HoneyBees: An Experience Worth Sharing

Sitting with Gratitude
Written by Sarika Jain, AVP, Strategy and Innovation

Last night we had a beautiful Awakin sit here in Manhattan, where we shared our reflections on our daily life and on the heart-opening passage, ‘Micro Moments of Love’. Through each sit I attend, my heart fills with gratitude for the group wisdom, the buddha, that emerges through powerful reflections from the heart. This latest jewel of collective wisdom of the sangha is what I wish to share with the community today.

Bah, as described to the group, is a Japanese word that describes the energy that exists in the physical and energetic space between two people vibrating at a high frequency. It is the magical electric current of love that comes alive between two people as they share a joyful, love-filled connection. What is it, and how does it manifest in everyday life?

Self-love and self-acceptance seem to form the basis of being able to fill our hearts with the ability to share love-connections with others. As we process our positive feelings, or even difficult human emotions of anxiety, anger, stress, confusion, amongst others, are we able to observe them mindfully, to accept them as part of who we are? To empathize with and have compassion for the different parts of us, and to surrender and accept what is, helps create a sense of peace and equanimity, a sense of contentment; a place from where the heart can start flowing, like sap oozing from a tree. When we love ourselves, and engage in contemplative practices such as sending gratitude to different parts of our body, we begin to take better care of ourselves – eating better, working out, taking care of our spiritual body through meditation and yoga, amongst other examples. We begin to cherish our unique gifts and want to share these with the world, no matter what we perceive the return is, as our hearts begin to sing with love and joy.

Compassionate listening is another form of sharing love with someone - it generates the possibility of creating deeper connections and a transformation in our thinking. As we begin to lovingly listen to others, even in moments of stress and agitation, taking a few deep breaths and mindfully observing our feelings and emotions, we begin to have greater awareness for ourselves and others. We fill the space in between us with a loving, patient energy as we listen; creating a soft cushion for healing and transformation. Acceptance and forgiveness become easier to practice in this state of listening.

Loving speech, the other side of the coin of compassionate listening, leads to a deeper connection between people, and can be seen as gifts or jewels which has the effect of transforming a difficult situation, bringing love, joy and a sense of communion and understanding.

We have the opportunity to share physical love with a total stranger, even if they seem foreign or potentially threatening to us. A friend shared how her friend was sittng in a packed subway car, and a daunting person came asking for money from each passenger. This person came and squeezed himself into a tiny space right next to the friend, and put out his hand, demanding money. Instead of recoiling in frustration or fear, she took a brave step – she held his hand, looked him straight in the eyes, and with firmness and kindness, said, “I love you”.  He was shocked, and yet, he melted with love and joy, as did the others around them.

When we are feeling lonely and disconnected, no matter where we are in the world, the quickest fix is to share joyful, love-filled moments, even with total strangers. In the train, airport, grocery store, office – each moment is ripe with opportunity to make a connection with another person. Acts of kindness, sharing a gift with a new friend, or even a joke – each brief exchange of love makes each part of the day more special, exciting and meaningful.

Perhaps another form of love is that which transcends human love – it is the deep-found respect for all beings, an understanding of the sacredness in even the tiniest form of life. A friend shared how he mindfully observed two large bees that were stuck in an AC vent in his apartment - they were buzzing around, making many attempts of finding an exit for their survival. He patiently waited for over twenty minutes to help the bees out, despite his own slight fear of bees. They finally made it out with his help, and he had a private moment of rejoicing their flight to freedom.

As I sat in the room, a thought came to me - we are each honeybees, being fed and loved in these beautiful, sacred spaces such as yesterday’s sit - these hives of sweet nectar and nourishment. It is our job to go out into the world, pollinating each person, each being, with love, compassion, joy and kindness – sharing one micro-moment of love, at a time. When we share these micro-moments of love, we are making our own lives richer, longer, healthier and happier - and do the same for others, creating ripples of bah wherever we go :)

SISTERLY LOVE

Finding Your Invincible Summer.
By Elizabeth Lesser, Co-Founder of The Omega Institute

I will be speaking on Thursday in Newtown, Connecticut. I was invited by the Sandy Hook Promise, a now-nationwide group founded by Newtown friends and neighbors to heal and to be part of a conversation about violence in America. I’ll be speaking with my friend Rev. Ed Bacon. Ed and I have hosted numerous shows together on Oprah Radio; this time we’ll be speaking and leading a conversation we’re calling “Finding Your Invincible Summer.” We chose the title from a line from Albert Camus, who said, “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

As fate or synchronicity would have it, I learned recently that I am the match for my sister’s bone marrow transplant. Things are moving faster than we thought they would and the transplant will be happening soon. I am going this week for a day of pre-transplant tests to the hospital where my sister is being treated. So, the day before I speak in Newtown, I will be putting into practice ways of “finding your invincible summer” as I prepare for a journey through winter into summer with my sister.

I will be writing much more about the transplant journey in the weeks to come, but for now, I want to share with you a practice I will be leading during my talk in Newtown. You can use this practice to find within yourself strength, healing, and inner peace for dealing with any challenge you may be facing.

Sit up tall in a chair or cross-legged on the floor. Feel the strength in your backbone. When you sit with a straight back a sense of dignity is felt in the body. You can see this posture in the iconography of all of the world’s wisdom traditions: the Greek gods and goddesses; the Chinese goddess Quan Yin; Jesus on the cross, or Mary in her blue veil; the Native American chiefs and the indigenous shamans—in all of these figures, you see a similarity of strength and dignity, and at the same time, openness and softness. As you sit with a straight back, also let your chest open and your shoulders relax, so that you feel what the “great ones” felt: the sweet spot between strength and softness.

Where strength and softness meet is where we find our invincible summer. If we are too hard—if we keep ourselves too protected from the pain of life—we become brittle and can break. If we are too soft, too sensitive, we can let so much in that we are overtaken by fear and heartache, and we lose our faith, we lose our way. This is why the practice of sitting still with what the Zen tradition calls “strong back/soft front” is so helpful. We don’t have to turn to the words of others; we don’t have to belong to a religion; we don’t have to go to a workshop. We carry within our own bodies a compass that leads to the invincible summer.

I will be leaning on this practice while I donate my marrow to my sister; while I witness her struggle; while I pray for her openness to receive new cells, and her strength to withstand the treatment. I will try to offer this same kind of strength and faith to the families in Newtown. And I will feel all of you doing the same on the roads you must travel in your own lives.

MOTHERLY LOVE

What is this thing called a mother’s love?

By Shirley Moulton - Founder, The ACADEMi of Life, NYC


Several experiences this weekend lead me to reflect deeply on the meaning of motherhood. The first experience was my attendance at a Barack Obama’s initiative to serve brunch to mothers at a homeless shelter in NYC to celebrate Mother’s Day. These mothers were women from all walks of life each mentally challenged and the majority had children. The second experience was seeing two movies; ‘Babies’ and ‘Mother and Child.’

So what did I learn from those experiences? I realized that being a mother is probably one of the most difficult roles a person elects to undertake. I also realized that society does not allow us to be truthful about the awesome responsibility and difficulty of motherhood. The way it’s portrayed in the movies is an experience that is always blissful and peaceful, yet the reality is sometimes very different. I recall a friend telling me that the only way she survived the birth of her son, was to pretend that he was only going to be with her for a short time.

A mother’s love, especially in the formative years, is a selfless unselfish act and is considered the highest kind of love. Most women want kids and are happy with their newborn. Eric Fromm in ‘The Art of Loving’ describes the love of a mother as: ‘A mother's love is bliss, is peace, it need not be acquired, it need not be deserved.' But as the child grows up and begins to separate from the mother, motherly love becomes difficult because it continues to require unselfishness, the ability to give everything and want nothing in return.

According to Fromm, ‘the real achievement of motherly love lies not in the mother’s love for the small infant, but in her love for the growing child.’ He concludes that ‘a woman can be a truly loving mother only if she can love’ meaning that she is a happy person who loves herself, her family, her husband, other children, strangers and all human beings. Well said Eric!!

TEACHING OUR KIDS COMPASSION

Written by Michal Berg (Spiritualityforkids.org)

In prior post, I’ve mentioned that my parents divorced when I was eight years old, and after that my mom started searching out everything in Israel that had anything to do with spirituality: meditation, different temples, different methods, everything. And she took me with her. So I was exposed to spirituality from a very young age.

That experience made me aware of how important it is for us, as parents, to actually open the door to spirituality for our children. I remember how I felt as a teenager, when I found the Kabbalah Centre and met other young people who actually talked about more than just clothes, or what party they went to last week. It was very comforting, and it gave me inner strength.

We always say that the future is in the hands of our kids, but the only way our kids are going to grow up to be adults capable of making a difference is if they are equipped with the right tools and the right consciousness. This is why it’s so important to start with kids when they’re young; when they’re especially open to new ways of seeing things. Because the soul is constantly evolving, souls coming down into the world in this generation are probably higher and more elevated than we are. We want to work with them as early as possible, before their Light begins to get covered over.

Today I’d like to focus on compassion. This isn’t easy to teach, but as always the very best approach is to model compassionate behavior in our own lives - especially when it comes to dealing with our own kids and their limitations. Even if my kid is challenged to act in ways that annoy me, and I’d like him to change, I can still show compassion, which means I can feel his pain. I can understand where he’s coming from. I can understand that I might not have this challenge, but he does.

I’ll give you a mundane example. One of my sons is really messy—he eats in a messy way, and he always get his clothes dirty—whereas I’m a very neat person. Few things are more annoying for a neat person than to have a messy child, right? But that’s what I have. That’s just the way some kids are. It’s in the DNA. I’ve found that neatness isn’t something you can teach; you can try, but if you have high standards you’ll be fighting that battle forever.

So I’ve learned something here--to have compassion when my kids don’t have the same skills that I do. They don’t see socks on the floor. They really don’t. One gift of having many kids is how clear it becomes that they’re not just reflections of you. Kids are born into this world with their own personalities, their own strengths and weaknesses, and their own potential to do great things. Everyone benefits when you can feel compassion for those more difficult qualities, that would otherwise be annoying.

Another good way to teach kids compassion is by showing it to people outside our family. If my friend is in trouble, and the kids hear me talking to another friend about why the first friend is such a drama queen, that’s not helpful modeling. They’d be much better off hearing you on the phone with a friend saying, “I feel for her. She’s in a difficult situation, and I’m talking with her to find out how I can help. Even if I can’t help in any practical way, I can sit with her in her unhappiness, and help her bear that pain.”

There’s no better way to teach compassion than to be compassionate ourselves. As Karen Berg likes to say, “It takes work to understand a person deeply, but there are great rewards awaiting you if you are willing to become a compassionate and understanding person.”

LIFE LESSONS FROM THE LANCE ARMSTRONG SAGA

By Shirley Moulton - Founder, The Academi of Life, NYC

Being Human is Not Enough

As I watched the recent Lance Armstrong interview with Oprah Winfrey, I suddenly realized that I was looking at a person void of emotions, empathy and compassion. A person who had strayed so far from his true nature, his being, his spiritual and emotional self, he was unrecognizable. The man had become a machine.

How does a Human Being get to that place? I think most of us don’t realize that we are called Human Being for a reason. Human + Being = A Whole Person. So many of us live our lives and our values as a Human only.

Being Human means to achieve and acquire. While there is nothing wrong with achieving and acquiring, our focus on developing only the human aspects of our nature results in us becoming machine-like, devoid of any emotions.

Our Being nature cannot be ignored. It is our spiritual, emotional, compassionate and empathetic side, which has to be developed and incorporated in our lives. Without which we truly cannot successfully execute this life. Self-Mastery is finding the balance between Human and Being … and Self-Mastery = Happiness.

Being Human is never enough. It’s not enough to make us truly content and happy in our lives. A happy life belongs to the person who achieves the correct balance between Human + Being…a true Human Being. Clearly Lance Armstrong has a lot of work to do.

AUTHENTIC LIVING

By Marva Allen – CEO, Hue-Man Bookstore, NYC

As Sandy whipped New York and the East coast into a frenzy, I had a moment to pause. The effect of Sandy, depending on where you were, was either a day of rest or a devastating blow. My prayers go out to those whose lives were altered. I was safe, tucked away under my comforter watching Netflix. On and off as I watched the news updates I felt pride in our government and public service personnel. Yet I was saddened. It should not take a natural disaster for us to show care and solidarity to our fellow citizens.

Just the day before Hurricane Sandy my dear friend called for advise about a mean spirited correspondence she had received. I was taken aback by the evil tone of the email. Such ungracious behavior is characteristic of our increasing glib and disrespectful society. With all the noise of life in today's "modern" world, the distasteful vitriol of the Presidential elections, the ugliness of America's original sin rearing its head, the selfishness, haughtiness and insincerity of our fellow man where rudeness has outstripped graciousness, how do we navigate our lives with grace?

Must we always have a disaster to humble us and remind us that we are but a minor spec in the divine order of the universe. No technology, no political debate, no power seizing or greedy Wall Street grubbers could have done a single thing to stop Sandy. Nature is out of their influence in a call and response way. So where does all this vitriol get us?

The result of this top down lack of care for our fellowman has plummeted American productivity and competitiveness to number 25 in the world. Workers and consumers, alike, betrayed by the "system" are defecting from corporate America and taking their own destiny in hand by becoming entrepreneurs. Those 53%ers who are probably responsible for the erosion of natures balance anyway, from too much logging, too much drilling, too much mining, too much pollution and too much greed are going to have to have 'a come to Jesus moment'. Their Sandy might not be so lenient.

As ordinary citizens we have played the game badly and we have been checkmated. The blame game and occupy whatever is not the solution yet it should be a strong reminder of how we have abandoned critical thinking and logic to follow the power structure like zombies. So if my theory is right and we are co-conspirators in our own demise, it is because we are not living our authentic life.

Our authentic life, a guide to our best selves, will not allow us harm or hurt others. It is the life that recognizes that we are all one, and a life that promotes harmony, peace and understanding. The third law of thermodynamics says that energy can neither be created or destroyed, only transformed ... let Hurricane Sandy be a reminder for us to transform our energies from negative to positive.

Let us be grateful for the life we have kept for another day and live it boldly, lovingly and fearlessly. And if you have hurt someone ... let him or her know how sorry you are, forgive yourself and move on with your life with spiritual elegance.

My book of the month, “The Happiness Advantage” is a good place to start for finding happiness and contentment in your life. Your happiness will spill over to all you meet along the way…this is called authentic living.

The Empathy Paradox: Mastering Empathy for Others Begins With Knowing Yourself

Tahoe is my place for self-reflection – where is yours?

By Michael Zakaras
Michael is a writer and strategist who specializes in social entrepreneurship and public policy and works with ASHOKA.


I recently returned from a week at Lake Tahoe, where I’ve spent a piece of every summer with my family since I was five years old. My uncle has a cabin on the lake, and it’s unlike any other house I know because I exist there not only in the present but also in the past.

When I'm there, I feel the younger versions of myself accompanying me. On my first dive off the rock, they dive with me, filled with fear and joy and anticipation. I surface in the same bone-chilling water. My brother surfaces beside me. My parents look down from the deck, watching as always. The words permanence and continuity are abstractions. But there, at Tahoe, they come to life.



Tahoe is where I slow down, where I don’t chase things but let them come to me, and where I’ve developed values and ways of being that I have brought back to the rest of my life. It’s where I learned to be fulfilled by living simply: there has never been a TV at the house, and there are no tight schedules or fixed plans. Each part of the day simply eases into the next. We swim and hike and canoe, but most of our hours are filled with communal cooking, leisurely family meals, reading, and storytelling. And there’s an abundance of open time: for listening, for watching, for reflection. I’ll often bring a book and sit between two pines at the water’s edge only to never open it.
In this way, each summer gives me a chance to pull back from my immersion into the everyday world of school or work—of constant activities—and to ask myself what's been really good and what hasn't, and what should be changed. In recent years especially, as a young adult, I've gained a great deal of understanding from these times of quiet reflection. Tahoe serves as a retreat from which I return renewed and replenished for the rest of the year.

In the end, my uncle’s house is the place where I know myself best. My summers there have helped me look at my life as a whole picture. I take on different roles in the world, but I'm always a son and brother in our family. And more recently, a husband. I can put my latest successes and disappointments into a long-term perspective. I can see how much I've changed with every summer, and I can see how much, for better or worse, I've remained the same.


Empathy is ultimately other-regarding, but I’m convinced that mastering it begins with understanding yourself – your emotions, your desires, your flaws. And for me, it includes understanding how lucky I am to have Tahoe in the first place. In this way, empathy is hard: it takes awareness and perspective. It takes space. But in our world of relentless demands and distractions, it’s far easier to become self-absorbed than self-aware. Which is why it’s essential that we create this space for ourselves – in big ways and small – so that we can use our understanding of ourselves to better understand and serve others.