a blog by John P. Schuster
Every four years we do an election thing and the cyclicality of the whole, shenanigans and all, is a rhythmic national ritual of affirming our values, our identity, our direction. The shenanigans make us cynical about politics, as if we needed more reasons to get cynical. Remember what Lilly Tomlin said, “No matter how cynical I get, it never seems to be enough.” If we slip, or dive, into the cynical path, there is no[…]
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Einstein was a scientific genius no one doubts. What is lesser known or acknowledged is that he was a wisdom teacher as demonstrated in his hundreds of letters to colleagues and family. Just reading his quotes on imagination and intuition— “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.” “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a[…]
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I mention here two books that you might find very useful for your well-being. They are recent but not new, and written by accomplished thinkers. In chronological order. Book 1, Altered Traits (2017): You may have seen the pictures first published in the 90’s—monks with electro encephalograph wires all over their heads measuring their brains during meditation. That was Dr. Richard Davidson at work, in the labs at the University of Wisconsin. A few decades[…]
Read moreGratitude is the wine of the soul. Go ahead and get drunk. Giving thanks for abundance is greater than the abundance itself. Rumi Summary: Humility and gratitude are fundamental. They are like blocking and tackling in football and throwing and catching in baseball– the basics. All psychological growth, loving relationships and spiritually tuning in depend on these two foundations: and they feed each other. They deserve our attention. Humility and gratitude sound like virtues in[…]
Read moreLoving activism has a neurological base. I was in the audience for a set of short lectures by notable personalities earlier this year, the ones that end up on YouTube: Krista Tippet, George W Bush, The Dalai Lama, and Mahatma Gandhi. They all gave good talks and I liked Gandhi’s the most. (Well, ok, this only happened in my mind. But I do think if Gandhi gave a mini-lecture today it would sound something like[…]
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Out beyond rightdoing and wrongdoing there is a field. I will meet you there. Rumi Summary: We extend beyond ourselves often, going under, over and past our normal thought pattern boundaries. Practice 3 is about going beyond regularly, on purpose, and staying there longer when we do. There are many avenues to the expanded space and time of the peace-engendering dimensions beyond our normal crowded thought streams. We will touch upon four of them—the arts,[…]
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All the world’s a stage; And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts …Shakespeare’s As You Like It Summary: We are the chief actor in our life play. At some point we find that we can be the director of the play too. And we can keep going: we can more knowingly become the playwright as we mature, self-authoring[…]
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An introduction This is the intro to a series of short reads on practices we can develop to foster habits of mind and a useful mindset, one that can both exist alongside and amplify the ones that already serve us. My goal is to provide a means to grow and enhance our patterns of attention, and make the world a better place by doing so. Leaders of all kinds, from all human enterprise settings and[…]
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