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 (49,047 reads)

are finding out how sadness works in the brain—and they're discovering that it can confer important advantages. Sadness is not usually valued in our current culture. Self-help books promote the benefits of positive thinking, positive attitude, and positive behaviors, labeling sadness as a “problem emotion” that needs to be kept at bay or eliminated. Evolution must have had something else in mind, though, or sadness wouldn’t still be with us. Being sad from time to time serves some kind of purpose in helping our species to survive. Yet, while other so-called “negative emotions,” like fear, anger, and disgust, seem clearly ad... posted on Aug 29 2014 (29,204 reads)

program to make an even larger fund for community projects. They built their own school – they did, not Tostan. They are advocating on a regional level for human rights. And I thought to myself, even if I just came to that one community and had that one result, it was worth everything. Even if it took a long time, even if it was just one village, it was all worth it. _ This story, written by Brittany Koteles (@koteles2), was brought to you in partnership with Forbes.com. All images are courtesy of Tostan.   ... posted on Oct 5 2014 (4,051 reads)

he’s painted over 4,800 and on track to complete all 5,500 by this fall. Though Mark had always been a dog lover, he’d never imagined taking on such a large project until his own dog, Santina, passed away at the age of 21. Mark was grieving and Marina thought she could help ease some of the grief by finding another dog to adopt. Though Mark wasn’t ready, Marina searched the internet anyways. But she didn’t find many dogs up for adoption. Instead she was struck by images, stories and an online outcry about the cruelty and killing taking place in the shelter system. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, is this really going on in this country?’” Marina... posted on Sep 2 2014 (35,236 reads)

Attwater is dying of a brain tumor, but he isn’t worried about his cancer. Instead, he is trying to save his 5 year-old daughter from her own. Tom Attwater with daughter Kelli and wife Joely He has vowed to raise approximately $820,200.00 for her cancer treatment, even if he wouldn’t be around to see her go through it. Now Tom is almost half way to his fundraising target he is more adamant than ever to reach it. Tragically his deadline is short as his latest scans show his brain tumour is growing. He says: “These days people make bucket lists, and the very top of mine – the one that matters most – is raising money to make sure Kelli gets the ... posted on Nov 12 2014 (65,082 reads)

warps for a young surgeon with metastatic lung cancer In residency, there’s a saying: The days are long, but the years are short. In neurosurgical training, the day usually began a little before 6 a.m., and lasted until the operating was done, which depended, in part, on how quick you were in the OR. Time at home. Time well spent A resident’s surgical skill is judged by his technique and his speed. You can’t be sloppy and you can’t be slow. From your first wound closure onward, spend too much time being precise and the scrub tech will announce, “Looks like we’ve got a plastic surgeon on our hands!” Or say: “I get y... posted on Mar 30 2015 (66,623 reads)

yourself with grand and austere ideas of beauty that feed the soul… Seek solitude.” “One can never be alone enough to write,” Susan Sontag lamented in her journal. “People who grow bored in their own company seem to me in danger,” the great Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky admonished the young. And yet despite the vast creative and psychological benefits of boredom, we have grown so afraid of it that we have unlearned — or refused to learn altogether — the essential art of being alone, so very necessary for contemplation and creative work. The great French artist and dedicated diarist Eugène Delacroi... posted on Jun 24 2015 (14,126 reads)

is transcript of a talk, delivered to four thousand people gathered at the National Jain Convention in Atlanta, Georgia.  Prior to Nipun's talk, civil rights legends John Lewis and Andrew Young shared insights from their journey with Martin Luther King, Jr.] Thank you for this opportunity to speak to all of you.  What an honor to be here with all you today, and a special honor to get to follow John Lewis and Andrew Young. Today I’d like to surface an unpopular virtue. One that’s fallen out of favor in a time of selfies and relentless status updates. The virtue of humility. We live in an era that believes it can no longer afford to be humb... posted on Jul 7 2015 (117,756 reads)

are the key research-based principles for turning gratitude into a lasting habit, drawing from the GGSC’s new website, Greater Good in Action. Over the past two decades, much of the research on happiness can be boiled down to one main prescription: give thanks. Across hundreds of studies, practicing gratitude has been found to increasepositive emotions, reduce the risk of depression, heighten relationship satisfaction, and increase resilience in the face of stressful life events, among other benefits. The problem is, gratitude doesn’t always come naturally. The negatives in our lives—the disappointments, resentments, and fears—sometimes ... posted on Jul 27 2015 (49,927 reads)

19 years old, Godfrey Minot Camille was a tall redheaded boy with a charming manner who planned to enter medicine or the ministry. In 1938, Camille enrolled in a study that would follow him for the rest of his life, along with 267 other Harvard College sophomores deemed by recruiters as likely to lead “successful” lives. This essay is adapted fromTriumphs of Experience: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study Only gradually did the study’s staff discover that the allegedly “normal” Godfrey was an intractable and unhappy hypochondriac. On the 10th anniversary of his joining the study, each man was given an A through E rating anticipating future personality st... posted on Oct 25 2015 (30,554 reads)

another person hurts us, it can upend our lives. This essay has been adapted from 8 Keys to Forgiveness (W. W. Norton & Company, 2015) Sometimes the hurt is very deep, such as when a spouse or a parent betrays our trust, or when we are victims of crime, or when we’ve been harshly bullied. Anyone who has suffered a grievous hurt knows that when our inner world is badly disrupted, it’s difficult to concentrate on anything other than our turmoil or pain. When we hold on to hurt, we are emotionally and cognitively hobbled, and our relationships suffer. Forgiveness is strong medicine for this. When life hits us hard, there isnothing as effective as forgiveness for he... posted on Aug 27 2023 (38,638 reads)