Eleven Rings

from Tozan Ryokai, a ninth-century Buddhist monk: Do not try to see the objective world. You which is given an object to see is quite different from you yourself. I am going my own way and I meet myself which includes everything I meet. I am not something I can see (as an object). When you understand self which includes everything, You have your tr

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are. JOSEPH CAMPBELL

The paradox, he writes in his seminal work, On Becoming a Person, “is that the more I am simply willing to be myself, in all this complexity of life and the more I am willing to understand and accept the realities in myself and in the other person, the more change seems to be stirred up.”

Leadership is not about forcing your will on others. It’s about mastering the art of letting go.

I believe that focusing on something other than the business at hand can be the most effective way to solve complex problems. When the mind is allowed to relax, inspiration often follows.

Basketball isn’t a one-person game, even though the media lords sometimes portray it that way. Nor is it a five-person game, for that matter. It’s an intricate dance that includes everything happening at any given moment—the

“To hear the unheard,” he said, “is a necessary discipline to be a good ruler. For only when a ruler has learned to listen closely to the people’s hearts, hearing their feelings uncommunicated, pains unexpressed, and complaints not spoken of, can he hope to inspire confidence in the people, understand when something is wrong, and meet the true need

I’ve taken a different tack. After years of experimenting, I discovered that the more I tried to exert power directly, the less powerful I became. I learned to dial back my ego and distribute power as widely as possible without surrendering final authority. Paradoxically, this approach strengthened my effectiveness because it freed me to focus on m

Sitting with your anger doesn’t mean being passive. It means becoming more conscious and intimate with your inner experience so that you can act more mindfully and compassionately than is possible in the heat of the moment.