Tag: religion
The Emptiness of Fullness
“Emptiness is the ground of everything. Thanks to emptiness, everything is possible.” —Nagarjuna, 2nd century Buddhist philosopher “Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your very essence emerged from emptiness.” —Wayne Dyer, 21st-century populist philosopher My wife and I recently watched Broadchurch, an ITV crime-mystery series. It was captivating, well-acted (Olivia Coleman, as always, was amazing), and surprisingly insightful. Each episode hinted at a different, possible suspect and lured us into believing our assumptions Read More
Peace Babies
I learned what it was like to live in a first-world country over the past two weeks: no litter, no homelessness, on-time bullet trains, state-of-the-art communications, universal health care, and lower levels of inequality and crime than almost any developed country. Less than 1 civilian in 100 owns a gun compared to 127 guns per 100 civilians in the United States. And children have affordable access to quality education from Pre-K (starting at 2 years Read More
Powering and Empowering
In collaboration with Artie Vipperla, Founder, Energy’s Way Real leaders can step into big moments and make something big happen. They bring a personal power to critical moments that makes all the difference. The key is to recognize the key moments where extra power is needed and to bring total being into those moments before it is too late. Think Churchill. Think Martin Luther King. Where did they find the personal power to make such Read More
Binary Blindness
“Obviously, there is no such thing as race, and in many ways, sex is a continuum, not a binary. So it doesn’t make sense to label people in that way.” —Gloria Steinem I get to the airport 7 hours before departure in hopes of catching an earlier flight home. It’s a busy Friday so all flights are full. I’m stuck with the bleak prospect of surviving the whole day in a chaotic scene I deplore. Read More
Spirituality and Religion
“Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been.” —Bonnie Raitt “Spirituality is meant to take us beyond our tribal identity into a domain of awareness that is more universal.” —Deepak Chopra My wife and I (and our dog, Henri) recently spent 38 hours driving from San Diego, California to Traverse City, Michigan. We didn’t want to put 10-year old Henri in the underbelly of Read More
And
“The complexity of things—the things within things—just seems to be endless. I mean nothing is easy, nothing is simple.” —Alice Munro I catch a lot of flak in my family for not being an avid dog lover. Every time someone raves about how much they love dogs, I get a sideways glance that barks, “Why can’t you be more like that?” The truth is that I like dogs, AND I have a hard time accepting Read More
Factivists
I recently saw a simple and profound bumper sticker with just one word describing the driver’s orientation to life: FACTIVIST. I thought, now there’s a person I’d like to meet—an activist with command of the facts. In the last couple of weeks, I also read Stephen Pinker’s wonderful new book, Enlightenment Now and Jeremy Lent’s inspiring new book, The Patterning Instinct. Both of these books arm us with the facts we need to become more Read More
The Menace of Mendacity
Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters. —Albert Einstein There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting. —Buddha Truth is not a trivial thing. Words matter. Being accurate requires curiosity, diligence, and rigor. I know that everyone has a different idea about what is truth. Much of the debate started when Pontius Pilate asked Read More
Prophets and Their Purposes
The world has been blessed with powerful messages from prophets of the past. Five of these prophets have a present-day influence on billions of people: Moses, Laozi, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad. These five men were the impetus for Judaism, Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Those religions represent almost 6 billion of the 7.6 billion people on the planet. Given those numbers, it seems appropriate to discuss who they were and what they were about. Read More
Evolution of Consciousness
My wife sometimes accuses me of selective engagement. She says I am much more open to conversation with people whom I find physically attractive, intellectually stimulating, emotionally responsive, or spiritually evolved.
Guilty as charged. As it turns out, the idea of selective engagement goes back 500 million years.
Shams and Shame
In the book, Mark Twain and the Art of the Tall Tale, Henry Wonham quotes Twain as saying, “the moral responsibility of the American humorist is ‘the deriding of shams, the exposure of pretentious falsities,’ and ‘the laughing of stupid superstitions out of existence.’” Thus, he said, “the humorist is the natural enemy of royalties, nobilities, privileges, and all kindred swindles, and is the natural friend of human rights and liberties.” Twain offered high praise Read More
Wisdom and Wealth
All religions allude to the challenge of acquiring enough wisdom to deal with whatever wealth you may have.
These various points of view help us address the questions, “What is wisdom?” and “How do you measure wealth?”
Truth, Honor, Integrity, and Sensitivity (THIS)
My dad was a man of honor. If he said he was going to do something, you could bank on it getting done. He was also a very talented man. He constructed two family houses pretty much by himself. He built me a small car from scratch. He invented aluminum two-by-fours for houses. I never saw him treat anyone with anything but decency and respect. Most importantly, he stood by his principles, and his word was gold.
The Many Sides of Extremism
I just finished two books that shed new light on service and sacrifice and put them in perspective. The first, Strangers Drowning, discusses multiple examples of moral extremism; the second, When Breath Becomes Air, describes the experience of a 37-year-old Stanford neurosurgeon who died of cancer the year he finished his residency and was about to embark on a stellar career. In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar shares the stories of people who broke all norms and Read More
Religion: For Better or For Worse
And it seems such a waste of time If that’s what it’s all about Mama, if that’s movin’ up then I’m movin’ out And if that’s what you have in mind Yeah, if that’s what you’re all about Good luck, moving up, ‘cause I’m movin’ out —Billy Joel In psychology, there is a body of work that suggests that confrontation may at times be necessary for change, but it is never sufficient. Similarly, one might Read More