"I decided to visit my friend Aristotle, who lives in a house on a hill at the west end of the ranch. We sampled various kinds of cookies and sipped decaffeinated green tea, and we vented, kvetched, and rhapsodized, as we are prone to do. Mostly kvetched, if the truth be told. Aristotle just turned ninety, and I seek the wisdom of an elder from him, but he is too modest to admit he has acquired any. Somehow I found myself telling him a little about the sad history of my family of origin, how noisy my ghosts can be, and how even now, they are still angry and disappointed in me. I realize this theme comes up too often--I could imagine Monte getting bored and impatient, having heard it all many times before. But this was a new listener. I indulged myself in the telling. It was almost like sitting with a psychiatrist. Aristotle was sympathetic but a little baffled. "When will you finally believe what a good person you are?" he asked."... Cynthia Carbone shares more in this candid, thoughtful post. [Read more ...]
In a few hours, we are interviewing Rayna Dineen at Awakin Calls. She is founder of Reading Quest, a non-profit based in Santa Fe,that provides free structured literacy tutoring and social emotional skills to hundreds of undersupported, struggling young readers. Meeting Amma, the Indian "hugging saint" was a turning point in Rayna's life, that inspired her to a path of selfless service. Here is a short inspiring clip about their work --
And hosting the call is our volunteer Melissa Stephens, a big-hearted elementary school teacher for last 29 years. Every day at roll call, she looks into each student's eyes with a smile and whispers "I see you". In her own words, she is "excited and nervous about the call, which always feels like the best combo."Join live here.
"Moonshot Pirates" has a youth challenge across 150 countries. The winning groups get a trip to the Silicon Valley! On that visit, their last stop? The Awakin Circle home in Santa Clara. Here's the group founder, Marko Londa, sharing on LinkedIn:
In a week dominated by conversations about AI, tech, entrepreneurship, and moonshots, the most memorable one was about love and compassion.
With everything we do and every company we launch, we must aim to contribute to society. Approach life with love. That’s the real moonshot.
Thank you, ServiceSpace, for inspiring and sharing this important lesson.
In any given experiment, he reported, about 30 percent of the people do, indeed, behave selfishly. But, he continued, “fully half of all people systematically, significantly and predictably behave cooperatively."
"The point is, across a wide range of experiments, in widely diverse populations, one finding stands out: In practically no human society examined under controlled conditions have the majority of people consistently behaved selfishly."
Humanity hasn’t thrived all these centuries because we’re ruthlessly selfish; we’ve thrived because we’re really good at cooperation.
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki (1870~1966) was a prolific Japanese-American philosopher, writer and translator. He is considered by many to be Zen's unofficial "apostle to the West." He traveled and lectured extensively, interacting with diverse audiences and some of the most brilliant and creative minds of the age, among them Carl Jung, Martin Heidegger, Alan Watts, Thomas Merton, John Cage, and Gary Snyder. He is the author of more than 30 books, including, "An Introduction to Zen Buddhism. A ZEN LIFE is a documentary feature on this extraordinary man. Watch it here. [Read more ...]
