670th Week:  Generating Empathy

670th Week: Generating Empathy

One of the things that has been very much on my mind these days is an awareness of the stunning lack of empathy expressed by public figures, particularly in the political realm. What feels so impacting is that this apparent lack of empathy resonates with so many people around the world, as reflected in news reports about the many ways in which we harm one another. Read More “670th Week: Generating Empathy”

669th Week: Accessing Options

I just listened to an interview with Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant on the NPR show,  On Being, with Krista Tippett.  The interview centered around Sheryl’s and Adam’s new book about Sheryl’s husband’s death and Adam’s work with resilience.  At the end of the interview, Sheryl said that it is really about “post traumatic growth”, Read More “669th Week: Accessing Options”

668th Week: Breathing Ease

When I was young, my grandmother taught me a practice called “breathing color” as a tool for healing and settling in. She was my first spiritual teacher, from whom I learned to meditate and to attend to the spiritual side of reality as a part of daily living and color breathing became one of the tools I called on regularly in those early years. Read More “668th Week: Breathing Ease”

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April 2017 Audio Meditation

667th Week: Practicing “Ahimsa”, Harmlessness

One of the truly challenging practices for many of us is to live with harmlessness, called “ahimsa” in Sanskrit.  A question that arises is, how do we engage the world actively without causing harm?  I remember someone once saying that the Buddha said it’s impossible not to cause harm in many small ways, simply by living.  We eat other beings as food, we inadvertently step on insects when walking around, we use and then throw away many things throughout the course of our daily lives.  And, when it comes to social action, how do we engage that if we have a commitment to ahimsa?
Read More “667th Week: Practicing “Ahimsa”, Harmlessness”