On Being Blog

A big, tough samurai once went to see a little...

Tue, 14 May 2013 19:13:00 -0500

A big, tough samurai once went to see a little monk.

“Monk!”

He barked, in a voice accustomed to instant obedience.

“Teach me about heaven and hell!”

The monk looked up at the mighty warrior and replied with utter disdain,

“Teach you about heaven and hell? I couldn’t teach you about anything. You’re dumb. You’re dirty. You’re a disgrace, an embarrassment to the samurai class. Get out of my sight. I can’t stand you.”

The samurai got furious. He shook, red in the face, speechless with rage. He pulled out his sword, and prepared to slay the monk.

Looking straight into the samurai’s eyes, the monk said softly,

“That’s hell.”

The samurai froze, realizing the compassion of the monk who had risked his life to show him hell! He put down his sword and fell to his knees, filled with gratitude.

The monk said softly,

“And that’s heaven.”

Excerpted from Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values.

~Trent Gilliss, senior editor

"Pondering the relationship between remembering and invention."

Sat, 11 May 2013 07:23:16 -0500

“Pondering the relationship between remembering and invention.”

- From the Twitter desk of Krista Tippett. Any thoughts or reflections on this pairing?

"Samuel Huntington was correct in looking toward culture as the boundary between Western and Eastern..."

Wed, 08 May 2013 15:59:34 -0500

“Samuel Huntington was correct in looking toward culture as the boundary between Western and Eastern societies. But boundaries are ever-changing and values cross over between cultures by osmosis. To assume cultures are autarkic and unchanging is as erroneous as to assume that cultural distinctions are invariably resolvable. The truth about culture lies in the middle; values are transposable, which is why identity is most enthralling when they are tethered the least.”

- Michael Young, from his op-ed “What Does Muslim-Western Relations Mean?”

From a 2011 Pew Research Center report, a graphic showing the...

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:31:27 -0500

From a 2011 Pew Research Center report, a graphic showing the median percentage of Muslims across seven Muslim countries who say each of these traits describes people in Western countries and median percentage of non-Muslims across the U.S., Russia, and four Western European countries who say each of these traits describes Muslims.

I highly recommend reading Michael Young’s op-ed “What Does Muslim-Western Relations Mean?” that gets at these ideas about values, characteristics, and identity.

~Trent Gilliss, senior editor

“Insight is not a matter of memory, of knowledge and time,...

Tue, 07 May 2013 05:59:00 -0500

“Insight is not a matter of memory, of knowledge and time, which are all thought. Insight is the total absence of the whole movement of thought as time and remembrance. So there is direct perception. It is as though I have been going North for the last ten thousand years, and my brain is accustomed to going North, and somebody comes along and says, that will lead you nowhere, go East. When I turn round and go East the brain cells have changed. Because I have an insight that the North leads nowhere.

I will put it differently. The whole movement of thought, which is limited, is acting throughout the world now. It is the most important action, we are driven by thought. But thought will not solve any of our problems, except the technological ones. If I see that, I have stopped going North. I think that with the ending of a certain direction, the ending of a movement that has been going on for thousands of years, there is at that moment an insight that brings about a change, a mutation, in the brain cell.” —Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986)

Sujata Krishna offered this passage from Questioning Krishnamurti after listening to our show with Rex Jung. During the interview, he described how the brain, with training, can actually change shape, beef up like a muscle that’s been trained:

“I think there are some strategies to cultivating creativity. It takes a lot of time to change the structure of your brain and there are several studies out there now. You know, the famous juggling study where they have novices who don’t know how to juggle. They image them, then they juggle for three months, they image them again and they see that literally a portion of their brain, a small chunk, but a portion of their brain is beefed up like a muscle in service of that concerted thing that they’re doing with their brain and that is the thing.

The important thing is they’re doing a very new thing in a concerted way. And their brain says, hey, if we’re going to be doing this thing in the environment over and over and over, I’m going to build tissue to do that so that we can do it easier and more efficiently. So if you’re going to be creative, pick one thing, get a lot of experience in that one thing, and do it over and over and over.”

Think about that. We can actually change the shape of our brains. Time to get to work. Putting that idea to work, methinks this magnified image of stained neurons is a fitting pairing.

Image by Mr. McGill / Flickr

~Trent Gilliss, senior editor

How do we prime our brains to take the meandering mental paths...

Sat, 04 May 2013 18:57:02 -0500

How do we prime our brains to take the meandering mental paths necessary for creativity? New techniques of brain imaging, neuroscientist Rex Jung says, are helping us gain a whole new view on the differences between intelligence, creativity, and personality.

“With intelligence, there’s the analogy I’ve used is there’s this superhighway in the brain that allows you to get from point A to point B. With creativity, it’s a slower, more meandering process where you want to take the side roads and even the dirt roads to get there.”

One of our most popular interviews in which Dr. Jung unsettles some old assumptions — and suggests some new connections between creativity and family life, creativity and aging, and creativity and purpose.

“Brainstorming is the worst thing you can do. The main...

Thu, 02 May 2013 19:52:08 -0500

“Brainstorming is the worst thing you can do. The main reason why is because of this process of trying out strange new ideas versus when you put people together in a room, almost invariably they will try to conform socially. So you will get creative ideas, but you won’t get as creative when people are trying to please each other than when they’re trying to push the envelope. And so the studies invariably show that the quality of the creative ideas that people put out individually are invariably higher in quality than those done in a group format. So another myth bites the dust.” —Rex Jung

This interview with Dr. Jung on creativity is incredible. It’ll debunk myths and confirm ideas you may know instinctively but have given credence too.

Photo by Simon Drouin

On a recent program, Krista mentioned her love of British mysteries. Any recommendations?

Thu, 02 May 2013 11:51:24 -0500

Hey there, Anon!

I shepherded your request across that vast expanse of 10 feet of hallway (electronically, mind you) to Ms. Tippett. And in typical, punctual fashion, Krista responded:

“I love the classics: Ruth Rendell and Barbara Vine (her alter ego), P.D. James. I also love a few others who aren’t so well-known in the U.S. — everything Robert Goddard has written; Susan Hill’s Inspector Serraillier novels; Morag Joss (Half Broken Things is brilliant).

Tana French has now been discovered. I’m forgetting someone but that’s a good start!”

Happy reading!

Trent Gilliss, senior editor

trentgilliss: Love how this “passive” home designed by...

Thu, 02 May 2013 08:34:54 -0500

trentgilliss:

Love how this “passive” home designed by architect Dennis Wedlick draws upon tiny churches and vernacular barns. Spirits will soar in this environs.

More photos of the Hudson Passive Project.

theantidote: 1956 Aston Martin DB 2/4 MkII ‘Supersonic’,...

Thu, 02 May 2013 08:05:09 -0500

theantidote:

1956 Aston Martin DB 2/4 MkII ‘Supersonic’, chassis AM300/1/1132

The car’s first registered owners were newlywed New Yorkers Gail Whitney Vanderbilt and her husband, the record-setting water skier Richard C. Cowell.

(via eec:)

A bit outside our usual editorial zone, but this ‘56 Aston Martin holds a whole lotta meaning. This car is religion to some of us.

~Trent Gilliss, senior editor

trentgilliss: “It immediately looked right.” It’s been 60...

Thu, 02 May 2013 06:49:56 -0500

trentgilliss:

“It immediately looked right.”

It’s been 60 years since the double helix structure of DNA, the key to life itself, was first revealed to the world. The BBC’s “Science in Action” walks the listener along the journey of this discovery with some of the scientific giants of the time. The delight is still there in those voices. So wonderful.

Also clears up some of the debate over the credit of Crick and Watson. Their approaches to modeling and sense of beauty moved the idea forward… through actual base pairing cut-outs!

(h/t Krista Tippett)

“Strength without a sense of direction leads to violence....

Wed, 01 May 2013 20:53:37 -0500

“Strength without a sense of direction leads to violence. Strength with a sense of direction is grace.” —Matthew Sanford

For an unusual take on the mind-body connection, listen to our interview with Matthew Sanford, who has been a paraplegic since the age of 13. He shares his wisdom for us all on knowing the strength and grace of our bodies even in the face of illness, aging, and death.

About the photo: A former patient of a Red Cross orthopedic center in Kabul, Afghanistan constructs a prosthetic leg as part of an effort to assist those affected by mobility disabilities, including hundreds of mine victims.

Photo by Kanishka Afshari/FCO/DFID

Very cool experiment by KQED Science and SoundCloud about...

Wed, 01 May 2013 10:18:29 -0500

Very cool experiment by KQED Science and SoundCloud about elephant seal mating.

theatlantic: Saturn’s Hurricane Is a Super Storm on Steroids,...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:36:49 -0500

theatlantic:

Saturn’s Hurricane Is a Super Storm on Steroids, Even for the Solar System

[Image: NASA]

Too choice not to reblog.

The Museum of Flight by Kazim Ali

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:30:23 -0500

The Museum of Flight by Kazim Ali:

What a great poem from therumpus:

Kazim Ali

All boys want to fall
Sent like sun-thunder westward

Sense-sure and censured they twist
out of the wings fastened to their backs

itching always for more blue
suspended endlessly in space at the moment of fall

Here in the sky ward
you can count them:

Lightning-struck or hurled from heaven
Panicked or resigned,

But all heading in the blue direction,
their fathers always at a loss for words.

Here is the disobedient one who willfully jumped

And here the wild one who raced for the sun

Here is the stupid one who lost control of the horses

And here the frightened one who stowed away
on the silver boat bound for the storm.

They all raced away from rules like sea-drunk criminals
hopelessly confused about the laws of men and gods

caught by gravity, unspooling like bolts of silk across the sky
chattering on and on about infinity and eternity

the whole way down.

“It’s better to find the way out than to stand and...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:36:00 -0500

“It’s better to find the way out than to stand and scream at the forest.”

~Wolof proverb, as found in Aimee Malloy’s excellent book, However Long the Night: Molly Melching’s Journey to Help Millions of African Women and Girls Triumph. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy.

Photo by Lucinda Lovering / Flickr (cc by-nc 2.0)

~Trent Gilliss, senior editor

“What we’re doing is praying with our feet, with...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 05:13:52 -0500

“What we’re doing is praying with our feet, with our bodies.”

Aztec dance instructor Centzi Millia wears chachayotl, the thick anklets of Aztec danzantes made of rattling seed pods during a class. She’s part of a new movement of Catholic Latinos in the U.S. who are turning to the spiritual practices of their indigenous ancestors, such as the Aztecs and other ancient traditions, and finding “a mestizo way of life.”

Read more of Shweta Saraswat’s article, “Aztlan, Anew,” which gives you a glimpse of what’s going on in your neighboring communities that you might not even be aware of.

simbarashe: Ladine, New York. #hair #fashion #instagood #love...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 22:05:43 -0500

simbarashe:

Ladine, New York. #hair #fashion #instagood #love #photooftheday #beautiful #follow #girl #instadaily #black #dreads

Now this is fierce.

~Trent Gilliss, senior editor

trentgilliss: I adore these closing stanzas from this poem by...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 19:50:00 -0500

trentgilliss:

I adore these closing stanzas from this poem by Marie Howe:

For months I dreamt of knucklebones and roots, 
the slabs of sidewalk pushed up like crooked teeth by what grew underneath.

The underneath —that was the first devil.
It was always with me. 
And that I didn’t think you — if I told you — would understand any of this —

She is one of those all-too-rare poets who can read her work with a fluidity and a clarity that doesn’t sound forced. It was such an honor to edit and produce this interview with her for On Being.

A Nigerian Easter in the Midwest

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 09:46:55 -0500

From the front door she calls, “He has risen!” Her children respond, “He has risen indeed. Let’s eat!”

I dodged church Easter Sunday this year. My mother Gbeme, however, worshipped at the Baptist church she’s been attending twice weekly for the past 20 years.

Raised Catholic in Nigeria, my mother’s Easter begins the seasonal swap from heavy wools to floral prints and pastels. She wears a beautifully vibrant gele — an intricately fashioned tie around the head worn by Yoruba women — and iro and buba — the matching outfit traditionally worn by Yoruba women — to church. She exchanges compliments with the other congregants about their upbeat clothes and steady health. For two hours the pews fill, the choir sings, and for the larger Easter crowd, the young new pastor delivers an especially rousing sermon. Soon thereafter, church dismisses. Time to eat.

For many Americans, Easter is synonymous with the egg. But in my bicultural household, creamy frejon is the signature Easter week delicacy. The bean soup is made of smoothly blended brown beans called ewa ibeji and steeped coconut, then sweetened with cane sugar to taste.

In the mid-1980s, my mother left metropolitan Lagos to attend college in rural Wisconsin — and made necessary modifications to the original frejon recipe. Back then international foods weren’t as integrated. In lieu of traditional Nigerian dishes, my mother observed her first few Easters amid sweet friends, sweet rolls, egg salad, and hearty Midwestern casseroles. After she graduated, she moved from Wisconsin to Minnesota, reuniting her with city dwelling, a dense Nigerian immigrant community, specialty grocers, and Easter frejon.