Kevin Adler: Rebuilding Social Support Systems For Posted by Kozo Hattori, Jul 10 2019 This week's Awakin Call guest: 'Kevin Adler: Rebuilding Social Support Systems For HomelessReflection questions: Our guest this week believes that relational brokenness, isolation and social disconnection, rather than merely the loss of housing, are at the heart of homelessness and many other afflictions. He uses stories to help us see that everyone is "someone's somebody." How do you stay genuinely connected with all portions of your friends and family, even those of different means?

Road Trip Of The Imagination: Day ... Posted by Aryae Coopersmith, Jul 09 2019 Road Trip of the Imagination: Day 15

The Monk Who Downloads Apps :) Posted by Rohan Bhansali, Jul 09 2019 I had the privilege of spending the last weekend with Rev. Heng Sure and Nipun-bhai in Los Angeles, as they engaged with 4 thousand people at the Jain Convention in so many different ways: While everyone would've heard them from the stage, I learned so much more in watching them in between all the action. They were already heroes in my mind, but I appreciate them in an even deeper way after seeing how consistently they show up for each moment. Every person, every interaction had the same extra-ordinary feel. At Fran and Reza's beautiful Awakin Circle, I was put on the spot to share some insights, and I offered a few stories of what I learned by watching Rev. Heng Sure. First and foremost, his humility. We were around many public personalities, some of whom have millions of followers, some of can do all kinds of "miracles", and all of whom are ... Read Full Story

KindSpring Weekly: Spotlight On Kindness: Our Future Posted by Ameeta Martin, Jul 09 2019 Latest issue of 'KindSpring Weekly' newsletter is themed Spotlight On Kindness: Our Future Hope. Immediately upon birth, from day 1 of age, babies begin to reflect the emotional states of people around them thanks to mirror neurons. This begins a cycle whereby positive emotions and interactions beget more positive energy. Children that feel safe, secure and loved grow to be more sensitive and empathetic to others' emotional needs. Let's model kindness and empathy from day 1. - Ameeta

London Gatherings: July 2019 Posted by Trishna Shah, Jul 09 2019 July 2019 - London Gatherings We hope you've found some time to embrace the beautiful sunshine in London! Looking forward to seeing you at Awakin Circles this month before many of us take a collective pause in August to travel, be with friends and family, go on silent meditation retreats and more, and then resume again with gatherings in September. Awakin Circles: Shoreditch, Pimlico and Brighton Each month, you're invited to join Awakin Circles at locations around London, where we meditate for the first hour, engage in a circle of sharing based on a reading, and conclude with a home-cooked vegetarian dinner together. Friday, July 12th at 7:00pm (Shoreditch, Central London) **New Location** Wednesday, July 17th at 7:00pm (Pimlico, Central London) Wednesday, July 17th at 7:15pm (Brighton) RSVP link To RSVP, visit Awakin London and use the drop-down box in the top right corner to select ... Read Full Story

Laddership News: Small Is Beautiful Posted by Jane Murray, Jul 08 2019 This month's 'Laddership Newsletter' was just posted online. As we enter the seventh month of 2019, we take this moment to pause and reflect on the beauty of small. David Bullón Patton brings us the power of noticing the small things, and Meghna Banker brings us the power of doing the small things.

Who Can Turn Down A Kindness Roadtrip? :) Posted by Amy Michelson, Jul 07 2019 Couple months back, Bonnie invited bunch of us to go on a Kindness Roadtrip. Who could turn down such an offer? :) Last weekend, a carload of us drove up from SoCal to serve and spread smiles at the After Mindfulness-themed conference at UC Berkeley. Here's 1-minute photo slideshow from our days together: Throughout the weekend, we were grateful to serve the conference's Festival of Sharing with an Encouragement Booth ("Tell us your highest aspiration. We will listen devoutly and encourage abundantly"), and a color-in tablecloth that became a real-time community mandala. We also made bookmarks with inspiring messages to gift out -- and were delighted when a monk came by and asked if he could gift them to people he works with in prisons! In between, we met others from the local ecosystem, and deepened in conversation (and more songs!) at Banyan Grove. Thank you all for filling my heart with happiness. You inspire me to live kindfully and give me hope.

First Awakin Lahore Circle Posted by Alizeh , Jul 06 2019 I hosted the first Awakin Lahore Circle this weekend. Wow! I have no words for how I felt. I remember being jittery and nervous about starting this circle , whether people would attend or not. What gave me strength to continue was Nipun’s email where he said even if I was the only participant, that would be enough. Surprisingly, there were 7 attendees. :) The one hour silent meditation surprisingly didn’t seem an hour long. I wanted to breathe more... let go more. The group discussion on the weekly reading garnered reflections of personal experiences from people who had never met each other. I think I went a bit overboard with the food -- 4 dishes out of which I cooked 3 -- given that I have an 8 month old; even one healthy salad would have sufficed. Hosting the event in general made me realise so much -- the need to ... Read Full Story

July 4th Garden Day At Banyan Grove! Posted by Audrey Lin, Jul 05 2019 What a joy to spend the day together at Banyan Grove yesterday, in service to our community land, space, and inner and outer landscapes! Here's a few photos -- including our group one (where we'll photoshop Ari in:))! Feel free to add yours. At the start of the day, Sanved noted, "Service is contributing to society in some way," and Lena reflected, "It's when you give without expecting anything in return." Aligned with that spirit, Helen and Pragalbha quickly got to work in the kitchen, prepping a gourmet lunch for the day's crew, as Ubin and Karuna graciously joined for couple hours before their other July 4th festivities and Kozo and Fox arrived ready-for-anything! Then, Birju, Anne-Marie, Iver, and Ari arrived, adding a boost of energy to the whole crew! By the time the morning ended, almost our green bins were brimming with tall grass, Kozo befriended a praying mantis, intriguing long-forgotten items ... Read Full Story

Conversation With Nipun Mehta Posted by Richard Whittaker, Jul 03 2019 Here's a recent interview with Nipun that's worth slowing down to read.   Gift Ecology - A Conversation with Nipun Mehta, by Elizabeth Denley "As a society I think one of our biggest problems right now is that we’re disconnected. It takes many decades to destroy trust, which we have done, and now it’s going to take many decades to build it up."  Conversations.org is a collection of interviews with social artists. Grateful that works & conversations has been connected with ServiceSpace now for over 12 years!

If The Buddha Were The CEO ... Posted by Raymond Yeh, Jul 02 2019 [Last weekend, I was quite inspired by the ServiceSpace presentation with Melissa, Kozo and Nipun, at After Mindfulness conference. It reminded me of a short article I wrote few months ago, which is an abstract of what Service Space has created in concrete form.] Prior to the industrial revolution, the culture of some old-time businesses could be considered more like the natural setting of a plant: the seed grows, it is nurtured by soil and water, matures, dies, and then breaks down into nutrients that feed the next crop of seedlings with extra seedlings produced to compensate for those that do not survive. Such a cycle continues keeping in balance with its surroundings. However, with the rapid pace of business expansions in modern times, more and more efficient means are utilized to improve the productivity and profit. Overtime, most business’s organizational cultures become self-centered and are characterized by quantity, expansion, competition ... Read Full Story

KindSpring Weekly: Spotlight On Kindness: Magic Moments Posted by Ameeta Martin, Jul 02 2019 Latest issue of 'KindSpring Weekly' newsletter is themed Spotlight On Kindness: Magic Moments. Magic moments are present all around us if only we take the time to see and appreciate the wonder. "Miracles" begin with a single moment of awareness and presence. It is an act of kindness to be open to what the "small" moment offers us, rather than to be wrapped up in "big" thoughts of the past or future. This week's stories capture the miracles that flow from simple awareness. - Ameeta

Gracias A La Vida Posted by Iwona Khandro, Jul 01 2019 At last week's Awakin Circle in Warsaw, we had lots of surprises -- starting with having Jin Wei and Nipun from California! We closed the circle with a gorgeous song, Gracias a La Vida, sung by Anna. Growing up with many challenges, living in a basement while raising two kids, Anna was barely staying afloat with life's constant demands. Yet, music was her passion and her refuge. One day, she spontaneously heard a beautiful song from the inner recesses of her mind. Or maybe from elsewhere. She was deeply mesmerized by it, but before she could fully hear it, the song left her. She prayed for the song to return, but to no avail. Still, she kept praying to be an instrument for that song and vibration. Eight months later, she heard it again. This time, in full. Here she is closing our Awakin circle with that song ... During the couple days of local ServiceSpace activities, Anna experienced repeated goosebumps, tears, and joy -- as she selflessly served alongside all of us.

Building Bridges Retreat @Trishna's House Posted by Olivier Chhu, Jul 01 2019 Dear Me before the retreat day, On that day, you participated in your first retreat day with ServiceSpace. You subscribed to the event after a spontaneous decision, when your friend Jasky introduced you the topic. You don’t know it yet, but you will see, this day will be astonishing. As everyday, you will meet wonderful people and you will put a stone forward in the path of your life. On this letter to you, I will tell you what you will live on that day. Context This retreat day has been organized in Trishna’s house, London, who generously invited a group of sixty changemakers to take part in the event. All was finely organized in terms of space arrangement and provisions for the whole day. During the day, there has been alternatively meditation sequences, presentations with slideshows and video plays, and exchanges among the group. Questions about interconnectedness across people have been addressed, ... Read Full Story

How Humans Trust Each Other Posted by Pragalbha Doshi, Jul 01 2019 Last weekend, our family went to volunteer and spread smiles at a local conference. My 13-year-old son, Sanved, shared more details about his experience doing random acts of kindness there -- which I found really interesting: Today I participated in the sharing festival at the After Mindfulness Urban Retreat in Berkeley. I had the most hilarious experience I have ever had. In the beginning, I was just giving out the heart pins. People loved this and thought it was very cool. Then, after lunch, I started giving away the granola bars with positive messages of kindness attached to them. That's when I learned how little, humans trust each other. At first, when I was offering the bars to people, they would say no because they thought they would have to pay money for it. When I then told them that it was free, they very willingly wanted to take one. Some people even came ... Read Full Story

Nuggets From Lewis Hyde's Call Posted by Pavi Mehta, Jun 30 2019 Last Saturday, we had the privilege of hosting Awakin Call with Lewis Hyde. Myth, imagination, art, the public domain, tricksters and the gifts of forgetting are just a few of the topics that interest acclaimed poet, writer and cultural thinker Lewis Hyde. Hyde has been writing for more than three decades, with high-profile awards along the way, including a MacArthur “genius grant” in 1991. David Foster Wallace called him “one of our true superstars of nonfiction.” Hyde’s fans — among them Zadie Smith, Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem — routinely use words like "transformative" and "life-altering" to describe his books, which they’ve been known to pass hand to hand like spiritual texts. In continuous publication since 1983, his book The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World has been praised as the most subtle, influential study of reciprocity since the French anthropologist Marcel Mauss’s 1924 essay of the same ... Read Full Story

London Update: July 2019 Posted by Trishna Shah, Jun 29 2019 July 2019 - London Gatherings We've had a river of inspiration flowing through London these past few weeks with Nimo in town with the Jai Jagat family followed by Nipun and Jin-Wei, who just wrapped up an incredibly inspiring 4-day visit! The One-Day Retreat was filled with inspiration as we collectively explored building bridges between hearts and we were delighted to welcome a surprise guest to the Awakin Circle in Harrow alongside Nipun and Jin-Wei -- Rajmohan Gandhi, one of Mahatma Gandhi's grandsons, who happened to be in London and joined the Awakin Circle on Monday evening, which was a blessing and honour. More on all of these gatherings here below! Awakin Circles: Mill Hill, Shoreditch, Pimlico and Brighton Each month, you're invited to join Awakin Circles at locations around London, where we meditate for the first hour, engage in a circle of sharing based on a reading, and conclude with ... Read Full Story

Awakin Circle With Zilong Wang! Posted by Anuj Pandey, Jun 28 2019 [At this week's Awakin Circle in Santa Clara, we had the gift of hearing stories from Zilong, nine months after his bike pilgrimage to China finished. Here's a transcript of the conversation.] Introduction: Zilong is one of those just souls who, when you meet him, you walk away feeling a little bit lighter afterwards. He grew up in China and came to the U.S. to study at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, where he graduated as valedictorian of his class. After getting a job with an environmental consulting firm in San Francisco, he decided that he would spend the summer biking from Massachusetts to San Francisco, to expand his worldview. He stayed in different homes and depended on the kindness of strangers along the way. He also read the Tao Te Ching, the Bible, the Koran and Moby Dick along the way. When he moved out here, he became a familiar face ... Read Full Story

Toward The Sabbath In Jerusalem Posted by Yoav Peck, Jun 27 2019 There's an old, full-size axe in my garden all the time. That's where I chop wood for our wood-burning stove. Today, three strapping young East-Jerusalem Palestinian men came to begin extensive anti-leaking work on our house. They arrived at the garden where a small sledgehammer and a hoe are also among the tools. Uncontrollably, I found myself asking, "What would I have to do that would cause these guys to hack me to death with my garden tools?" Am I afraid of Palestinians? I'm not proud of the fact that I have hidden, in my inner conversation, automatic responses of terror, even as I welcome these lovely three guys who have come to do a job. While I, for an instant, imagine a horror, what interests them is handling the challenges of our leaky house efficiently and getting their payment. Nothing else. As part of the Israeli collective, I have absorbed, through ... Read Full Story

Lost ... And Found Posted by Randall Amster, Jun 27 2019 For some reason, I keep coming back to the idea that if we don't get lost we can't really find our way. Maybe it's because I get lost a lot! More likely it's a reminder that however lost we get, we're always connected. This story takes place in central Florida, where I recently had an open day (due to a workshop cancellation); it's very hot here in the summer (obviously) and I wasn't relishing a meaningless day in the concrete jungle of a massive college campus. Instead of grousing or escaping into "electron land," I decided to get out and walk/run around the campus to see what I might find. My hope was that maybe I would locate actual edible food somewhere... But I found something even more interesting than that. A small picnic table tucked against a tree about 20 yards off the concrete pathway drew my attention away from the ... Read Full Story