by Pema Chodron
“You start looking for answers, but none of the usual things work. And so you start looking for spiritual answers, but you’re still hoping that the spiritual answer will bring the bubble back for you.
To the degree that the old ways aren’t working… to that degree you start to look for answers of a different kind.”
Pema Chödrön is a leading exponent of teachings on meditation and how they apply to everyday life. She is widely known for her charming and down-to-earth interpretation of Tibetan Buddhism for Western audiences.
Recordings of Pema’s teachings are available through Great Path Tapes. The video clip below is from The Doorway to Freedom program in Berkley, California. Read the rest of this entry »
How we think about efficiency depends on the paradigm in which we live. In the machine age, we think of economies of scale, lean operations, tightly controlled strategies, long hours, and hard work. All of these have virtue, but I am also reminded of the elegance of an almost-invisible aikido move that sends a much larger opponent hurtling to the mat. Or images from the Art of War, or from the tipping-point paradigm, where a well-timed intervention releases accumulated energy toward a desired direction or result. 
It is indeed my opinion now that evil is never “radical,” that it is only extreme, and that it possesses neither depth nor any demonic dimension. It can overgrow and lay waste the whole world precisely because it spreads like a fungus on the surface. It is “thought-defying,” because thought tries to reach some depth, to go to the roots, and the moment it concerns itself with evil, it is frustrated because there is nothing. That is its “banality.” Only the good has depth and can be radical. – Hannah Arendt
Reflections on the plenary session “Strategy at the Edge” led by Adam Kahane, Margaret Wheatley, and Jim Gimian,