The Art of Empathy, with Karla McLaren
We’re happy to hear that so many of you are enjoying Karla McLaren‘s wonderful new book The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life’s Most Essential Skill. In it, Karla describes what she refers to as the single most important skill that we have to directly and radically improve our relationships and emotional life – but one that has been quite misunderstood.
Informed by current insights from neuroscience, social psychology, and healing traditions, this book explores:
– Why empathy is not a mystical phenomenon but a natural, innate ability that we can strengthen and develop
– How to identify and regulate our emotions and boundaries
– The process of shifting into the perspective of others
– How to provide support in a sensitive and healthy way
– Insights for navigating our hyper-connected social landscape
– Targeted chapters for improving family, workplace, and intimate relationships
– Ways to expand our empathy to our community, global levels of society, and the natural world
In addition to the book, Karla has also recorded an original seven-hour audio learning course on The Art of Empathy.
Here is a short video by Karla, speaking about The Art of Empathy…
What is awakening? The Wake Up Festival presenters respond…
Last August, in the beautiful Rocky Mountains, over 800 people gathered together to explore the nature of spiritual awakening, and the mysteries of opening the human heart. Shot on location during our first annual Wake Up Festival, the following video features 16 of our dear presenters and collaborators sharing what awakening means to them.
We invite you to join in the dialogue, as we have come to see that there are seven billion unique perspectives and doorways into awakening – one for each human soul. So, please, let us hear your voice, and your heart. What is spiritual awakening for you?
Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom
Dear Wisdom Seekers,
I am writing to tell you that anything is possible.
You have the potential to change your state of health for the better—permanently. Thanks to Ayurveda, the profound 5,000-year-old health awakening wisdom from India, I have successfully overcome a genetic challenge that wanted to restrict me to a wheelchair. Today, I walk happily, even run, and live my life to its fullest.
In my new book, Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom, I share real-life journeys of transformation from people with conditions such as ulcerative colitis, multiple sclerosis, depression, and chronic obesity. Indeed, this wisdom is ancient, but ever so relevant to our modern epidemic of lifestyle disorders.
In addition to its restorative principles, Ayurveda is preventative, eco-friendly, and cost effective. You literally construct your health in your own kitchen and backyard. Perhaps this explains its rising popularity all over the world. Countless people are laying claim to this joy-bearing health by implementing a nature-inspired, seasonal lifestyle from the art, science, and spirituality of Ayurveda that sheds a beautiful light on the three pillars of health – sleep, sex, and food!
In a sense, my book is a vehicle to document the experiential and spiritually charged instruction of my formative years. You see, I grew up in India in a tiny riverside town, resplendent with golden sunshine and the call of peacocks dancing in the monsoons. The mystic Himalayas gifted my soul with an immense river, the Sarayu, on whose serene banks I conversed, contemplated, and meditated as a young student with my teacher—a renowned yogi and healer, who was also my kind-hearted grandfather.
Every morning, I learned not only to cup my palms to reach out for the beautiful river water and splash it on my face with glee, but I also learned to recapture handfuls of hope. When we beautify each day with a scared lifestyle, we connect our mundane existence with something sublime and potent within us.
This is how I learned Ayurveda’s secrets, heart to heart, soul to soul, by journeying first within myself to explore my own infinite potential. And this is how I share them with you in Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom—step by step and from my heart.
I believe my book will awaken something invisible within—a powerful presence and an inner knowingness. Remember, a well-lived day is medicine unto itself.
PS- “Acharya” is my traditional title in Sanskrit, which means “master teacher.” Shunya is my name. And you can always go to acharyashunya.com to read more about the book and my journey.
Radiantly yours,
Shunya
Creating an Altar in Your Home
Most of us come from secularized backgrounds from which spiritual forms, practices, and rituals have been scrubbed away, and we tend to have an aversion toward things like altars. However, most members of the world’s religious population keep a personal altar or shrine in their home, where they connect with and perform rituals to ancestors, saints, and the Divine, even amid modern, urban lives. In Western secular culture, altars have morphed into man caves, home theaters, or packed closets where we worship the gods of fame, beauty, and success. Consider how much time, energy, and prioritization we give these. Sound judgmental? Would it be judgmental for me to say a crisp, fresh kale salad is healthier than a bucket of fried chicken, or a run in the park more vitalizing than a television binge? We’ve been trained to abandon discernment—some things are better for us than others. It’s not all good.
If you can see an altar as psychological or emotional equipment—a bench press for the mind, augmentation for the heart—it might change your opinion. One of my teachers once said, “Clean your house as if the Dalai Lama was coming to visit for tea.” Now imagine sitting down at your altar with the Dalai Lama. It makes for an incredibly different experience if you picture an inspiring person right there with you. This may change your mind, not because of anything magical or special that is out there, but because the visualization shifts the quality of your experience. This altar is not for anybody else. Whose mind improves if you look at your altar and see a real Buddha instead of a bronze statue of a Buddha? Yours.
When Tibetan Buddhists set up altars, they put many objects on them, but three are central:
- Buddha statue (symbolizing awakened body)
- Scripture or other text (symbolizing awakened speech)
- Stupa or other shrine (symbolizing awakened mind)
So when you sit facing an altar, you become familiar with transforming your own body, speech, and mind.
The body or form of a Buddha (rupakaya), particularly the aspects of compassion and engagement, is represented by a statue placed in the middle of the altar. Your Buddha might be a Tibetan thangka painting or a simple stone. It might be a photograph of the Dalai Lama or Pope Francis, an image of Pema Chödrön or Martin Luther King, Jr. No matter who or what it is, imagine it’s the embodiment of a real, living Buddha inviting you to practice, inspiring you to evolve.
Here is how I set up my Buddhist altar, but you can always arrange things and add or take away things as it works for you:
Excerpted from Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human, by Miles Neale.
MILES NEALE, PSYD, is among the leading voices of the current generation of Buddhist teachers and a forerunner in the emerging field of contemplative psychotherapy. He is a Buddhist psychotherapist in private practice, assistant director of the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science, and faculty at Tibet House US and Weill Cornell Medical College.
Dr. Neale is co-editor of and contributor to the groundbreaking volume Advances in Contemplative Psychotherapy: Accelerated Healing and Transformation and author of Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human. For more visit milesneale.com.
Buy your copy of Gradual Awakening at your favorite bookseller!
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Meet a Coauthor of . . . Freedom for All of Us
The Author
Matthieu Ricard is a Buddhist monk, humanitarian, and one of three authors of Freedom for All of Us: A Monk, a Philosopher, and a Psychiatrist on Finding Inner Peace, available in November, 2020. He is also the author of several other books, including The Monk and the Philosopher, Happiness, and Altruism. He is a major participant in research collaboration between cognitive scientists and Buddhist practitioners. Ricard is a noted translator and photographer, and has founded humanitarian projects in India, Tibet, and Nepal. For more information, visit karuna-shechen.org.
The Book
With their acclaimed book In Search of Wisdom, three gifted friends—a monk, a philosopher, and a psychiatrist—shed light on our universal quest for meaning, purpose, and understanding. Now, in this new in-depth offering, they invite us to tend to the garden of our true nature: freedom.
Filled with unexpected insights and specific strategies, Freedom for All of Us presents an inspiring guide for breaking free of the unconscious walls that confine us.
Send us a photo of your sacred space.
[Pictured here is the] Shechen Monastery in Nepal, where I live a good part of the year:
[And] the views from my hermitage in Nepal:
‘
If you could invite any three transformational leaders or spiritual teachers (throughout time) to dinner, who would they be and why?
I do not have dinner and he does not either, but if I had to choose to spend an hour quietly with someone alive today, it would be His Holiness the Dalai Lama. [He is] someone of boundless compassion and wisdom, who treats every sentient being—from the person who cleans the floor at the hotel when he travels, to a head of state—with the same kindness, respect, and attention.
As for [two people] who [are no longer] in this world, I would give everything to spend another hour in the presence of my two main spiritual teachers: Kangyur Rinpoche and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, who inspire every instant of my life.
Has your book taken on a new meaning in the world’s current circumstances? Is there anything you would have included in your book if you were writing it now?
Many people have indeed faced great hardship; being sick, left alone, and having lost a dear one. But for those who simply had to be with themselves and a few kin, I was quite surprised to see how difficult they found [it] to just be with their own minds for extended periods of time. It seemed that it was such a new situation and they had few tools to deal with it.
As a contemplative, I value tremendously [the] time spent alone in my hermitage in the Himalaya[s], cultivating fundamental human qualities that allow me to slowly become a better human being. I believe that among those qualities, inner freedom and compassion are two key factors and that, therefore, our dialogue [in Freedom for All of Us] is quite timely. Most of the subjects that we reflect upon seem very relevant [during] these troubled times and I hope that they will be useful!
Learn More
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3 Ways to be in Financial Integrity this Holiday Season
In the whirlwind of holiday parties, gift-giving, and cooking, you can lose your grip on financial integrity faster than slipping on ice. But, your integrity is essential to your happiness and your self-worth. Here are a few easy ways to regain your center and empower your choices to give from your heart instead of your wallet.
Treasure Connectivity
When your presence is truly a gift to others, you won’t find yourself needing to overspend. Practice loving presence with the little interactions you have through the day. Slow down. Listen more. Smile more. Appreciate the uniqueness of the person in front of you. When you treasure connectivity, you won’t find yourself spending money on things that aren’t in alignment with your values.
Affirm Your Unique Values & Convictions
Speaking of aligning to your values … what are YOUR values? What do you value about the holidays? About gifting? About receiving? About money? Take a minute and write down your values and your convictions about the holidays. Read your convictions before bed, and upon arising. You’ll be more likely to live up to your convictions with money. And when you don’t, you’ll be very clear exactly what value you violated. When that happens, stop. Notice. Course correct.
Gift from Your Values
Whether you’re baking cookies or filling stockings, make each an act in alignment with your convictions. At first you may be aware of how your extended family or friends have different trends, values, or convictions. That’s ok. Notice. And be YOU. Be in your integrity. Make your people paleo gingersnaps or whatever you find nourishing and delightful. Tell your people why you gift how you gift. They love you for being you. And you being you will help them find their own financial integrity.
Cate Stillman has been teaching audiences how to create health and wellness through yoga and Ayurveda since 2001. She is the author of Body Thrive, and hosts the Yogahealer Real Thrive Show, a weekly podcast featuring dozens of experts in the field. She splits her time between the Idaho border country and Mexico.
