Artificial Intimacy and the Future of Human Connection
A chatbot told someone it loved them, and that person felt genuinely comforted. That moment is not a curiosity or a glitch. It is a signal that something structurally new is...

Tonglin practice is rooted in the breath. If you can breathe in and out, you can practice tonglin. The essence of the practice is to breathe in the suffering of another person and to breathe out loving-kindness, compassion, and healing. As we breathe that healing out, we are making the greatest gift we...

On 6th November 2018 the North Node shifted from the fire of Leo into the waters of Cancer where it remains for eighteen months. Since its entry into Leo in May 2017 it has helped us find our own place, chart our own path and claim our right to exist in this complex and beautiful world. Supporting those seeking a voice to make their mark and demand respect...
I was asked 'Do you believe in miracles?' I was taken aback. Did I believe in people being spontaneously cured of cancer, virgin births, raising of the dead, parting of seas, burning bushes, and so on? Did I believe in serendipity, synchronicity, and moments of seeming happenstance that wind up being instrumental to our path?

For decades, personality psychologists have noticed a striking, consistent pattern: extroverts are happier more of the time than introverts. For anyone interested in promoting wellbeing, this has raised the question of whether it might be beneficial to encourage people to act more extroverted. Evidence to date has suggested it might.

We often hear about the benefits of reading storybooks at bedtime for promoting vocabulary, early literacy skills, and a good relationship with your child. But the experts haven’t been in your home, and your child requests the same book every single night, sometimes multiple times a night. You both know all the words by heart.

Throughout the next two months we’ll have plenty of opportunity to consider the stories we project upon the world to make sense of it: how we insert our personal narrative into the impersonal conditions we encounter in our lives. Using this time to observe how that narrative impacts our experience will be time well spent.

The desire for happiness is the universal wish of humankind. On this, everyone would agree. Yet everyone suffers and dies. The basic fact and the basic tragedy of life is that every human being longs for peace and happiness, yet everyone is haunted by the specter of suffering, unhappiness, and death.

There is a certain rhythm to the swing of sibling relations. We resent our brothers and sisters in childhood. We support them in adulthood. We sue them after the reading of the will. The choreographer of this dance, as in so many others, is competition.
When it comes to people, there are only about a dozen life stories in the whole world, and each archetype has its own obvious characteristics.

Do you believe that the universe operates at random, or is there a higher intelligence that orchestrates encounters, events, and a stream of destiny? After observing many uncanny synchronicities, I have a firm belief that, despite appearances of haphazardness, a brilliant and loving hand guides us to our right place at the right time for the right purpose.

One morning, all of us in the group revisited our childhoods to more closely examine those things that still have power over us. We did this in small groups of four persons and, when it was my turn, I revisited some physical violence from my parents. Ever eager to delve deeper, I discovered something I had never seen before.

The path with heart has no set of predictable moves to ensure success. It is not a set of routines or a prescription of step-by-step actions; it is a philosophy, a way of seeing and being in the world that leads you to your life task, the contribution that spirit asks you to make.

The Pittsburgh neighborhood in which the recent horrific mass shooting took place isn’t only the home of the Tree of Life synagogue. Squirrel Hill was also Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood, the place where he lived and ultimately chose to die in his own home.

If there is a reward for longevity, it is paid out in the form of wisdom, a quality of consciousness that has little to do with intelligence/I.Q. or book learning. Being a by-product of experience, wisdom more often is possessed by men and women who have survived fifty or more winters.

Contemplate how a person’s life would be changed by starting to hear or see things others can’t. Now imagine it could offer something good. Clinical psychologist Lily Dixon and her team detail the experiences of seven people who have lived with verbal or auditory hallucinations; amid the struggles, the researchers report, their journeys have also taken them to some positive places.

Our experience of death obviously shapes the final moments of our own life. It also shapes the experience and remains in the memories of those around us. As an intensive care specialist for more than two decades, my colleagues and I do the best we can to provide high-quality end-of-life care.

A healthy relationship stimulates both partners' individual growth. A functional relationship is not a fairy-tale type 'they lived happily ever after' scenario; it is subject to the same stresses and challenges inherent in any human partnership.

The heart of Eastern wisdom teaches you to be naturally in the world without rejecting it. Many spiritual paths condemn and judge the world, as if they were enabling one to move beyond desires. But many fail to realize that they are desiring not to desire (a point that the Buddha understood).

Heaven and hell both exist on this planet today. This day. There is not some day in the future where our free agency to make any choices that we want will be locked down. Where there will be a judgment made, and some eternal status assigned to us. We will not be “assigned” a heaven or hell experience. It is us, the human beings, who decide the fate of humanity.

Grief brought on by the loss of a spouse can cause inflammation that can lead to major depression, heart attack, and even premature death. For a new study, researchers examined the effect grief has on human health by conducting interviews with 99 people whose spouses had recently died. They also examined their blood.

A woman Zen master named Sono taught one very simple method of enlightenment. She advised everyone who came to her to adopt an affirmation to be said many times a day, under all conditions. The affirmation was, 'Thank you for everything. I have no complaint whatsoever.'