony Fund, a nonprofit that sponsors major animal protection efforts around the world, to ask for help. She was not optimistic. It simply felt li... posted on Jun 20 2013 (29,740 reads)

from "A Call to Fearlessness for Gentle Leaders" address at the Shambhala Institute Core Program, Halifax, June 2006 I think these questions are worth holding for a while. How do you call yourself? How do you identify yourself? And have you chosen a name for yourself that is big enough to hold your life's work? I have a colleague who first suggested this to me. And he said, "So many of us choose names that are too small for a whole life." So, we call ourselves, 'cancer survivors;' that seems to be a very bold name, but is it big enough to hold a life? Or, 'children of abuse.' Or, we call ourselves 'orphans,' or 'widows,'... posted on Jul 8 2013 (43,663 reads)

Barrios Unidos Working  for Unity Barrios Unidos works to curtail gang violence on the city streets of California by sponsoring cultural and spiritual programs in the state’s prisons. “A lot of these folks are our relatives,” says founder Daniel “Nane” Alejándrez, a veteran activist  who has worked to forge truces among youth and prison gangs. “We are not the enemy against each other. We need to get these guys to think in a different way.” The organization is based in Santa Cruz County but runs economic development programs in several other areas. At a time when many prison programs have been cut, Barrios Unidos offers cl... posted on Jul 19 2013 (12,119 reads)

spite of current ads and slogans, the world doesn't change one person at a time.  It changes as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what's possible.  This is good news for those of us intent on changing the world and creating a positive future.  Rather than worry about critical mass, our work is to foster critical connections.  We don't need to convince large numbers of people to change; instead, we need to connect with kindred spirits.  Through these relationships, we will develop the new knowledge, practices, courage, and commitment that lead to broad-based change.  But networks are... posted on Sep 2 2013 (35,509 reads)

1996, the poet and essayist John Perry Barlow published A Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace. It was the height of the cyberutopian thinking in fashion at the time. It declared, “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.” It foresaw a world of unfettered free speech, self-organized governance, and compassionate peer relations that needed to be kept separate from the laws of “meatspace.” Barlow didn’t anticipate how the Internet would eventually empower individuals even more offline than online. Seventeen years later, freedoms online and off ha... posted on Sep 4 2013 (18,317 reads)

following is adapted from Ecoliterate: How Educators Are Cultivating Emotional, Social, and Ecological Intelligence. Ecoliterate shows how educators can extend the principles of social and emotional intelligence to include knowledge of and empathy for all living systems. For students in a first-grade class at Park Day School in Oakland, California, the most in-depth project of their young academic careers involved several months spent transforming their classroom into an ocean habitat, ripe with coral, jellyfish, leopard sharks, octopi, and deep-sea divers (or, at least, paper facsimiles of them). Their work culminated in one special night when, suited with goggles and homemade air ta... posted on Sep 26 2013 (31,597 reads)

lived and gardened at Green Gulch Farm for twenty-five years, settling my life, practicing Zen, and deepening my understanding of the earth under my fingernails. Green Gulch has a second name, one woven out of poetry and meditation practice: Soryu-ji, or Green Dragon Zen Temple. I love this name that so deftly describes the sinuous valley of Green Gulch, which uncoils between high, dry hills like an ancient green dragon with its tail stirring the sea and its fire-breathing head held high in the mysterious clouds that rise like primordial vapor from the coastal mountains. I now make my primary garden at my home a scant mile north of Green Gulch, almost where the dragon's tail lashes ... posted on Jan 30 2014 (21,083 reads)

did not realize the seriousness of the injury at the time of the accident. In the emergency room, the physician on duty urgently consulted an ophthalmologist. At that point, I understood that my eye had been seriously damaged, and I became terrified of the possible consequences. The doctor emphatically informed me that I needed surgery immediately to see if the eye could be repaired. I implored him to do his absolute best to save my vision—that I was a photographer and needed my eyes. Fears of a completely altered life entered my mind. Would I ever be able to drive again? To photograph? To live a normal life? Would I be disfigured? He then said something that has burned itself into m... posted on Jan 3 2014 (30,984 reads)

Transcript of Video: ‘Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.’ – Oscar Wilde More than a 100 years later we’ve put pricetags on things that Oscar even in his wildest dreams (or nightmares!) could not have seen coming. For example, today for 10 dollars your company can purchase the right to emit a metric ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. For $75 hundred dollars you can hire a human being to be a guinea pig in risky drug trials. And for a quarter of a million dollars you can buy the right to shoot an endangered rhino in South Africa. We’ve somehow managed to put a price tag on life, death and almost everything... posted on Jan 15 2014 (90,458 reads)

you like to join me in Monterey to interview Bryant Austin?” Anne Veh asked me . “Are you serious?” I answered. A couple of years earlier, I’d met Austin at an exhibit of his remarkable photographs at Electric Works Gallery in San Francisco and I’d wanted to interview him then. What would it be like swimming right next to whales? How did that come about? There had to be so many things worth hearing about. But circumstances prevented an interview at that time, so I jumped at Anne’s invitation. A few weeks later we met at the Museum of Monterey where an exhibit of Austin’s photos were on display. Before the interview began, Austin walked a group ... posted on Feb 16 2014 (22,517 reads)

on how to keep the center solid as you continue to evolve. On October 23, 2006, I sent a short email to a few friends at work — one of the four jobs I held while paying my way through college — with the subject line “brain pickings,” announcing my intention to start a weekly digest featuring five stimulating things to learn about each week, from a breakthrough in neuroscience to a timeless piece of poetry. “It should take no more than 4 minutes (hopefully much less) to read,” I promised. This was the inception of Brain Pickings. At the time, I neither planned nor anticipated that this tiny experiment would one day be included in the Lib... posted on Mar 18 2014 (44,040 reads)

to recent research, gratitude in organizations is important—for starters, it can boost morale and increase productivity. However, some evidence suggests that it’s less likely to be expressed or felt in the workplace than anywhere else. To learn more about this dynamic, the Greater Good Science Center developed a quiz that measures the level of gratitude in an organization, in consultation with researchers from our Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude project and Kim Cameron of the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. The quiz asks people how much gratitud... posted on Mar 31 2014 (17,741 reads)

we age, we tend to shed family and friends—which can hurt our mental and physical health. How can we design communities for seniors that facilitate social connections? Vonda is an energetic 73-year-old woman with a friendly smile and a sharp wit. For the last two decades she’s been living in an intentional farming community called “Potluck Farm” with other individuals and families on 170 acres in rural North Carolina.  Vonda Frantz (foreground, in pink shirt) putting the roof on the common house for Potluck Farm's new Elderberry community. But recently, she realized something: She’s getting older. Though she loves the farm, l... posted on May 8 2014 (19,245 reads)

stories, making promises to do what they could. Everyone wanted to know whose fault it was, and why nothing was being done fast enough. A few weeks later, the water continued to rise, even threatening to encircle London, as the upper reaches of the River Thames swelled and broke its banks. The homes of the outer suburbs of the capital fell before the Spring tide. There were newspaper stories that predicted what would happen if the floods hit the centre of the city. At the same time, images were posted on Twitter to show the extent of the damage if the Thames Barrier, a flood prevention wall that spanned the estuary, had not worked. The statistics were retweeted with a mixture of ... posted on May 27 2014 (11,268 reads)

you heard of cat cafés around the world? From Tokyo to Paris and from Taipei to Budapest, there are cafés where you can enjoy the company of feline companions while sipping your cup. I haven’t been to a cat café. But in Mumbai, I found a cat laundry shop. “It’s best to leave things to experts rather than experiment with your precious fabrics”, proclaims a newspaper clipping pasted on the wall of Indian Express laundry shop. Established in 1940 and located in the busy Colaba market, close to the Mumbai landmark Gateway of India, Indian Express is not only a laundry shop with a long history. It is also an abode of compassion. Severa... posted on Jun 9 2014 (15,712 reads)

the pinnacle of a dizzying career, Indian-American rapper Nimesh “Nimo” Patel was haunted by an unshakeable sense of emptiness. In his mid-twenties, he abandoned the limelight and found himself meditating in the foothills of the Himalayas. There, an inner voice nudged him to radically simplify his life and find his purpose in service to others. He moved to the Gandhi Ashram in India and dedicated himself to the children in the surrounding slums. Fast-forward to April 2012: Nimo and a dance troupe of sixteen of "his kids" toured the world with "Ekatva" – a performance whose ultimate message was Oneness. A year later, in the summer of 2013, seven... posted on Jun 16 2014 (49,046 reads)