Imagine that you are at a dinner party with friends, and the meat dish is so delicious that you ask your host for the recipe. Your host replies: “Oh that was our dog. You remember Toby? Well, here he is.” Suddenly the meat sticks in your throat and you feel disgusted and deeply troubled. This situation occurs in South Korea, China, Vietna...

Happiness is not the endless pursuit of pleasant experiences — that sounds more like a recipe for exhaustion — but a way of being that results from cultivating a benevolent mind, emotional balance, inner freedom, inner peace, and wisdom. Each of these qualities is a skill that can be enhanced through training the mind. We deal with our mi...

What is meditation ? Meditation is a practice that makes it possible to cultivate and develop certain basic positive human qualities in the same way as other forms of training make it possible to play a musical instrument or acquire any other skill. Among several Asian words that translate as “meditation” in English are bhavana from San...

Impact of Anthropocene Era For many of us, the notion of “simplicity” evokes a privation, a narrowing of our possibilities and an impoverishment of existence. Experience shows, however, that a voluntary simplicity in no way entails a diminution of happiness, but on the contrary brings with it a better quality of life. Is it more enjoyable...

Repelling of Obamacare, quitting Paris climate agreement. How sad! The president of the United States shows no compassion for the people of our times, but depriving them of healthcare, and no compassion for future generations by depriving them of a good planet. But let’s not lose courage. Let’s remember Marthin Luther King : “Every man must ...

Our era is confronted with many challenges. One of our main problems consists of reconciling the demands of the economy, the search for happiness, and respect for the environment. These imperatives correspond to three time scales — short, middle, and long term — on which three types of interests are superimposed: ours, the interests of thos...

Take an honest look at yourself. Where are you in your life? What have your priorities been up till now and what do you intend to do with the time you have left? We are a mixture of light and shadow, of good qualities and defects. Are we really the best we can be? Must we remain as we are now? If not, what can we do to improve ourselves? The...

1) How do you feel that compassion can change the world we live in today? Do we need compassion now more than ever? One of the main problems in this current era is how to reconcile the demands of the economy, the search for happiness, and respecting the environment. These imperatives correspond to three time scales: the short, middle, a...

The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed. — Gandhi The economy must exist to serve society, not for society to serve the economy. It must also benefit society as a whole. Without condoning the imposition of sterilizing constraints on the spirit of enterprise, innovation, and prosperity, economic...

Part 2 : Becoming Aware of the Suffering behind Eating Meat Matthieu: It seems also that slaughterhouses are guarded as if they were top-secret military facilities. You can’t see anything. But if it were shown even a little bit to people, they would find it intolerable. Jane: There is a wonderful woman in America. She got a job in an abatt...