Sangha of Auspicious Companions

TAKING CARE OF OURSELVES

I’ve known many people who have spent years exercising daily, getting massages, doing yoga, faithfully following one food or vitamin regimen after another, pursuing spiritual teachers and different styles of meditation, all in the name of taking care of themselves. Then something bad happens to them and all those years don’t seem to have added up to the inner strength and kindness for themselves that they need to relate with what’s happening. And they don’t add up to being able to help other people or the environment.

When taking care of ourselves is all about me, it never gets at the unshakable tenderness and confidence that we’ll need when everything falls apart. When we start to develop maitri for ourselves, unconditional acceptance of ourselves, then we’re really taking care of ourselves in a way that pays off. We feel more at home with our own bodies and minds and more at home in the world. As our kindness for ourselves grows, so does our kindness for other people.

June 20, 2012

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The Opposite of Poverty is Justice

Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer who spends most of his time in jails, prisons, on death row and in low-income communities, shares some hard truths about America’s criminal justice system, starting with a massive imbalance along racial lines: a third of young black men between the ages of 18 and 30 has been incarcerated at some point in their lives. In this video Bryan urges the TED audience to think about our identity as a nation. When we don’t think or care about the poor, we diminish the positive in our lives. “We cannot be full, evolved human beings until we care about basic human rights and dignity,” said Bryan at the end of his talk, stirring the audience to a standing ovation. { read more }

Be The Change

Reflect on one of Bryan Stevenson’s simple truths: “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”

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