Sangha of Auspicious Companions

September 23, 2011

a project of CharityFocus

6 Tips for Raising Non-Competitive Kids

Competition, according to author and lecturer Alfie Kohn, is defined as any situation where one person can succeed only when others fail. Kohn is convinced that we’ve all bought into dangerous myths about the value of competition in our personal lives, workplaces, society, and economic system. He laid out his arguments in his 1986 book No Contest: The Case Against Competition, and he’s been spreading the word ever since. He insists that competition is not human nature; it’s something we learn. “The message that competition is appropriate, desirable, required, and even unavoidable is drummed into us from nursery school” he writes. And according to Kohn, competition undermines self-esteem, destroys relationships, thwarts productivity, and discourages excellence. Here are six tips gleaned from his writings and talks, backed by hundreds of studies. { read more }

Be The Change

“Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be first in love. I want you to be first in moral excellence. I want you to be first in generosity.” Martin Luther King Jr.’s perspective on healthy competition. { more }

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September 22, 2011

a project of CharityFocus

Unexpected Gestures of Compassion

“Through some incredible good luck no one was seriously hurt but the experience was very frightening. There was so much smoke that my first thought was to just get out of my car as fast as I could. I could hear the children from the car behind me screaming and crying as I was trying to claw my way out of my car. When I got out, I could see their mum was frantically trying to comfort her shaking crying children and move them away from the smoking cars at the same time. I kept thinking ‘Oh my God, these children are so young,’ and I felt so bad about colliding with them. I thought that the parents would probably be so angry and upset at me. But instead of being angry the mum simply said to me ‘Come here. You need to join in our hug.'” So begins a real world story of true kindness. { read more }

Be The Change

The next time someone makes a mistake, try surprising them with forgiveness and kindness.

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September 21, 2011

a project of CharityFocus

Food Abundance from Food Waste

Every week they provide food for as many as 1,500 households in Marin County (CA). They don’t charge for the food. Nor do they get paid themselves. Who are these people and why do they do this? They are two community elders, Ruth Schwartz and her husband Curt Kinkead, supported by a team of about 100 volunteers. They do it because Curt “gets fed by the joy he sees in the people who come to collect the food he delivers.” Ruth adds, “If we [Ruth and Curt] do something together where we face out into the world and make a contribution, that is a key piece of having our relationship thrive.” Respecting Our Elders started in 2005 when Curt and Ruth, residents of a subsidized housing development, noticed that some of their neighbors weren’t getting enough to eat. { read more }

Be The Change

Write Ruth and Curt a note of gratitude and support. { more }

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September 20, 2011

a project of CharityFocus

Why Does Beauty Exist?

“Why does beauty exist? What’s the point of marveling at a Rembrandt self portrait or a Bach fugue? To paraphrase Auden, beauty makes nothing happen. Unlike our more primal indulgences, the pleasure of perceiving beauty doesn’t ensure that we consume calories or procreate. Rather, the only thing beauty guarantees is that we’ll stare for too long at some lovely looking thing. Museums are not exactly adaptive. Here’s my (extremely speculative) theory: Beauty is a particularly potent and intense form of curiosity. […] Put another way, beauty is a motivational force that helps modulate conscious awareness. The problem beauty solves is the problem of trying to figure out which sensations are worth making sense of and which ones can be easily ignored.” This Wired Magazine article offers an insightful look into the neuroscience of beauty. { read more }

Be The Change

“There is a wonderful urgency within things to realize the dream of their individual fulfillment. Nothing is neutral, everything is on its way.” John O’Donohue shares beautifully in this short passage. { more }

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September 19, 2011

a project of CharityFocus

How to Transform Negative Emotions

“The word emotion comes from the Latin emovere, meaning to ‘move through or out.’ So in its original form, there isn’t any trace of clinging to, or rejecting, these movements. But instead of allowing emotions to move through and out of us, we often feed them with negative thoughts and end up giving them long-term residence. In short order, the guests take over the house, leaving us reeling and unable to truly be in control. So how do we turn this unhelpful pattern around? The key to any pattern is repetition. But in the case of such reactivity, this repetition is actually happening below the radar of our conscious mind. By the time a situation escalates to the point of emotion, we often find ourselves overpowered. The challenge, then, comes in sharpening our awareness so that we become sensitive to smaller versions of these same emotions.” { read more }

Be The Change

Try allowing emotions to move through or out of you today.

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September 18, 2011

a project of CharityFocus

Friendship Balloons

When 9 year old Sara-Beth Martin let out red balloons in her send-off party a week before her second heart surgery, little did she know that one of them will travel 180 miles to reach 8 year old Reanna — struggling with troubles of her own. The balloons carried a simple request of praying for Sara for her successful surgery. Reanna knew adversity and pain herself — she lost her mother to cervical cancer when she was just 4 years old. Reanna wrote a heart warming note to Sara and this marked the beginning of a friendship based on trust, hope and optimism. The friendship had a remarkable effect on Sara: not only was her surgery successful, her appetite returned and she went from frail to energetic in just a couple of months. { read more }

Be The Change

Anne Morrow Lindbergh shares a beautiful reflection on “the mutuality of first sympathy, [which] seems, at its initial appearance — even if merely in exciting conversation across a dinner table — to be a self enclosed world. Two people listening to each other, two shells meeting each other, making one world between them.” { more }

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September 17, 2011

a project of CharityFocus

The Dumpster

“‘We can’t use these. They look like heirlooms!’ Gina, a guest at my holiday gathering, holds up one of the elaborately embroidered napkins from the buffet table. ‘Where’d you get them?’ ‘Out of a dumpster. The tablecloth and those candleholders were in there, too.’ ‘You can’t be serious! Why would they be in a dumpster?’ The shock in her voice carried across the room, and others looked up. It’s common that women ask where something came from, especially if it’s an attractive article of clothing or new addition to the house. But to name a dumpster as the source of anything, especially an object of beauty, is completely unexpected. My explanation created an atmosphere of mystery.” What follows is a touching true story by author Meredith Sabini on what gives objects value. { read more }

Be The Change

Take a look around at the things in your living space. Do some seem imbued with memories, while others don’t?

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Bottle to Bulb

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