All posts filed under: Gratitude

Gratitude for Suffering

Published by

Three weeks ago, I was preparing to lead a church workshop on the power of mental framing in determining how we respond to suffering.  Borrowing a Buddhist concept, I framed it as becoming aware of the inextricable links between dukkha (suffering) and sukkah (joy).  I didn’t know how I would illustrate this reconciliation of spirit, then a forty-foot tree fell towards our house from thirty feet away. Over thirty years ago Loretta and I bought this house surrounded by tall trees.  For three decades they have grown taller.  About thirty feet from our house is a marshy area that had become super saturated in the early spring thaw.  Then a particularly heavy and wet snow was more than that old tree could bear.  It was torn out by its roots and toppled directly towards the bed in which I was sleeping. The suffering is a big tree fell on our house and startled me awake.  The joy is it crashed off our roof and fell just outside my bedroom.  The suffering is that it smashed …

Cambodian Santa

Published by

Cambodia is an extraordinary place, especially at Christmas.  Despite the Kmer Rouge genocide of nearly a third of the Cambodian population in the late 1970’s, they are a gentle happy people.  Despite being a deeply religious Theravada Buddhist country, they welcome any reason to celebrate life.  Despite having no evergreen trees, snow, or Christian traditions, they celebrate Christmas in joyous fashion, so much so that many middle class Chinese tourists travel to Seam Reap, Cambodia to celebrate Christmas.  The big tourist hotels are decked out in Christmas lights, Santa and his reindeer, fake trees, and displays which makes it look like it is snowing in a country which never experiences snow. My last night of spiritual pilgrimage I took my Cambodian guide Tek, and his nine and six-year-old daughters out to dinner at a restaurant of their choice.  The girls, Regina and Reginie, chose their favorite meal of French fries and pizza.  The girls attend Kmer public school from 7:30 am to 1:30 pm weekdays, and after going home for lunch, attend an English language …

Beginning Well

Published by

It has been among the top 5% best selling books on amazon, has already garnered eight five star reviews, and my distributor has shipped over 200 copies of my book this first month.  I am very grateful for all of you who believed in me and encouraged me on this path.  getting this message of human flourishing out to a wider audience feels like my newest ministry. If you have not yet read my book, please buy it and read it, I want to know what you think of it.  If you have read it, and liked it, please post a review on amazon.  Amazon says if I can get fifty positive reviews of my book then they will offer it to others seeking spiritual books as well. Thank you all!      

Discipline Three: Gratitude

Published by

My spiritual memoir Spiritual Audacity is built around six spiritual disciplines of which the third is gratitude.  Is this an important discipline in your spiritual life?  Robert Emmons, PhD, in his book Thanks! says it is key to our health and well being: Grateful people experience higher levels of positive emotions such as joy, enthusiasm, love, happiness, and optimism. The practice of gratitude as a discipline protects a person from the destructive impulses of envy, resentment, greed, and bitterness. So what role does gratitude play in your happiness with life?  I love the metaphor of how we see the world in The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche “Imagine spending your life in a little room with only one locked window so dirty it barely admits any light. You’d probably think the world was a pretty dim and dreary place, full of strangely shaped creatures that cast terrifying shadows against the dirty glass as they passed your room. But suppose one day you spill some water on the window. . . . A little of the dirt that had …

October 1987 Crash

Published by

I had hungered to be wealthy even when I didn’t become a millionaire before the age of thirty. So after leveraging our debt to buy Genzyme founder’s stock from Sam, then taking Genzyme public in 1986, I borrowed as much as I could on margin to buy yet more Genzyme stock. I believed by taking on margin debt, and raising the value of our Genzyme holdings, though heavily leveraged, we could better reap the fruit of all my hard work. Loretta asked me how low the stock could go before we lost it all. Genzyme had gone public at $10 per share and traded as high as $16 per share. I told her Genzyme had never traded below $7 as a public company and we could meet any margin calls as long as the stock was above $5.25 per share, which was less than half its current level, and 25% below its lowest price ever. On the other hand if Genzyme went to $30 per share as predicted by analysts we would become wealthy. Then …

Prideful Fall

Published by

My 1993 Budget presentation to TSI’s Board ended with three definitions of success. The first Ralph Waldo Emerson’s definition: “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” The second I called Bain’s definition: “A superior financial return for shareholders over an extended time period. Finding high growth sectors to maximize business opportunities; with a focus on relative market share, value creation, and high reward for high performance.” Finally one I called the Genzyme measure of success: “Building an important corporation faster and better than the competition; with great expectations, satisfying but not focusing on shareholders, stretching forecasts as far as you reasonably can, and then working like …