Joy
1. Always maintain only a joyful mind. —Mind-training slogan, Pema Chödrön, Always Maintain a Joyful Mind 2. The effect of wisdom is continuous joy… and only the strong, the just, and the temperate can possess…
Category: Wisdom Traditions
People
If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts…
Awe
Two things fill the mind with every new and increasing wonder and awe, the oftener and the more steadily I reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I…
First Things First
It is not for us to find fault with anyone else and sit in judgment over him. We should be exhausted judging ourselves only, and so long as we notice a single fault in ourselves…
An Anti-Defamation League unto Himself
I’ve read half of Philip Roth’s books, a few more than once. Recently I returned to the novel Operation Shylock and was struck by this testimonial outburst of one of the characters— “‘Grant me that…
The Art of Living: Lights from Asia–A Spring-Summer-Fall Class 2021
Instead of going out of your way to seek the extraordinary, what if you could live in a more carefree way, just by subtly changing your regular, everyday life? —Shunmyo Masuno, Japan Sometimes I feel…
Undeclinable
Emmanuel Levinas, Difficult Freedom Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Infinity: Conversations With Phillippe Nemo Emmanuel Levinas and Jill Robbins, Is It Righteous to Be? Interviews with Emmanuel Levinas A person dear to me is finishing her…
An Emerging New World Ethic
Hans Küng Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic Crossroad, 1991 There can be no ongoing human society without a world ethic for the nations. There can be no peace among the nations…
Leaving No Room
The Wisdom of the Arabs Compiled by Sheila Bushrui Oneworld Publications, 2002 Here lately, friends and I have been reading and discussing the wisdom of the Stoics as well as St. Francis and His Companions….
Share the Wealth: Francis of Assisi
[T]oday it is not nearly enough to be a saint, but we must have the saintliness demanded by the present moment, a new saintliness, itself also without precedent. —Simone Weil #1 A Prayer Lord, make…