The First Amendment is the most important of all amendments to the US Constitution — after all, it is first not the second or anything beyond amendment, enacted along with the additional nine amendments as the price of acceptance by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and other Founding Fathers who feared the power of the government they were creating, worried that…
We entered together, but I found the lushest dress in the store: crinoline flowers, bright blue, and floor length. We had gone to get my mom something. After medical school and a grueling residency, she was graduating. She didn’t find a dress and, in my memory, she wore a pink shirt-dress from her closet to the celebration. I, six years…
It seems that after any disaster or tragedy, be it a horror of human making, or the aftermath of nature’s wrath, be it across the oceans or around the corner, we are inundated with images of suffering across our TV screens and social media feeds. We witness faces contorted with fear, mouths gaping in disbelief, bodies crouched, crying uncontrollably. In…
In faith-based organizing or spiritual movements, we rely on internal power a lot. We wear T-shirts that read, “What’s inside Matters.” We generate our own power. We don’t have material power, don’t have big lobbyists to pay, or a lot of wind at our back from the status quo. Thus, we go inside. We are powered by solar and wind…
I felt on call with my poem Extinction Aria, as I wanted to create a kind of sutra for the times, a prayer, an incantation of urgency, a romp through the six realms in Buddhist philosophy. Printer and designer, David Sellers of Pied Oxen, had suggested the idea of a Tibetan stye book—with “pecha,” unbound pages. Pages bound in yellow…
I was recently targeted for an ad from a new company called Karmastry. In the same way that DNA testing maps out your genes, Karmastry provides a detailed karma analysis that maps out your past lives, shedding considerable light on otherwise unexplainable peculiarities. Naturally, I was intrigued. Karmastry sent me a surprisingly thorough questionnaire that took several hours to complete,…
For today’s leaders, mindfulness—training the mind to be more focused and aware—is becoming a survival skill and a cornerstone of self-leadership. The pressure on leaders is increasing, as are the pace of change, the volume of information available, and the scale of complexity.
We recently presented a conversation between Robert Wright and Reverend Dr. Serene Jones at the 92nd Street Y in New York City about the science and philosophy of meditation and enlightenment. A lightly edited version of their conversation—focusing on the political implications of this topic—appears below. Wright is the author of the acclaimed books The Evolution of God, Nonzero, The…