Sangha of Auspicious Companions

Video of the Week

The Future Is Unknowable

–Adam Grant

We’re routinely wrong about which career we’ll choose, where we’ll end up moving and whom we’ll wind up loving. We fail even more miserably when we try to predict the outcomes of national and global events. Like meteorologists trying to gauge the weather more than a few days out, we just can’t anticipate all the variables and butterfly effects.

In a landmark study, the psychologist Philip Tetlock evaluated several decades of predictions about political and economic events. He found that “the average expert was roughly as accurate as a dart-throwing chimpanzee.” Although skilled forecasters were much better, they couldn’t see around corners. No one could foresee that a driver’s wrong turn would put Archduke Franz Ferdinand in an assassin’s path, precipitating World War I.

Yet a hunch about the future can feel like a certainty because the present is so overwhelmingly, well, present. It’s staring us in the face. Especially in times of great anxiety, it can be all too tempting — and all too dangerous — to convince ourselves the future is just as visible.

Acknowledging that the future is unknowable can bring some comfort when it feels as if the world is shattered. It can also offer a dose of humility sorely needed in a chaotic world, in which new technologies such as artificial intelligence accelerate the pace of change and make its effects that much harder to guess. Even the Cassandras who manage to anticipate extreme events are usually lucky, not smart; they tend to overweight unlikely scenarios and miss the mark on probable outcomes.

Our struggles to predict the future aren’t limited to events. They apply to our feelings, too. In the heat of the moment, we overindex on our anguish today and underestimate our capacity to adapt tomorrow.

Pain and sorrow are never permanent. They evolve over time, and ideally they help us make sense, find meaning and fuel change. As the author and podcaster Nora McInerny put it, “We don’t move on from grief. We move forward with it.”

Ambiguous loss is not a funeral. It’s a reckoning. Like touching a hot stove, it hurts so we don’t miss its lessons. Anxiety about what comes next can help jolt us out of complacency.

It’s unsettling to realize we have no power to predict the future, because it means we aren’t in control of our fate. At the best of times, that can leave us holding our breath. But in the worst of times, embracing uncertainty proves liberating. It reminds us how quickly our fortune can change.

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About Awakin

Many moons ago, a couple friends got together to sit in silence for an hour, and share personal aha-moments. The ripples of that simple practice have now spread to millions over 20+ years, through local circles, weekly podcasts and more.

‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

… heartfelt moments with Vietnam love warriors immersed in a rural village community in India!

… a touching impromptu dialogue with life-long activist and mystic, James O’Dea, on dancing with Parkinsons: My Conversation with God (when I couldn’t move for 16 hours).

…Kotaro and Miyagi-san completed their largest KUNI pilgrimage last month, leading 140 changemakers and youth (photos), while in Austrian Alps, Martin and dozens of anchors supported a 300-person dialogue from well-doing with well-being (photos).

… beloved storyteller Brian Conroy’s recent rendition: Big Joe and the Phantom 309.

… as a remote volunteer, Ari’s trying out a new skill — AI music. 🙂 Here’s his first music video offering for Gandhi 3.0: Where New Seeds Sow

… over last three weeks alone, India has been home to 8 retreats — from business to educators to AI to heart intelligence — and loads of local events and circles across 9 cities. Below are some smiles from our Laddership Retreat:

Video of the Week

The Softening

–Richard Rudd

When we become soft, we become like water.

We let life come to us.

We trust in its flow, and we allow ourselves to be taken in whichever direction it chooses.

This is true power because it comes from love, and love is the softest thing in the universe, and yet it is the most powerful.

When you soften your attitude to yourself, to others, and to life, you release the natural wisdom that lies within you.

Your body softens, your thoughts soften, and your heart softens.

Through softness, you find clarity and purpose without needing to force anything.

Your life becomes a gentle unfolding rather than a constant battle.

Add A Reflection

Awakin Archives

History

Awakin Readings

Awakin Interviews

Local Circles

About Awakin

Many moons ago, a couple friends got together to sit in silence for an hour, and share personal aha-moments. The ripples of that simple practice have now spread to millions over 20+ years, through local circles, weekly podcasts and more.

Libraries are not about books, they’re about people.

– Skye Patrick –

‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

… heartfelt moments with Vietnam love warriors immersed in a rural village community in India!

… a touching impromptu dialogue with life-long activist and mystic, James O’Dea, on dancing with Parkinsons: My Conversation with God (when I couldn’t move for 16 hours).

…Kotaro and Miyagi-san completed their largest KUNI pilgrimage last month, leading 140 changemakers and youth (photos), while in Austrian Alps, Martin and dozens of anchors supported a 300-person dialogue from well-doing with well-being (photos).

… beloved storyteller Brian Conroy’s recent rendition: Big Joe and the Phantom 309.

… as a remote volunteer, Ari’s trying out a new skill — AI music. 🙂 Here’s his first music video offering for Gandhi 3.0: Where New Seeds Sow

… over last three weeks alone, India has been home to 8 retreats — from business to educators to AI to heart intelligence — and loads of local events and circles across 9 cities. Below are some smiles from our Laddership Retreat:

Video of the Week

When we recognize the wholeness and strength within ourselves, and act from that place of deep inner knowing, our lives naturally get better.

– Scott Lennox –

Staying True To Your Heart Is The Essence Of Life

–Kerri Lake

That despair distills from a relationship with survival. Humanity has been feeding itself the message that survival is hard, survival is good, survival of the fittest is best. When the focus of life is on survival, then everything looks like a competitive struggle.

Life itself is not trying to survive. Life begets life. Life celebrates itself in every subtlety and every overwhelm. Every aspect of life remains open and flexible, available to what might be required for its perpetuation. Even in an environment that seems to be lacking the means, somehow, life finds its way.

As a human, with this super-fast processor we call a mind-brain (which I have affectionately nicknamed "Thinkytown" or "Thinky Town" if you prefer), you have an option in every moment to look around and see survival or look around and see life. You’ll be right either way. You will find both.

For some, being right is everything! It’s their whole life. They don’t know who they are without a struggle to be right. So, let’s let them be right, and then ask, "show me the truth."

Truth is in the realm of the heart. You won’t find just one right Truth or wrong Truth that the heart sequesters away, teasing you with unsolvable puzzle after unsolvable puzzle, calling it ‘the real world.’ Truth is a feeling. It sings to you with an absence of conflict, a lightness that requires no defense and offers no offense. To welcome a relationship with truth is to welcome an intimacy from which you cannot hide. Coming from a world built to prioritize survival, intimacy with anything can feel like being followed by a sniper.

The further you go, the less you want to hide. Truth offered through the heart has this way of turning survival inside out. The heart says, "I see you and offer no conflict." In that light, survival very quickly reveals itself as a terribly inefficient approach to life. In the lightness of the heart, all of survival’s sticky needs and tangled "yeah-buts" trip over each other in a comedy on par with Larry, Moe and Curly.

This is the essence of life. Lightness of being. Survival doesn’t know where to look for lightness. Thinkytown couldn’t hold onto it if it tried. But the heart knows its music.

In lightness of being there is space for everything. Nothing is excluded, not even the stickiest, crustiest need that drops on your head, dusty from sitting on the top shelf for a couple of decades where someone stuff.

Add A Reflection

Awakin Archives

History

Awakin Readings

Awakin Interviews

Local Circles

About Awakin

Many moons ago, a couple friends got together to sit in silence for an hour, and share personal aha-moments. The ripples of that simple practice have now spread to millions over 20+ years, through local circles, weekly podcasts and more.