Time is Precious: Dr. BJ Miller's Journey, by Patricia Yollin
BJ Miller is only 40 but he thinks about death a lot. He is the new executive director of the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco and a palliative care specialist at UCSF Medical Center. He is also a triple amputee, co-founder of a tea company, owner of a farm in Utah and a newlywed who still looks like the Ivy Leaguer he once was. "I have no fear of death," Miller said. "I have a fear of not living my life fully before I die." On Nov. 27, 1990, he came close to dying. Miller, then a sophomore at Princeton University, got together for drinks with two close friends he'd made on the crew team. Around 3 a.m., they were walking to a convenience store wh... posted on Oct 17 2011 (44,588 reads)

Change Yourself, Change the World, by Birju Pandya
and more today, we see people and organizations taking on big problems with the noble goal of "changing the world." We hear the same opportunities:     * We just need to put the right system in place...     * We just need the right incentives...     * We just need the right NGO's on the ground... All of this makes sense and seems true, but within every 'successful' system or incentive, we also see the shadowy side. Recently microfinance, popularized by the great pioneer Muhammad Yunus, has been tarnished as part of this 'change the world' paradigm. The common thread in changing the world is that ... posted on Oct 29 2011 (31,106 reads)

The Food Movement: Its Power and Possibilities, by Frances Moore Lappe
years I’ve been asked, “Since you wrote Diet for a Small Planet in 1971, have things gotten better or worse?” Hoping I don’t sound glib, my response is always the same: “Both.” As food growers, sellers and eaters, we’re moving in two directions at once. The number of hungry people has soared to nearly 1 billion, despite strong global harvests. And for even more people, sustenance has become a health hazard—with the US diet implicated in four out of our top ten deadly diseases. Power over soil, seeds and food sales is ever more tightly held, and farmland in the global South is being snatched away from indigenous people by spe... posted on Nov 1 2011 (12,621 reads)

8 Approaches to Simplicity, by Duane Elgin
portray the richness of simplicity as a theme for healthy living, here are eight different flowerings that I see growing consciously in the "garden of simplicity." Although there is overlap among them, each expression of simplicity seems sufficiently distinct to warrant a separate category. These are presented in no particular order, as all are important. Uncluttered Simplicity. Simplicity means taking charge of lives that are too busy, too stressed and too fragmented. Simplicity means cutting back on clutter, complications and trivial distractions, both material and non-material, and focusing on the essentials -- whatever those may be for each of our unique lives.... posted on Nov 10 2011 (19,160 reads)

5 Reasons Why Meditation Beats an iPhone, by Rahul Brown
buy iPhones to be universally connected and have a ton of cool functions and features at their fingertips.  But as the wise monk Rev. Heng Sure once said, everything we create in silicon already exists in carbon.  I’d add that the silicon technology is a poor facsimile at best.   So how exactly do you tap into the wonderful carbon technology you carry around with you all the time? Meditation is a phenomenal tool to do just that. Here are five areas where meditation beats an iPhone.   1. Connectivity   The truth is that you can’t really connect to anyone else unless you’re in touch with yourself.  The iPhone allows and enc... posted on Nov 22 2011 (47,073 reads)

Gabon's Nine Dwarves: A Legend of Conservation, by Daniel Glick
the West African nation of Gabon is a poster child for globalization's accelerated reach for resources, its president says he is committed to increasing support for national parks. Taking on the mantle of pressing the government to implement that commitment is a non-governmental organization financed out of the modest salary of an activist who runs a cleaning business on the side. Guest columnist Daniel Glick reports: "A group of nine dwarves lived here, and one day a dwarf dropped his ax in the water," says Ladislas Désiré Ndembet, standing on the shore of Lac Blue, or Blue Lake (pictured above), in Gabon's southern province of Ngounié. According t... posted on Dec 12 2011 (9,029 reads)

How Doctors Die, by Ken Murray
Not Like the Rest of Us, But It Should Be Years ago, Charlie, a highly respected orthopedist and a mentor of mine, found a lump in his stomach. He had a surgeon explore the area, and the diagnosis was pancreatic cancer. This surgeon was one of the best in the country. He had even invented a new procedure for this exact cancer that could triple a patient’s five-year-survival odds—from 5 percent to 15 percent—albeit with a poor quality of life. Charlie was uninterested. He went home the next day, closed his practice, and never set foot in a hospital again. He focused on spending time with family and feeling as good as possible. Several months later, he... posted on Jan 25 2014 (114,858 reads)

Stepping Out of the Should Trap, by Joanna Holsten
should make more money.” “I should lose weight.” “I should volunteer more often.”   In saying “should” so often, I found myself feeling trapped by a sense of obligation and expectation. I felt this vague pressure to conform to external standards, to be someone or do something. It felt like just being me wasn’t okay. I felt pushed to follow a particular path, behave in specific ways, and believe certain things. In observing my mind and growing towards a more compassionate life, I realized that I had internalized both the messages and the method of the “shoulds.” &nbs... posted on Dec 14 2011 (39,505 reads)

4 Misconceptions About the Simple Life, by Duane Elgin
is important to recognize inaccurate stereotypes about the simple life because they make it seem impractical and ill suited for responding to increasingly critical breakdowns in world systems. Four misconceptions about the simple life are so common they deserve special attention. These are equating simplicity with: poverty, moving back to the land, living without beauty and economic stagnation. 1. Simplicity Means Poverty Although some spiritual traditions have advocated a life of extreme renunciation, it is very misleading to equate simplicity with poverty. Poverty is involuntary and debilitating, whereas simplicity is voluntary and enabling. A life of conscious simplicity can h... posted on Dec 24 2011 (32,332 reads)

Going Green: 12 Simple Steps for 2012, by Danielle Nierenberg
we ring in the new year, here are twelve steps that we can all take to reduce our impact on the environment Washington, D.C.—As we head into 2012, many of us will be resolving to lose those few extra pounds, save more money, or spend a few more hours with our families and friends. But there are also some resolutions we can make to make our lives a little greener. Each of us, especially in the United States, can make a commitment to reducing our environmental impacts. “The global community, and particularly people living in industrialized societies, have put unsustainable demands on our planet’s limited resources,” says Robert Engelman, President of the Worl... posted on Dec 29 2011 (14,222 reads)

Every Sunrise a Painting: Brain-tumor survivor's daily ritual, by Laura T. Coffey
seek out Debbie Wagner’s artwork to mark key milestones, memorialize loved ones No two sunrises are ever the same. Each day’s spectacle in the sky is altered by particles in the atmosphere, the tilt of the Earth, the lengths of different waves of light. Debbie Wagner knows this better than almost anyone else. With earnest devotion, she has risen in the darkness more than 2,200 times so she could observe and paint the sunrise. She’s rarely missed a morning since December 2005; for Wagner, the daily ritual is sustaining. “As a brain-tumor survivor, I lost so many of the loves I had, like reading and writing and mathematics,” said Wagn... posted on Feb 6 2012 (17,638 reads)

The Sweet Spot between Doing and Being, by Viral Mehta
is a simple yet profound metaphor that a childhood mentor of my mom's shared with her decades ago: "When one foot walks, the other rests." It's the way all of nature works, a beautiful reminder that everything is in ebb and flow, engaged in cycles and rhythms. Our own bodies follow natural patterns, recuperating every night and preparing for the next day's activity. With music as well, the structure imposed by notes inherently depends on the unstructured space supporting it. The notes and the space between them come together to create music. As a culture, though, we give more importance to creating notes and relatively little to the space between them. Bet... posted on Feb 28 2012 (30,175 reads)

Profit vs. Principle: The Neurobiology of Integrity, by Brandon Keim
your better self rest assured: Dearly held values truly are sacred, and not merely cost-benefit analyses masquerading as nobel intent, concludes a new study on the neurobiology of moral decision-making. Such values are conceived differently, and occur in very different parts of the brain, than utilitarian decisions. “Why do people do what they do?” said neuroscientist Greg Berns of Emory University. “Asked if they’d kill an innocent human being, most people would say no, but there can be two very different ways of coming to that answer. You could say it would hurt their family, that it would be bad because of the consequences. Or you could take the Ten Comm... posted on Feb 29 2012 (19,138 reads)

How to Support Teens in Listening, by Ricky Knue
are quick to connect with each other by telling stories and passing along gossip via texting and social media.  But students have lost the art of listening face to face by hiding behind the veil of anonymity. They talk at each other (of course, we adults do this too). As a public high school teacher, I clearly see a need for teens to learn to listen intently.    In fact, few of us in modern society know how to listen.  Henning Mankell’s recent piece on DailyGood only reiterated today’s penchant for incessant white noise chatter.  In the African parable retold by Mankell, our two ears and one mouth are a reminder that we are designed to l... posted on Feb 25 2012 (19,104 reads)

3 Little Monks and a Moment of Truth, by Pavithra Mehta
is Ankur I was introduced to him about seven minutes before the start of a meditation gathering in a modest Mumbai home. "This is Ankur," our host Sachi had said, with the catching enthusiasm she’s known and loved for, "He's an amazing photographer and has recently gone totally ‘gift economy’." For the uninitiated, in this context the term gift economy means a system in which people do not charge for their services, but rather offer them up in the unconditional spirit of a gift, inviting recipients to “pay-forward” what they wish from their heart. It represents a broader shift, a movement if you will, from; transaction to trus... posted on Mar 13 2012 (40,223 reads)

The Recovery of the Sacred, by Rachel Naomi Remen, MD
Naomi Remen, MD, is co-founder and medical director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program and founder and director of the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness (ISHI) at Commonweal. ISHI is a training institute for health professionals who wish to serve people with life threatening illness and take a more relationship-centered approach to the practice and teaching of medicine. The institute's approach is based upon experience with over 600 people with cancer who have participated in Commonweal's programs and on Dr. Remen's 20-year experience counselling people with cancer and those who love them. In addition to being a physician for 30 years, Dr Remen h... posted on Mar 23 2012 (51,827 reads)

Five Poverty-fighting Women to Watch, by Kyla Springer
five women are fighting poverty in a serious way, but they’re not handing out aid. We hope to see them scale up their models this year and make an even bigger impact. Leila Janah - Leila knows that what poor people really want is a job—steady income that pays for food, school and medicine. But American companies that "outsource" work to poorer countries aren't exactly popular right now. To Leila, the concept of “microwork” isn’t exactly outsourcing, either. She founded Samasource, a social enterprise that takes simple, computer-based tasks from companies like Intuit, Google and LinkedIn and turns them into jobs for poor peopl... posted on Mar 28 2012 (17,159 reads)

Life as a Conscious Practice, by Leo Babauta
is Practice." ~Pele When we learn a martial art, or ballet, or gymnastics, or soccer … we consciously practice movements in a deliberate way, repeatedly. By conscious, repeated practice, we become good at those movements. Our entire lives are like this, but we’re often less conscious of the practice. Each day, we repeat movements, thought patterns, ways of interacting with others … and in this repeated practice, we are becoming (or have already become) good at these things. If you constantly check Facebook or Twitter, that is practice, and you are forming that habit, though it’s usually not with too much awareness. When you s... posted on Apr 3 2012 (32,624 reads)

Why Leaders Must Feel Pain, by Peter Bregman
was on a plane, flying back to New York from California where I'd spent the week in an intense workshop, The Radically Alive Leader, led by Ann Bradney. In the aisle across from me, a mother was sitting with her two daughters, one about five years old, the other about seven. I happened to look over as the mom was working with the younger daughter on a math problem. I listened for a moment and soon found it hard to breathe. She was furious at the girl for not knowing the answers to her math problems: "Why don't you know that? What are you learning in school? All you do is watch TV!" The little girl began to cry. When she did, her mom's fury escalate... posted on May 7 2012 (26,025 reads)

Gleaning for the Greater Good, by Sarah Henry
for food — whether it's ferreting rare mushrooms in the woods,picking abundant lemons from an overlooked tree, or gathering berries from an abandoned lot — is all the rage among the culinary crowd and the D.I.Y. set, who share their finds with fellow food lovers in fancy restaurant meals or humble home suppers. But an old-fashioned concept — gleaning for the greater good by harvesting unwanted or leftover produce from farms or family gardens — is also making a comeback during these continued lean economic times. In cities, rural communities, and suburbs across the country, volunteer pickers join forces to collect bags a... posted on May 12 2012 (12,271 reads)