somewhere five minutes ago, she insisted on buckling her stuffed animal into a car seat. When I needed to grab a quick lunch at Subway, she’d stop to speak to the elderly woman who looked like her grandma. When I had thirty minutes to get in a run, she wanted me to stop the stroller and pet every dog we passed. When I had a full agenda that started at 6 a.m., she asked to crack the eggs and stir them ever so gently. My carefree child was a gift to my Type A, task-driven nature—but I didn’t see it. Oh no, when you live life distracted, you have tunnel vision—only looking ahead to what’s next on the agenda. And anything that cannot be checked of... posted on Sep 13 2013 (133,354 reads)

our mental lives. These processes allow for creativity, planning, imagination, memory—capacities that are central not only to our survival, but also to the very essence of being human. The key, I believe, is learning to become aware of these mental tendencies and to use them purposefully, rather than letting them take over. Meditation can help with that. So don’t beat yourself up the next time you find yourself far away from where your mind was supposed to be. It’s the nature of the mind to wander. Use it as an opportunity to become more aware of your own mental experience. But you may still want to return to the present moment—so you can come up with an answe... posted on Apr 18 2015 (152,743 reads)

movement has enormous potential to grow.... The Choice for Simplicity The circle has closed. The Earth is a single system and we humans have reached beyond its regenerative capacity. It is of the highest urgency that we invent new ways of living that are sus­tainable. The starting gun of history has already gone off and the time for creative action has arrived. With lifestyles of conscious simplicity, we can seek our riches in caring families and friend­ships, reverence for nature, meaningful work, exuberant play, social contribution, collaboration across generations, local com­munity, and creative arts. With conscious simplicity, we can seek lives that are rich with... posted on Oct 22 2013 (54,984 reads)

were almost 200,000 cases in India the year we began. To eradicate smallpox, we had to find every case in the world, every virus, without exception, and put a ring of immunity around it. So that's what we did. Over the next few years, 150,000 health workers visited every house in India searching for hidden cases of smallpox. We made more than one billion house calls. And in October of 1977, I went to the most remote bottom of Bangladesh to see what would be the last human infection in nature of Variola Major - the end of a chain of transmission of the disease of more than 5000 years, that had killed Pharaoh Ramses himself and might have scared the faces of many of Jesus', Moses... posted on Oct 25 2013 (18,224 reads)

the top. In the old world of work, good guys finished last. “Takers” (those in organizations who put their own interests first) were able to climb to the top of hierarchies and achieve success on the shoulders of “givers” (those who prefer to contribute more than they receive). Throughout much of the 20th century, many organizations were made up of independent silos, where takers could exploit givers without suffering substantial consequences. But the nature of work has shifted dramatically. Today, more than half of U.S. and European companies organize employees into teams. The rise of matrix structures has required employees to coordinate with a w... posted on Oct 14 2013 (5,894 reads)

the growth of the years must return—or be returned—to the ground to rot and build soil. A good local culture, in one of its most important functions, is a collection of the memories, ways, and skills necessary for the observance, within the bounds of domesticity, of this natural law. If the local culture cannot preserve and improve the local soil, then, as both reason and history inform us, the local community will decay and perish, and the work of soil-building will be resumed by nature.  A human community, then, if it is to last long, must exert a sort of centripetal force, holding local soil and local memory in place. Practically speaking, human society has no work m... posted on Mar 4 2014 (23,657 reads)

inherited from millions of years of evolution is both a gift and a curse, if not understood and used wisely. It is easy for us to get lost in our very basic emotions and motives, or become personally distressed by the problems of others. But evolution has also given us a very different type of attention—an extraordinary competency as miraculous as the ability to see light—that can sense and experience consciousness of consciousness itself. From here we can begin to see into the nature of the mind—and begin to make choices about what emotions we want to cultivate in our lives. This is what it means to wake up and to start to become enlightened. ... posted on Jan 26 2014 (25,411 reads)

for them, I do think it a lot, and do tell them much more often now. - I was kinder to others around me, at work and everywhere else, because instead of seeing the faults in everyone, I saw the good, and was grateful for them. - I needed less, because instead of thinking about what I don’t have, I was grateful for what I did have. - Little things bothered me less, because instead of complaining about every little thing, I would find things to be thankful for. - I appreciated nature all around me, smaller things that I might have missed before, beauty in everything. - Habit change became easier, because instead of focusing on how hard the change was, I found the joy in ... posted on Dec 14 2013 (84,068 reads)

possible in the developing world without using the Internet and the technologies around it,” says Werbach. “It’s not just a business phenomenon. It’s a central organizing platform for anything you can think of.” Werbach also says laptop computers, ranked number two, are related to the Internet thanks to connectivity in the digital realm. “The computer is not something that is in a specific place (i.e., your office),” he says. “It changes the nature of interaction.” And it connects with multiple devices that have been created in the last 30 years, including digital cameras, digital music players and wireless printers. Innovations ... posted on Nov 17 2013 (36,471 reads)

Bay Area, where she lived on a horse ranch south of San Francisco. The exposure to the beauty of the place—the coast, the hills, the redwoods—made a deep impression. One day, as she stepped out of her house, she looked up and saw a red-tailed hawk soaring above her. “As I stood looking up at the hawk, in a voice as clear as day, I heard these words: ‘Tell my story’.” Rosen’s drawings and sculptures are born from the perennial questions: What can nature show us? And what is seeing? Her work shows us something about that. I met the artist at her studio and ranch in San Gregorio, California to talk specifically about seeing… —... posted on Jan 19 2014 (24,730 reads)

our garden untended. I let it go into a neglected tangle. Throughout the growing season I pass by this fallow spit of wildness and it feeds my somewhat fierce soul. In early autumn, when I am obsessed with our latest harvest of slim, white-stockinged leeks and golden beets, I look across the ordered rows of the garden to that far tangle of seedy cow parsnip and dry skunkweed and my wild roots stir back to life. My second principle is to garden organically, always within the ample embrace of nature, without relying on chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides. Organic gardening and ecological farming is rooted in and encourages local stewardship and protection of land and water reso... posted on Jan 30 2014 (21,084 reads)

inherited from millions of years of evolution is both a gift and a curse, if not understood and used wisely. It is easy for us to get lost in our very basic emotions and motives, or become personally distressed by the problems of others. But evolution has also given us a very different type of attention—an extraordinary competency as miraculous as the ability to see light—that can sense and experience consciousness of consciousness itself. From here we can begin to see into the nature of the mind—and begin to make choices about what emotions we want to cultivate in our lives. This is what it means to wake up and to start to become enlightened. ... posted on Jan 8 2014 (34,304 reads)

breathe. And using smell and taste and touch.   RW:  What role does that play for you here in this beautiful place?   Grace:  I mean look at how beautiful it is! I wake up and think—as my teacher said, you've been trying to be a priest for years, but you've always been too busy to actually do it. He finally said you can't be so busy. I can be busy, but finally you don't have so many options. It’s true that I’ve gotten to be centered in nature much more because I've walked this path for 23 years and therefore I know when every plant blooms in this valley.      I used to walk out of zazen at 6 o’clock in... posted on Dec 31 2013 (27,137 reads)

turned to try to see what help I could be to another person. RW:  That’s interesting. JN:  That turns, very often that turns the whole thing around. RW:  I am sure that that is an absolutely authentic principle. It’s spoken of all the time by people with wisdom. And as you said also, there’s something that might come from listening to oneself. I think a basic principle of Buddhism is that our problems stem from ignorance about our true nature.      I had an interesting experience a couple of years ago. I had a beautiful condominium on the coast in Oregon gifted to me for a week. I was going to do some writing ... posted on Apr 3 2014 (21,558 reads)

mind-bending new understanding of our basic existential anchor. The fate of the world depends on the selves of human beings, " pioneering educator Annemarie Roeper wrote in her meditation on how poorly we understand the self. Indeed, while philosophers may argue that the self is a toxic illusion and psychologists may insist that its ever changing, we tend to float through life anchored by a firm conviction that the self is our sole constant companion. But when psychologist David DeSteno asks, "Can the present you trust the future you?" In his fantastic exploration of the psychology of trust, the question leaves us -- at least me -- suddenly paralyzed w... posted on Mar 13 2014 (29,179 reads)

in his self-built cabin at Walden Pond, where he attempted to grow most of his own food and live in isolated self-sufficiency (though by his own admission, he regularly walked a mile to nearby Concord to hear the local gossip, grab some snacks, and read the papers). It was Thoreau who gave us the iconic statement of simple living: "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone." For him, richness came from having the free time to commune with nature, read, and write. Simple living was also in full swing across the Atlantic. In nineteenth-century Paris, bohemian painters and writers like Henri Murger—author of the autobiographical ... posted on Mar 14 2014 (43,863 reads)

hurt and all the things that anyone would feel. So be willing to grieve, and then to let go. Ten: Forgiveness includes all the dimensions of our life. Forgiveness is work of the body. It’s work of the emotions. It’s work of the mind. And it’s interpersonal work done through our relationships.  Eleven: Forgiveness involves a shift of identity. There is in us an undying capacity for love and freedom that is untouched by what happens to you. To come back to this true nature is the work of forgiveness. Twelve: Forgiveness involves perspective. We are in this drama in life that is so much bigger than our ‘little stories.’ When we can open this perspec... posted on Mar 15 2014 (63,759 reads)

is a very first thing I try to find in you and it's the very last thing I want to show you in me because it's the glue that holds connection together. It's all about our community humanity and, when we own our stories and we share our stories with one another and we see ourselves reflected back in the stories of people in our lives, we know we're not alone. And to me, that's the heart of wholeheartedness, it's the center of spirituality. To me, that's the nature of connection, to be able to see myself and hear myself and learn more about myself in the stories you tell about your experiences. Ms. Tippett: I also see an upside of aging. When I se... posted on Mar 21 2014 (33,779 reads)

and uprisings -- and yet, he chose not to let the actions of others get to him. Instead, he always remembered that there is some of the "divine" in each of us: When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own -- not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. Aurelius believed that all men are made to coop... posted on Mar 29 2014 (108,551 reads)

I asked myself this question, it was out of absolute desperation. There was a part of me that was crying out. It was terrifying and it came out of the blue. It was so out of left field, I trusted it. The moment the brush touched the canvas, something opened in me, awakened. I connected to some part of myself that I recognized, it just had been completely neglected for years.” Art became a gateway, a homecoming to her inner self. Pamela reminds us that we are all artists and it is our nature to be creative, loving and generous. I felt a stirring in my heart In sharing with us how the “Beautiful Project” came about, Pamela relived a profound moment with a young boy... posted on Apr 9 2014 (26,467 reads)