What is at the root of our crisis of leadership?


We expect a leader to “play the part.” Anyone caught-up in roles has nothing to offer us in our predicament. Facing our predicament requires that we embrace uncertainty and set-aside the doing-things-twice role playing forces upon us. Someone acting in this way just does not, “Look like a leader.”

It’s a crime, part II


Must we be pure? Whenever we confront the depths of our corruption we hear this whining plea. Ego deflates us, How can I meet such a standard? A false question. We are what we are. We will do what we feel we must do. What is in question is what do these questions mean? WhoContinue reading “It’s a crime, part II”

Sincerity


We are lost without sincerity. To be immersed in lies; to constantly dissemble; to be treated as an object for someone else’s purposes; is to find our selves in the utmost precarity. An apocryphal tale whose source I can no longer remember sticks with me. It’s of a moment of first encounter between a NorthContinue reading “Sincerity”

This Means War!


Rufus T. Firefly scuttling center stage to make his pronouncement…. There’s always a hidden glee behind the crowd’s reaction. “Before, I had to hold it together. Now? I can let go. A free pass. No resort is too extreme. We’re at war.” The next stage is the rush to, “Get in the fight!” After all,Continue reading “This Means War!”

Compassion is Attention


Attention is Compassion One of the first things we encounter on beginning some form of meditation, any way for us to empty out the rush of unbidden thought and pause to see what might lie behind it all, is the question of compassion. Does this come directly from our confrontation with attention in and ofContinue reading “Compassion is Attention”

Contempt


Peeling away layers of Ego I found anger and disappointment blocking the way to compassion. There’s another block hiding beneath them, contempt. We see it all around us. This is a society choking on contempt. Every faction and group is held together by the contempt in which it holds the rest. The path to anger,Continue reading “Contempt”

Violence


There is a pressure on every interaction we have. A push. Sometimes an impatience to get to a result. Sometimes a leeriness that we are being manipulated. Sometimes a form of disappointment in advance, an expectation that things will not go well. Taken together we might call the result anxiety. Meta-worry another cause to addContinue reading “Violence”

The Consequences of Our Precarity


“Most of all you can break out of your mind’s silo and initiate yourself into the tribe — become one of the people. But however you move, you know you can’t do this stuff on your own. Somehow you have to decipher the law. Our ways of understanding life in graphs and linear narrative areContinue reading “The Consequences of Our Precarity”

Sufficiency without number


Sufficiency is an attitude not a quantity. Chasing after desires we have lost any sense that happiness can be anything other than a list checked off. Pursuit. Nothing could be more destabilizing. Either for an individual or a culture. And, before we get caught up in some form of zealotry…. Yes, the desire to controlContinue reading “Sufficiency without number”

Ignorance Wrapped in Knowing. Belief Lacking Compassion.


…no matter how noble the system would be. A mind that has been trained only to know facts, is simply unable to deal with Life in all its diversity, with its subtleties, with its depths and heights. Krishnamurti Thanks to Julien Matei for this quotation. We suffer under ignorance wrapped in knowing. Belief lacking compassion. The tools of the enlightenment destroying any potential for usefulContinue reading “Ignorance Wrapped in Knowing. Belief Lacking Compassion.”

A Web of Obligations


We tie ourselves within a web of obligations, forgetting that while these so-called acts of responsibility are meant to help us fulfill our lives, they actually keep us from it. What struck me was the way we handle the mid-term. It’s not just in the short-term that we do everything twice. In the mid-term, inContinue reading “A Web of Obligations”