Nurturing Wisdom to Heal Cynical Immaturity

     "A country will be safe from terrorism when its relationships with all parties in all directions are honest, noble, and just. ... security comes from aligning our attitudes and policies with the behaviors that will bring out the best in others, rather than doing the very things that are sure to provoke or entrench them. It is a principle that works at every scale. Healing through the cultivation of change in relationship can occur with ancient adversaries, with the developing nations of the world, with the population that swells our prisons, or with alienated members of our own family.
     This is not idealism, it is rooted in a deep understanding of human nature."

       Olendzki A. "Unlimiting Mind. The Radically Experiential Psychology of Buddhism." Wisdom Publications, Boston, 2010.

     Mary Hynes and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein both giggled from embarrassment while discussing Plato's advice to live for beauty, truth and wisdom. They realized how idealistic these values sound in today's cynical, materialistic climate.  
       CBC radio's Tapestry "What would Plato do?": http://www.cbc.ca/tapestry/episode/2014/12/26/what-would-plato-do-1/

Photo by Russ Wiley   www.dpreview.com

Can We Really Know Anyone - even Ourself?

     A senior meditation teacher once advised: "Only don't know."

     A definition of expert: "One who's incapable of learning."

     "The Renaissance is all about secret transformations. Human beings - we're not objects, we're not things. We are alive & changing every minute. Our very nature is change. Our very nature is transformation - which we forget, because we say "Oh that person is like that." And we forget they're like that today, but they could be like something else tomorrow, and maybe they were something else two weeks ago. 
     We keep actually putting labels on people and typing them. And in fact the one thing about human beings is that we're quicksilver, endlessly transforming and changeable." 

     Peter Sellars, American theatre director, interviewed by Eleanor Wachtel on CBC Radio:
     http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/Ideas/ID/2442656684/

Corner Store, Rome, Italy