A dear friend, in a recent conversation, told me that a mixup at her job was all her fault. It wasn’t (just FYI), but she’s been trained — as both a female and a good person — to accept responsibility for when things go wrong that she’s involved in. Here’s the problem with that:…

This is total Buddhism, folks. Despite the hijab covering her head, and her Palestinian djellabah, this Muslim woman is practicing the most Buddhist of actions: living in the moment, making it into peace and beauty. She has taken tear gas canisters, thrown over several years in clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians, and converted them…

I write frequently about being kind to our own flawed and fallible selves. Because I see so many people talking to and about themselves in ways they wouldn’t address horrible strangers. I hear dear friends talk about themselves as failures, citing their inability to walk serenely through their overwhelming lives. Colleagues badmouth their work; acquaintances…

The goldfinches have (finally!) arrived. They’re going through about a feeder of thistle seed every couple of days. My sister, looking out the breakfast room window onto the 1-2-3-4-5-6+ feeding and water stations, wondered aloud what this costs us monthly. It’s not negligible. 🙂 But it’s soooo worth it. Afternoons like this, when there’s still…

Britton Gildersleeve
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Britton Gildersleeve

Britton Gildersleeve is a 'third culture kid.' Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks ‘without,’ as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She’s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. She is (still) working on her beginner's heart ~

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