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Last week, ServiceSpace was invited to offer our vision to several thousand changemakers at a global Inner Development Goals Summit in Sweden. Below is the plenary on "AI + Heart Intelligence" from the ServiceSpace lens ... it felt like people were hungry for such a narrative! |
A reflection from Mia ... |
Trishna in London writes ... We offer a deep bow of gratitude to Jin Chuan and Jin Wei for holding space for all of us with such grace, presence and wisdom at today's retreat, and for the thoughtfulness with which they curated an incredibly nourishing weeklong learning journey. Many of us will continue to deepen our understanding of the virtues and most importantly how to practice them in our day-to-day interactions. Many people shared that today was the most at ease and relaxed they have felt in the presence of monastics and how much they were able to learn and take away as a result of the warm and friendly interactions, the way they held space and how honest and human they both were in what they shared. It's truly a testament to the community and lineage that Jin Chuan and Jin Wei are a part of in California, which is rooted in humility and builds bridges with its surrounding ecosystem in the spirit of service and generosity. |
Heard at Inner Development Goals conference in Stockholm: |
KarunaNews: One Man's Mission To Save Ho-Chunk Language |
What a joy to journey with so many people from around the planet -- for our 21-day Interfaith Compassion Challenge. Collectively, we wrote almost a 4000-page living textbook, with our personal stories, stories and practices. Wow.
Thank you, all! |
Mari Lang interviewed Nipun on Austria's National Radio -- and peppered it with songs ranging from Bob Marley to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to Eminem to Nimo to Gandhi's favorite prayer! |
Delighted to get this note from Larry, a past Pod participant:
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Lots of ripples continuing in Spain ... here's a few photos from recent events that Joserra shared: Moved By Love retreat in Altea: Karma Kitchen crew: And another retreat on the Camino De Santiago: |
Here was our response: Back in 1999, ServiceSpace started in response to the greed narrative of Silicon Valley. Many on the founding team were college kids conditioned to create dot-coms (lot of our peers indeed created household brands); but we were beating to a different drum -- here's an SF Weekly article from 2001 that chronicales this counter-culture approach. We had three principles: be volunteer-run, don't fundraising, think small. It was radically opposite of the "big money, big staff, big change" narrative. Take a look at this 2007 document articulating some of the power behind this: Tao of ServiceSpace (CharityFocus was our previous name) and this TedX talk: Designing for Generosity Fast forward 25 years, and ServiceSpace is now host to half a million visitors to its sites everyday; every year, we send out 70 million emails; we host hundreds of in-person and virtual events with some of the most prominent folks on the planet. Yet, the ecosystem sniffs out all remnants of a transactional mindset -- no solicitation, no advertising, never even a "buy this" link (even for our beloved author friends). Initially, it seems naive, but after decades of experience, the ServiceSpace journey is creating a new narrative beyond the power of 3M's of market, media and military -- where money gives way to alternate forms of wealth; broadcast gives way to "deepcast" of many-to-many networks; leadership gives way to "laddership". In this second term, Obama invited us to offer policy recommendations to unlock similarly uncommon ripples for America. That leads to an inevitable question -- so then how do you pay the bills? :) Consider the Buddha's example of needing to feed his thousands of monks daily. He could've asked the King to feed his monks (philanthropy), or asked an entrepreneur to create a transactional framework (business) to cover their needs, but instead, he asked them to go on alms rounds. ServiceSpace experience shows that there were ample good reasons for Buddha to adopt that approach. :) If you have delivered enough value, there's no stopping the flow of gratitude from the web of those relationships; and if not, all schemes to manipulate the outcomes will invariably lead to immediate or downstream violence. The Hindu sacred text, Bhagwad Gita, offers a simple practice: renounce all outcomes. After collectively experimenting with releasing transactions, it's easy to see the wisdom of that approach. You start swimming in the abundance of non-financial wealth, resting in the ripples that span much wider arcs of existence, and smiling at ongoing-wow of an emergence that is powered by a cosmic intelligence. |