https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBZyRlxVd-E In this TedTalk, Robert Thurman shows us how to expand our compassion. "It’s hard to always show compassion — even to the people we love, but Robert Thurman asks that we develop compassion for our enemies. He prescribes a seven-step meditation exercise to extend compassion beyond our inner circle." … [Read more...]
Pema Chodron on Overcoming Anger
Fear, anger, and hatred, while negative emotions, exist in order to teach us something. When we become aware of our various emotions, we learn why we feel the way we do. When we learn why we feel the way we do, our emotions become productive, rather than destructive forces. Anger usually appears when we fail to set healthy boundaries. If we don't recognize what our anger is trying to tell us (the wisdom of our anger), it soon descends into violence, hatred, fear, and destruction. In the lecture "Don't Bite The Hook," Tibetan-American Buddhist Pema Chodron teaches us how we can transform anger into compassion and love. … [Read more...]
From Disconnection to Connection (featuring Brother David)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjxKemXvzX8 Brother David discussing disconnection and connection at Wisdom 2.0. … [Read more...]
Worrying Less in 5 Steps
We’ve all heard the saying that in life there are ups and down and there is the classic eastern saying that life is filled with 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows. With this there’s the wisdom that all things come and go, but the brain has a funny way of amplifying the sorrows and minimizing the joys for good evolutionary reasons. Whenever the brain perceived something as “bad” it starts to worry about it. But often times there is no real utility to the worry, it only serves to dig us into a deeper hole and blinds us to the joys that might be waiting around the corner. Here is one of the best cartoons I’ve found that says it like it is: Illustration by Charles Schulz There really is no … [Read more...]
Herman Hesse; Siddhartha Excerpt
Enjoy this excerpt from this new translation of the beloved Herman Hesse classic Siddhartha. Siddhartha chronicles the spiritual evolution of a man living during the time of the Buddha. The following chapter is titled "Awaken". As Siddhartha left the grove, leaving the Buddha, the perfect one behind, leaving Govinda behind, he had the feeling he was also leaving behind in the grove his life, up to that time, and separating himself from it. He pondered this feeling, which completely filled him, as he slowly made his way. He pondered deeply, sinking down in to the depths of this feeling as through deep water until he reached the point where the causes lie, for to know the causes, so it … [Read more...]
Radical Open Mindedness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de6_ndhL40s This Nalanda Institute video features Dr. Joe Loizzo, Founder & Director of Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science. This brief video unpacks the way the dreamlike art of compassion and the wisdom of radical open mindedness born of contemplative self-analysis together provide the raw material for a more enlightened, proactive self, ready, willing and able to meet the demands of a life of infinite information and interdependence. Sign up for our newsletter and receive WisdomFeed's Mindfulness Welcome Pack courtesy of Better Listen! … [Read more...]
Healing Oneself Healing the World with Thich Nhat Hanh and Friends
Healing Oneself and Healing the World featuring Thich Nhat Hanh and practice with Br. Phap Dung and Sr. Dang Nghiem September 24, 2013. 120-minute dharma talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh from Magnolia Grove Monastery in Batesville, Mississippi during the 2013 Nourishing Great Togetherness teaching tour. This is the orientation for the 6-day retreat with the theme Healing Ourselves, Healing the World. Creating a healing environment in our physical and spiritual spaces. How do we produce a thought that is filled with understanding and compassion? Building a sangha or a practice center is one method. In our tradition, we begin by looking at our suffering. We can then recognize the suffering in … [Read more...]
Thich Nhat Hanh: Compassion and Suffering
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG3PEoJpYBs Thich Nhat Hahn in an interview from Whispers on the Wind on suffering and compassion. Whisper on the Wind is a worldwide documentary about the big questions of life. Sign up for our newsletter and receive WisdomFeed's Mindfulness Welcome Pack courtesy of Better Listen! … [Read more...]
The 5 Question Compassion Test
What type of compassion do you have? Sign up for our newsletter and receive WisdomFeed's Mindfulness Welcome Pack courtesy of Better Listen! … [Read more...]
The Neuroscience of Compassion
“The best way to activate positive-emotion circuits in the brain is through generosity,” Davidson, who founded the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at University of Wisconsin, Madison, said in a talk at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “This is really a kind of exciting neuroscientific finding because there are pearls of wisdom in the contemplative tradition—the Dalai Lama frequently talks about this—that the best way for us to be happy is to be generous to others. And in fact the scientific evidence is in many ways bearing this out, and showing that there are systematic changes in the brain that are associated with acts of generosity.” Running Time: 1:24 Purchase this audiobook … [Read more...]