My wife and I had a conversation a few days ago about wisdom. It’s not an easy question. How can you tell whether or when someone is wise? Is it something about them that hangs in there? My response was very pragmatic. Wisdom shows up after the fact in the assessment of whatever action, often involving some guidance to another, was taken. Did it fit the circumstances, beyond anything routine? Routines are the opposite of wise acts they always fit, by definition of the word routine. Wisdom only shows up when the going gets tough and our routines fail us.… Read More
Continue ReadingReview of The Right Way to Flourish
Very nice review in the Journal of Industrial Ecology. I have to point out I am an Editor Emeritus of that Journal, but have nothing to do with it these days.
Continue ReadingThe Irony in “Of Two Minds”
A bit of synchronicity to report. Right after posting the last entry about the death of the Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, my wife said I should look at the NYTimes Book Review section. The front page article on yesterday’s copy carried the title, “Of Two Minds.” It was a review of a new book, The Zen of Therapy, by Mark Epstein, a psychiatrist, contrasting two apparently opposing practices: psychotherapy and Buddhist meditation. I have not read the book, so what I write here is based on the second-hand report by the reviewer. Here is a key excerpt from the… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Power of Mindfulness
The Buddhist sage, Thich Nhat Hanh, died this week. Arthur Brooks wrote a moving tribute to him in the Washington Post on January 23, 2022 focused on his contributions to bringing mindfulness to our largely sound asleep Western world. I have excerpted a number of paragraphs from Brooks’s article because they contain extroordinary clear connections to McGilchrist’s divided-brain-model. Mindfulness corresponds to moments when the right hemisphere is connecting us to the real world or, as Hanh writes, to the “present moment.” The opposite situation, where the left hemisphere is in command, is captured in the references to “exist[ing] outside the… Read More
Continue ReadingA Response to David Brooks
Here is yet another rejected oped piece, this one by the NYTimes. I wrote this in response to a David Brooks oped, headlined, “America Is Falling Apart at the Seams,” (click here to see it). He pointed to all the asocial events going on in the US, but could not identify any reason. That was the main thrust of his piece. My attempt to provide a good reason didn’t make it into the editorial pages. How can we, who think we have a solid clue to explain and repair our badly damaged social system, crack the wall that prevents the… Read More
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