The greatest limitation beckoning our acceptance is that we simply cannot understand or even perceive the entirety of life. Br. David Steindl-Rast reinforces that we need not reject this edge, suggesting instead that it’s necessary for living into our full potential: “There can be no vision without acceptance of Mystery.”    Leaning into mystery, we unleash ourselves into invigorating territory where what felt like the tough or even insurmountable work of accepting ourselves, others, and the state of the world as is begins to soften. The waters settle and clear. Edges begin to lose their edge, burgeoning with the great fullness of life. As we c... posted on Feb 25 2020 (13,486 reads)

myself a modern Margaret Mead amongst the millennials, and I quickly learned that I had as much to offer them as they did to me.  The more I've seen and learned about our respective generations, the more I realize that we often don't trust each other enough to actually share our respective wisdom. We may share a border, but we don't necessarily trust each other enough to share that respective wisdom. I believe, looking at the modern workplace, that the trade agreement of our time is opening up these intergenerational pipelines of wisdom so that we can all learn from each other.  Almost 40 percent of us in t... posted on Feb 27 2020 (7,367 reads)

Network for Grateful Living we often refer to gratefulness as an orientation to life with an unconditional and expansive embrace. One that isn’t reserved for that which is pleasant, desired, or going our way, rather an embrace that accepts and includes the great fullness of life — the entirety of our experience. Such an embrace opens us to the teachings and opportunities within every moment. It offers us what we need not merely to survive difficult times but to appreciate their gifts, even when the gifts take time to reveal themselves. When life feels too small or too big to handle, too predictable or too uncertain, this is when we need gratefulness ... posted on Mar 15 2020 (54,581 reads)

the country toward precisely such pathways to “greater strength, clarity, joy, independence.” McCarthy lost — to another Democratic candidate, who would in turn lose to none other than Nixon — and the country plummeted into more war, more extractionism, more reactionary nationalism and bigotry. But the very rise of that unlikely candidate contoured hopes undared before — hopes some of which have since become reality and others have clarified our most urgent work as a society and a species. Fromm writes: A man who was hardly known before, one who is the opposite of the typical politician, averse to appealing on the basis of sentimentality or demagogu... posted on Mar 30 2020 (15,079 reads)

ones filling their coffers with coins. But wait. Perhaps that, too, is backwards. It is these widows, orphans, refugees and displaced persons who enrich us. They stand undefended, "the least among us," often with apparently empty hands. Yet God cherishes empty hands. Miracles happen there, precisely because God stands with those whom the world disregards. With no material wealth to give, such women connect on a deeper level. They share their struggles, their stories, their hard work, their daily living and dying, their dreams. They know nothing of the rugged independence so cherished by Westerners. They need one another, and they know it. And when some small abundance does u... posted on Apr 4 2020 (7,774 reads)

one another’s, then we are all investing our time in other people’s circumstances. Art by Isol from Daytime Visions Farman recounts a not-uncommon experience: At the grocery store, he finds himself getting reflexively frustrated with the woman ahead of him, who is taking too much time to check out. Only upon realizing that she is counting food stamps and coupons does he transport himself, with a pang of shame, into her difficult circumstances. He writes: If we work toward an awareness of time as collective rather than individual, we can come to understand wait time as an investment in the social fabric that connects us. My patience with someone like the wom... posted on Apr 7 2020 (7,476 reads)

on retreats, where the environment of “unplugging”, being surrounded by people who are meditating, and not engaging in social chit-chat are conducive factors for delving deeper into one’s internal experience and “rewiring” of stressful thought-feeling habit patterns. While over 20 years of taking (and sometimes teaching) 2-4 retreats a year has been the foundation of my mindfulness practice and experience, it is in solitude where I get some of the most profound work done. When at home, it is on my “organic nights” (where, in solitude, I courageously and playfully examine my experience) that many of my deepest insights have been born. However,&... posted on Apr 13 2020 (7,315 reads)

prepped for tomorrow? Check.Time for a quick run in between meetings? Check. Check. Check. Check. Oops, missed that one. Check again.) I both love and hate this time. I feel cooped up and starved of intimate social interaction. I wish I could hug a friend. Look at the crinkle of their eyes, laugh and hold hands over the ridiculous things our children say (Zayd's latest statement after haphazardly slapping a 1/2 inch piece of tape over a sheet of paper- "Mama don't touch that! I worked very hard on it." Then grabs the tape and stomps away. Astounded by my lack of sensitivity.) Now, with no where to go, and no where to be - save a litany of zoom conversations for work ... posted on Apr 14 2020 (6,036 reads)

was invited to write a reflection that I've titled: Powered by Love---an Emerging Worldview It is on my website, being circulated in other forums by Club of Budapest, Science and Medical Network in the UK, and others. There is a worldview that has come to dominate every aspect of global reality affecting human civilization, the natural world and planetary climate conditions. It can be summarized as the quantitative worldview. The quantitative worldview is in a crisis so deep it is leading, in an interconnected and interdependent world, to deep systemic disruptions, chaotic conditions and signs of complete failure. If this worldview were a patient receiving care it wou... posted on Apr 17 2020 (11,300 reads)

China sequestered 100 million metric tons of carbon. People in North India are gazing at the distant Himalayas —some of them for the first time in their lives. They can see blue sky from the streets of Delhi; dolphins have already returned to the canals of Venice, and so forth. Who will want to go back after they’ve seen how fast nature can recover if we give her a chance? Another thing we can take advantage of are the new forms of organization springing up, like the vast network Gandhi set up for the manufacture and distribution of homespun cloth — a typical and highly useful thing that often accompanies constructive program efforts. For us, the most promising new ... posted on May 7 2020 (8,077 reads)

as a leaf hanging on a tall tree about to tumble to earth  in autumn   And to be apart  May mean to be apart longer than anyone may have predicted And to be apart now May cost us our lives   What I am learning from my two little ones:   give in to the jubilant joy of being with the ones we love And mourn when they are not near   What could be more honest? Or more important   My loves *** For more context on the work Dr. Shamasunder and the HEAL Initiative are involved with on the ground in Navajo Nation check out these links: Three minute segment on NBC evening news live On Democracy Now  UCSF ... posted on May 8 2020 (8,549 reads)

to an unmanageable simplicity.” A complex instability is our typical default setting.  Restless with where and how and who we are, we think we need to be somewhere else, or live some other way, or be someone else.  We dream up all sorts of alternative versions of our lives and of our selves, and pursue them, without paying real attention to where and how and who we actually are.  We expend great effort in trying to get “there,” while what we most need to work at is trying to  get “here”…feeling safe and secure in the simple, unmanageable, groundless depths of our own hearts. And then there is that complex inhospitality that ... posted on May 27 2020 (6,322 reads)

the big hits come along, my heart can open instead of explode? I think the answer is that daily life presents us with all kinds of little deaths. There's the death of a friendship, the death of a dream, the death of a positive feeling, the death of a sense of hope itself. Instead of yielding to the cultural temptation, to try to pretend that this little death isn't happening, or to anesthetize ourselves against it with some drug of choice, whether that be a substance or overwork or just noise and entertainment, we choose to embrace those little deaths and experience them as fully as we can in a way that exercises the heart muscle and keeps it supple, so that when the big... posted on Jun 9 2020 (7,952 reads)

mountains, here with sponges and hard-eyed birds. In times of sorrow the innocence of the other creatures — from whom and with whom we evolved — seems a mockery.” How to end the mockery and the minstrel show is what poet Jane Hirshfield — one of the most unboastfully courageous voices of our time, an ordained Buddhist, a more-than-humanitarian: a planetarian — explores in “Spell to Be Said against Hatred,” a miniature masterwork of quiet, surefooted insistence and persistence. Included in the anthology Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy (public library) alongside contributions by Je... posted on Jun 12 2020 (6,634 reads)

didn’t know how basic it is for maintaining balance. That Africans are always dancing (in their ceremonies and rituals) shows an awareness of this. It struck me one day, while dancing, that the marvelous moves African Americans are famous for on the dance floor came about because the dancers, especially in the old days, were contorting away various knots of stress. Some of the lower-back movements handed down to us that have seemed merely sensual were no doubt created after a day’s work bending over a plow or hoe on a slave driver’s plantation. Wishing to honor the role of dance in the healing of families, communities, and nations, I hired a local hall and a local band ... posted on Jul 1 2020 (9,950 reads)

we reassure our children about the monsters beneath their beds. May we create new rituals of togetherness. May we laugh from our bellies. May we cultivate wonder. May we help our society to do better than it has done. May we examine problems from all angles and talk straight as lines. May we base decisions on collective wisdom rather than contagious fear. May we invest our trust in those who are experts, not those who pretend. May we value health over wealth. May we dedicate our daily work both to those we love and to the common good. May we sustain those workers whose invisible labor sustains us all. May we protect those who put themselves at risk to protect us. May we transfor... posted on Jul 2 2020 (45,518 reads)

bookshelves filled with books of all sizes and colors, hundreds of them. Grandpa Max never had any formal schooling beyond age 12 in the old country. At age 15 he was able to get a steamship ticket and traveled alone to America, not speaking a word of English, seeking a better life. By age 20 he was running his own successful business, a dress factory. He was able to bring his parents, and all of his brothers except the oldest, who wanted to stay in Europe, to America. Whenever he wasn’t working, Grandpa Max loved to read. He had an insatiable desire for books and learning. Grandpa Max opens the door, smiles at me, puts his hands on my shoulders and invites me into the living room.... posted on Jul 13 2020 (6,721 reads)

“For anyone with a good education, the needs of physiology, safety and esteem are non-issues, then why not focus on self-actualization?” Rashmi Bansal, author of the bestseller “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” featuring stories of 25 MBAs from IIM Ahmedabad who left lucrative jobs to take the road less travelled remarks “Venkat’s nickname on campus was ‘Fraud’ which is ironic because both in the honesty with which he speaks to me, and the actual work he does, Venkat is one of the most genuine people I have ever met.”  3 years of working in a corporate job at “The Times of India” was enough to pay back his student loa... posted on Jul 28 2020 (5,762 reads)

pain, respiratory illnesses, depression, grief, heart conditions, digestion problems, asthma, vision issues, circulation problems, stamina and more.  It also has especially transformed the lives of thousands of children who suffer from all types of neurological conditions including cerebral palsy, autism/asd/add, epilepsy and other brain injuries. In 1996, Linda founded a charity, Advance Centre, to support children with neurological issues and she has since expanded her work to support thousands of people with a wide range of physical and mental health conditions. The story of her center and its connection to her son's journey are beautifully captured in thi... posted on Jul 30 2020 (13,824 reads)

of stone or a hand shaped pottery bowl on which the glaze has dripped into beautiful random patterns. The opposite of li is zi, the rigid order of logic or of things that are clearly the result of human manipulation, such as an automobile. A perfectly round bowl with a symmetrical design along its circumference demonstrates zi and soon bores the eye.​ I learned about the difference between li and zi the first time I tried to draw a bamboo with a Chinese brush. My teacher gazed at my work and frowned, “This is not a bamboo, but a lamp-post! Have you ever seen a bamboo straight up and down or with exactly the same number of leaves on each side?” The teacher took my brus... posted on Aug 17 2020 (9,625 reads)