The Himalayan region

Support the petition addressed by the Global Ocean Commission to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon: Help secure a living ocean, food and prosperity - propose a new agreement for high seas protection in September 2014 Providing us with food, fresh water, energy, medicine, the oxygen in every second breath we take, and even our ho...

Stupa containing the relics of the great spiritual teacher Jamyang Khyentsé Chökyi Lodrö (1893-1959), at the scred site of Tashiding in Sikkim Yangthang Rinpoche, an 85 year-old Sikkimi lama who lived in Tibet for a long time; in Yuksam, Sikkim, March 2014. Prayer flags around Kathog lake, Yuksam, Sikkim

Forest near Darjeeling, India The Kanchenjungna mountain range in the Sikkim reagion rises over 2,600 feet (seen from the village of Pelling, March 2014) Tyrant Flycatcher on a tree in bloom, Sikkim

A humble person has nothing to lose or to gain. If he is praised, he thinks it's for what he has been able to accomplish, not for himself as an individual. If he is criticized, he thinks that bringing his faults out into the open is the best service anyone could do him. ‟Few are sufficiently wise to prefer censure, which is useful, to praise...

Humility is sometimes scorned, regarded as a weakness. The writer Ayn Rand proclaims, ‟Discard the protective rags of that vice which you called a virtue: humility.”* Pride, however, the narcissistic exaggeration of the self, closes the door to all personal progress, since in order to learn, you must first think that you don't know. Humility ...

According to the American sociologist Sherry Turkle, so-called ‟social” media in fact constitute for the individual a way to be alone while still being connected to many people.* A sixteen-year-old boy, an inveterate texter, remarked with some regret: ‟Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I'd like to learn how to have a conversation.” Youn...