The Compassion Revolution

  A plea for lives built on ethics I don’t seek for happiness.  I don’t bother about whether I am happy or not.  I do what I feel as true and good and I don’t care about whether it brings happiness or unhappiness.  Only the mediocre mind seeks for happiness.  A truly cultured mind seeks for higher values like truth, beauty and goodness and it will seek it even if it leads to much pain and suffering.    Albert Einstein Personal happiness seems the ultimate goal for many in modern society. However, this is a very individualistic value. In a world filled with injustice, we too easily ignore our conscience, which may well be the reason so many of us are unhappy. Let's try to refocus our lives on living ethically and virtuously, and we may find this may end up giving us a much more profound kind of happiness. True happiness is not an individual, but a collective and a moral matter. The cult of the individual It seems like our Western society today is o...

 Little interview i did with a vegan brand about Sadhana Forest.

For plastic free July, I was interviewed by WWoW , an Indian upcycling project about the work of Sadhana Forest and its zero waste practices. How to live sustainably in harmony with the forest? The Zero Waste hut at Sadhana Forest You can find our conversation here .

I created a YouTube channel which will feature some of the talks I gave. So far it has recordings of my lectures on food security and an in-depth interview about the core values of Sadhana Forest. For my folk songs and protest songs, see the Soulful Sadhak channel .

Artist Elda Gallo interviewed me about the meaning of Sadhana and the values that Sadhana Forest stands for. You can find the recording here .

  I have been meditating regularly for about ten years now. I have attended and facilitated meditation groups and retreats, in various places in Europe, North America, and Asia, in different (mostly Buddhist-inspired) traditions. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to do so and have experienced great benefits from this practice. However, one thing has kept bothering me all those years. The Buddha claims – and I deeply believe – that his teaching can liberate all beings, yet when I join meditation groups, I often see myself surrounded by rather socially privileged people (just like myself 1 ). W hy does (Buddhist-inspired) meditation in the West seem to attract mainly an academically educated, 2 (upper) middle class audience? Is meditation not relevant for other social groups, or is there something else at play here? (I will focus on class privilege in this article. Gender and white privilege fall beyond its scope. I believe others  to be far better qualified th...

Can we create a space where learning flows from rich community connections? The Unlearning Centre [1]  would be an open learning and meeting space for young and old, centered around community and personal development, generosity, and sharing in a wide variety of forms. We want to offer an integrated learning experience. It is our goal to be a living experiment in community building. We want to encourage reflection on the ways in which society can nourish everyone’s well-being to the utmost possible, and at the same time offer concrete examples for doing so. We want to bring people closer together, to help them grow and contribute to the advancement of our society. The centre   is based on four ‘core values’: open learning, gift economy, inclusion and sustainability.   (Nederlands onderaan) Open learning Learning is a rich, diverse and never ending process. Learning and knowledge are sometimes associated with schools, universities and other educational institutions, and wi...